Football Outsiders

Football Outsiders (FO) is a website started in 2003 which focuses on advanced statistical analysis of the NFL. The site is run by a staff of regular writers, who produce a series of weekly columns using both the site's in-house statistics and their personal analyses of NFL games.

In 2005 and 2006, the site partnered with FOXSports.com to cross-publish many of the Outsiders' regular features, including power rankings based on a "weighted" version of the DVOA statistic. In 2007, Football Outsiders content appeared on FOXSports.com (in a reduced capacity) along with AOL Sports and ESPN.com. In 2008, the site will partner exclusively with ESPN.

History

Football Outsiders was launched in August 2003 by Aaron Schatz, with two regular columns, one of which was using an early version of the proprietary DVOA statistic. The original purpose of the site was to disprove a statement by Boston Globe reporter Ron Borges that the 2002 New England Patriots failed to make the postseason because they could not establish the run. Over the course of time, the site added more writers, even playing host to the popular Gregg Easterbrook for part of 2003.

Between 2004 and 2005, the site became much more visited, and continued to expand, introducing new statistics such as Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement (DPAR) and Adjusted Line Yards. In 2005, the site began to cross-publish many of its columns on FOXsports.com. In 2005, Football Outsiders also published the first edition of "Pro Football Prospectus", a book giving a preview of the upcoming NFL season using their statistics.

As of June 2008, the site has incorporated the entire 1995-2007 NFL seasons into their statistics.

The Football Outsiders statistics

DVOA

DVOA is the acronym for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. The original Football Outsiders statistic, it was created by Aaron Schatz, and has since seen several updates. The statistic measures the success of a given play, then compares it to the league-average level of success for that play given the situation at the time (score, time remaining, down and distance to go, location on the field, caliber of opponent, and so on). The system is applied to every play of the season, to provide DVOA rankings both for individual players and teams as a whole.

In all cases, a DVOA rating of 0% is equivalent to league-average performance. Positive DVOA numbers represent above-average performance by the offense and below-average performance by the defense, while negative numbers represent the opposite.

DPAR/DYAR

DPAR (Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement) and DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement) are statistics that measure a player's total contribution over the course of all plays in a game or season. The increment of DPAR is the number of additional points a player adds for his team. For example, if a player worth 3.0 DPAR in a given game had not played that week, and had been replaced in the lineup by a typical back-up player, his team would (ostensibly) have scored 3 fewer points. This increment is cumulative -- where DVOA for each play is averaged together, DPAR is compiled over time. In addition, a player is not compared to the league average, but to the expected performance of a replacement-level player, defined as being about 13.3% less valuable than the expected contribution of a league-average player (i.e. -13.3% DVOA).

Prior to the 2008 NFL Season, FO decided to change from DPAR to DYAR, measuring value in yards rather than points. This is essentially a change in semantics, however, as the two stats essentially measure the same thing; Schatz stated that the change came about simply as an effort to make FO's stats more accessible to the average fan.

When used to judge the contributions of individual players, DVOA and DYAR are as yet unable to separate completely a player's value independent of his 10 teammates on the field with him. From FO's website: "That means that when we say, 'Larry Johnson has a DVOA of 27.6%,' what we are really saying is 'Larry Johnson, playing in the Kansas City offensive system with the Kansas City offensive line blocking for him and Trent Green selling the fake when necessary, has a DVOA of 27.6%.'" While this is a significant limitation, it should be noted that it is a limitation shared by virtually all individual football statistics.

KUBIAK

KUBIAK is a proprietary fantasy football projection algorithm created for the 2005 season and introduced in "Pro Football Prospectus 2005". The name is derived from the current head coach of the Houston Texans and former offensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos, Gary Kubiak. The name is an homage to PECOTA, the player forecasting system developed by Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus. Kubiak's name was chosen because he had been a relatively obscure backup quarterback for the Denver Broncos, similar to the role played by MLB player Bill Pecota.

The system provided some accurate predictions about the decline of several players including Ahman Green and Tony Gonzalez. Currently it is remembered mostly for projecting Detroit Lions running back Kevin Jones as the leading rusher for 2005, which induced many fantasy football players to draft him early in the first round only to see him have a below-average year for a running back. The system had a more successful year in 2006.

