03-07-2023, 01:58 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-07-2023, 02:03 AM by aeonsjenni. Edited 1 time in total.)
(03-06-2023, 07:38 PM)infinitempg Wrote: Expected Points
Expected Points, or EP, are a measure of the amount of points a team is "expected" to score based on the down, distance, and yards to endzone. This topic is covered quite well by @aeonsjenni in her article here, and I highly recommend you check out her work with EP and EPA (expected points added)!
That being said, my method of obtaining an EP model is a bit different than hers. While Jenni did a calculation of average drive result from each down, distance, and yards to goal - I used a generalized linear regression of this data - specifically from only S27, S31, and S35. This resulted in my graphs being a little bit smoother than hers.
The larger trends remain the same, although my data is significantly less dramatic in terms of swing and negative points. I can only assume the smoothness arises from the fact that I'm taking a linear regression and so am more protected from outliers. I don't have a good explanation for why my model doesn't show a strong propensity for negative points at the moment. Perhaps it is based on the way I treat turnovers?
Regardless, we can now use these EP numbers to contextualize entire games, and create a Win Probability model!
Okay my graph looks really awful here but in my defense this is definitely the most primitive version of it. This is only using 5 seasons of data and has a lot of weird quirks in the data. I made a new one that looks a lot better:
Beyond that I'm really happy to see this article. It also puts into perspective why the play-by-play data you gave me was formatted the way it was, since obviously you were looking for different information than I was. I find that pretty funny. For some reason I did not expect the home team to have a measurable advantage in the sim, but a +7.4% win probability is really quite significant!