Run/Pass Balance and a Little Game Theory

Football is the most strategic of all sports. A big part of this is the unique feature that each game is 100-150 or so unique trials—the plays. This gives rise to the art and science of play-calling, “balance,” formations, sets, set-ups, counters, and whatever else that keeps us up at night thinking about this stuff. Stepping back for a second though, I wanted to simply look at the concept of balance and how we should best achieve it. Before that, however, I wanted to emphasize what I think are the most important offensive statistics.Yards Per...

Run/Pass Balance and a Little Game Theory

Football is the most strategic of all sports. A big part of this is the unique feature that each game is 100-150 or so unique trials—the plays. This gives rise to the art and science of play-calling, “balance,” formations, sets, set-ups, counters, and whatever else that keeps us up at night thinking about this stuff. Stepping back for a second though, I wanted to simply look at the concept of balance and how we should best achieve it. Before that, however, I wanted to emphasize what I think are the most important offensive statistics.Yards Per...

Run/Pass Balance - Response to Comments II

As I said in my last post, some excellent comments and I want to thank all contributors. Most of the critiques dealt with either how my analysis was too general and failed to account for down and distance, leads, and the many other football variables and second an interesting discussion regarding the "passing premium" and how to get an idea of how much riskier a pass really is than a run.Situational FootballMany commentators pointed out that the...

Run/Pass Balance - Response to Comments II

As I said in my last post, some excellent comments and I want to thank all contributors. Most of the critiques dealt with either how my analysis was too general and failed to account for down and distance, leads, and the many other football variables and second an interesting discussion regarding the "passing premium" and how to get an idea of how much riskier a pass really is than a run.Situational FootballMany commentators pointed out that the...

Run/Pass Balance - Response to Comments I

Lots of very good comments, insightful and thought-provoking. Thanks to all who responded to the blog, by email, or otherwise.Before directly responding, I'll digress for just a moment. The interesting thing to me about football is its complexity. Baseball can essentially be modeled as a two-man game between pitcher and hitter and each's job never really changes throughout the game, it's simpler to identify the key baseball statistics that increase winning--on-base percentage, walks, and others that increase runs scored and decrease runs given...

Run/Pass Balance - Response to Comments I

Lots of very good comments, insightful and thought-provoking. Thanks to all who responded to the blog, by email, or otherwise.Before directly responding, I'll digress for just a moment. The interesting thing to me about football is its complexity. Baseball can essentially be modeled as a two-man game between pitcher and hitter and each's job never really changes throughout the game, it's simpler to identify the key baseball statistics that increase winning--on-base percentage, walks, and others that increase runs scored and decrease runs given...