Sports & Fantasy Sports Blog

Author: Billy Jones Inspiration: Paul Sabin (@SabinAnalytics/SumerSports) Introduction Hey football analytics fans, I'm excited to dive into another interesting topic with you! In this blog I am going to take a break from my ongoing "Deep Passing Study" series to do a player profile for Justin Fields. The Chicago Bears quarterback is entering his third year in the league, and there's been a lot of twitter buzz around him, especially in the fantasy football community, most of which seems to be subjective opinions rather than objective analysis. As a data guy, the subjective opinion only analysis approach frustrates me but t here was one article I read recently by Sumer Sports’ Paul Sabin  which looked at Fields potential entering his 3rd year through the use of analytics and a data centric approach that I found particularly insightful. This article was great but talked more about general principles that Fields is likely to fit into and less specific analysis on how Fie...

Author: Billy Jones Introduction  Welcome back to the third installment of my blog series where I perform an analytical review for running back fantasy performance from 2022. In this blog, we will be exploring the relationships between data points that commonsense logic would assume are closely linked, such as rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, receptions and receiving yards, and more. We will be using visualization tools to help us determine if these relationships actually exist and if there are any outliers or anomalies in the data. From there I will comment on what this might mean about their performance in 2023. I'm particularly excited about this blog, as we start to get a little deeper into the realm of data science-y things. This blog touches on topics of correlation and anomalies, and how they can be used when evaluating player performance. These are easy concepts and tools which help towards a comprehensive understanding of what happened in 2022 and what could be in 202...

Author: Bill Jones Introduction In our previous blogs, I analyzed the distribution of passes thrown in the NFL and explored the relationship between passing efficiency and location on the field. In this blog, I’ll take a closer look at the risk involved in different types of passes and locations on the field. A pass that is intercepted often quickly turns the tide of a game, and while throwing deep or to the middle of the field can be an effective way to gain yardage (as seen in last blog), if it also comes with a higher degree of risk it may be why NFL quarterbacks shy away from throwing to that part of the field. So, join me as I get into the risks associated with throwing the ball in different places on the field. Let’s get started! Statistic Explanation We will be looking at interceptions in this blog but that’s not the only statistic we will be using… I recently had the pleasure of meeting Ed Feng, founder of the website ThePowerRank, at a networking event during the Sloan...

Author: Bill Jones Introduction Welcome to the second part of my blog series where I perform an analytical review for running back fantasy performance from 2022. In this blog, we will be continuing our review of the running back position in the 2022 season through the lenses of a few classic statistical measures. In order to better understand the performance of running backs, we will be utilizing the simple statistics of average and standard deviation to further understand 2022 player production. By doing so, we will hope to uncover trends and patterns in the data and gain insights into the running back fantasy production. So, whether you're a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the world of fantasy football, this blog will provide valuable insights into the performance of running backs in the 2022 season, so let’s get started! Statistics 101 As we continue down our analytical review, we are going to use specific data science concepts as tools to help us gain insights. As ref...

Author: Billy Jones Introduction Welcome back to my blog series on the passing game in the NFL. In my last post, I used some visuals to understand the distribution of passes thrown in the NFL. In this post, I'll delve deeper into the question of, “is throwing the ball deep a good thing for the offense?” We've all seen the highlight reels of quarterbacks throwing bombs down the field for touchdowns, but how effective is this strategy in actual gameplay? Do long passes result in more yards, or are shorter, more consistent passes the more efficient route? To answer these questions, I’ll look at the data on passing efficiency by location on the field. I’ll analyze metrics such as completion percentages and yards per attempt for passes thrown deep, intermediate, and short distances. By doing so, I hope to find out if throwing the ball deep is a more efficient way to move the ball down the field. So, let's see what the numbers say about the effectiveness of throwing the dee...