05-01-2023, 12:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-04-2023, 09:25 AM by H0PPY75. Edited 1 time in total.)
Hi everyone! I'm happy to be here to bring back the EPA charts for S41! We're about half-way through the season so it feels like a good time. If you don't know what I'm talking about I encourage you to have a look at some of the links I've posted above. I'm currently in the process of learning how to code so I can more efficiently look up specific bits of data and produce my charts faster, but it's very difficult. However I am making progress on it so hopefully I'll be able to present that work by the end of the season. Anyways, let's get into it!
Season 41
(As with other charts to come, the x-axis and y-axis are not to scale.)
***Please remember that a positive EPA/play is good for an offense, and bad for a defense. Conversely, a negative EPA/play is good for a defense, and bad for an offense. Additionally, a punt counts as an offensive play, so a good punting unit should have a positive EPA/play, whereas a punt return counts a defensive play, so a good return game should give a negative EPA/play.***
This makes me feel a certain way about my sample size. For two seasons in a row the vast majority of teams have had "below average" offenses, and this makes me think that league offenses have decreased somewhat since S27 or so, such that we're in a relatively low-scoring era. When I was first putting together all of this EPA stuff I was very concerned with maximizing my sample size to minimize noise, but I've implemented some other methods to decrease noise since then and I think it may be time to start considering a switch to taking the average of the last 3-5 years or so like a normal sports analyst. For now just consider -0.5 EPA/play to be the baseline both for offenses and defenses, and I'll smooth that out in the near future.
So far in the season there are a few easily identifiable clusters in terms of team quality. There's a massive cluster in the middle of the chart with offenses at around -0.5 EPA/play offensively and varying defenses. Among this cluster Austin has the best defense whereas Baltimore has the worst, but otherwise they're all mostly a toss-up. A bit to the left we have a cluster of three teams, Colorado, Arizona and Berlin, who are all decidedly worse offensively. Among these, Colorado is the worst by EPA/Play :smadge: and would be the worst team in the league were it not for Another Team To Be Discussed Shortly. The Crash and the Hahalua are both enjoying fantastic seasons and are the positive outliers this season, with Honolulu performing well overall and Cape Town enjoying a league-leading defense.
NOLA is tanking. We all know that. Just take a look at the Transactions subforum and it's very clear. That being said I almost can't fathom the depths their offense has fallen to; I'm almost certain they're due for some positive regression or something. Regardless they're the worst team in the league and will almost certainly remain as such. <-0.3 offensive EPA/Play is absurd.
Despite performing pretty poorly overall, the Outlaws have what is probably the best running game in the league. Honolulu has a very good rushing offense but an absolutely tragic rushing defense. Teams may consider running the ball more against them in the future. Sarasota is an outlier here, with both a dismal rushing offense and a bad rushing defense, so I suppose they're getting most of their value from their passing game instead.
What I find interesting is that there seems to be a decent correlation between teams with a good passing offense and a good passing defense. The only reason I can think this might be the case (other than pure happenstance, which is what is most likely) is that teams with good offenses will have a lead in more games so will be able to focus against the pass in more situations, thus improving their passing defense. The sim is a fucking mess though so I kinda doubt it. Anyways, CTC and HON are showing why they're such great teams right now, and SAR is making up for their rancid running game with a very good passing game. NOLA is fucking miserable, but maybe more miserable is COL, who aren't even tanking intentionally.
This is my obligatory reminder that Punting EPA is super weird and should not be heavily considered as meaningful. However, holy shit Baltimore is getting fucking brutalized by punt returns this season. Like fucking Christ dude. They should just stop punting because they'd probably be better off failing their 4th down conversion. On the other side of things, who is returning punts for Yellowknife this season? They're doing a very good job. Meanwhile, Swantavius King leads the league in TPE at the moment and is seriously punting like it. Good job to them as well.
Thanks so much for reading! I enjoy keeping up with these and I have some more plans for the eventual future. Once I get a better code up and running I'll be able to check individual EPA metrics for an entire position group at a time, so I could maybe do some media about that if there's any interest. Most excitingly, I am working on making an animated plot of the overall EPA/play chart so we can track each team's progress throughout a season. I don't know if I'll be able to figure that out entirely before the end of the season but it's something I'll hope to have done soon enough. Once again, thank you for reading, and I hope you have a lovely day.
~Jenni