Adjusted Line Yards

Adjusted Line Yards (ALY) is a statistic that attempts to measure an offensive line's contribution to the running game, separating the blocking from the runner himself. Each of a team's running plays are included, with yards gained weighted by category -- losses, where a runner is tackled in the backfield, are weighted heavily against an offensive line, while long gains, where a runner is far beyond his initial blocks, are reduced and eventually eliminated. The plays are adjusted for game circumstances, and the result is normalized so that the league-average ALY is the same as the league-average yards per carry.

Regular Features

The site has a number of regular columns and articles, as well as guest contributions.

Audibles at the Line, published on Mondays, consists of the email messages exchanged by the site's writers during the previous day's games. The messages usually include commentary on the games themselves as they occur and instant analysis informed by Football Outsiders research.

Confessions of a Football Junkie is a regular column published by Russell Levine on Mondays during the football season. It provides non-statistical based analysis of a given weekend's football action, covering NCAA play.

Any Given Sunday analyzes the biggest upset of the weekend using Football Outsiders stats. It is written by Ned Macey and runs on Tuesdays.

DVOA Rankings and Analysis is Tuesday's in-season regular column. The column is written around the DVOA rankings, with these providing a basis. The rankings are combined with commentary and analysis, based around the various teams' DVOA.

Every Play Counts is published on Wednesdays by Michael David Smith. This column analyses a specific area of a single game, using film analysis to attempt to provide a detailed and impartial analysis. Common themes are individual matchups between players, the performance of a particular unit or group of players, or plays frequently run by a particular team.

Scramble for the Ball, is another non-statistical based piece, published on Thursdays. The column includes analysis of the past weeks' games, opinions about future matchups, and fantasy football tips and advice. Past writers include Al Bogdan, Ian Dembsky, and Vivek Ramgopal. Bill Barnwell was the sole writer of the column in 2007. Scramble for the Ball features a weekly comic, topical to the NFL, often featuring Gil Thorp. It is drawn by Jason Beattie.

Seventh Day Adventure is the other regular Thursday column, which consisted of Russell Levine and Vinny Gauri's discussion of the next weekend's NCAA games through 2006. In 2007, the column became a podcast featuring Levinet with a different guest each week.

The Week in Quotes collects the best of that week's chatter in a format similar to that of the Baseball Prospectus edition.

Extra Points provides links to various football news reports and featuring discussion threads that allow fans to discuss the latest developments in football. A specific subsection of Extra Points links to posts by the Football Outsiders that are hosted by other websites as part of business partnerships.

Raiderjoe is a regular poster who is believed by many to be Al Davis. Raiderjoe provides regular commentary on the pending resurgence of the once proud Oakland Raiders franchise and is known for his streamlined syntax and the introduction of new vocabulary to the Football Outsiders lexicon. His subjective analysis fills the gaps in Football Outsider's advanced statistical approach to breaking down player and team success. Raiderjoe's arch-nemeses include Charger Jeff, Bronco Billy, and sobriety. It has been speculated that Football Outsiders would award Raiderjoe his own weekly column to be entitled "Raiderjoe Rmunaitions" but this has been denied by Raiderjoe himself, who cited his aversion towards getting up early to meet the posting deadlines.

During a May 26, 2007 discussion on stadium soda sales, of which Football Outsiders' statistical data is glaringly lacking, Raiderjoe candidly noted, "Seahawks should worry more about on-field product than what soda to sell. Raiders all about winning. Don’t care what fans drink."

On August 25, 2008, Raiderjoe responded to someone's assertion that Matt Leinart was better than Kurt Warner because he hobnobs with many women while Warner spends quiet evenings at home with his wife and children. "If he was better he would havre found way to have sex with girl but not get pregantn."

Pro Football Prospectus

Beginning in 2005, Football Outsiders has published the "Pro Football Prospectus" book each year before the football season begins. It includes an essay for each team analyzing the previous season, evaluating off-season moves, and projecting future performance. The projections echo FO's statistical roots — they come not as a single predicted record, but as a list of percentages for how likely the team is to win given numbers of games. The projection is generated from many thousand simulations of the coming season. Each chapter also analyzes the team by unit, including breakdowns of the team's strategic tendencies and individual defensive statistics garnered from the site's extensive game-charting project. The book also includes many secondary essays on specific areas of interest as well as KUBIAK fantasy projections for most players at the offensive skill positions.

PFP has earned Football Outsiders additional mention from the mainstream football press, including mentions by Bill Simmons in a podcast and an appearance on ESPN First Take.

External links

* [http://www.footballoutsiders.com Football Outsiders Website]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKhpWFw4scM Aaron Schatz on ESPN]