Inside the 20
A look at Red Zone performance
Produced By: Craig Stevens
As an experiment I will be producing some predicted scores ala the drive charts and play-by-play overlay report, only using for this the RED ZONE equivalents.
I have been taught how to make the won-lost chart tables and I put them in for this week. The drive charts have done well at 14-9 for all the games and 12-7 for the games with four points of overlay. The PBP predictions are not doing too well at 11-13 for all games and 11-12 for the four points picks. It's been suggested that I might want to focus only on the drive chart red zone stats because the play-by-play predicted score formula is not suited for red zone computation. I'll keep it going with both for now but eventually I might drop the PBP stuff.
The theory behind this project is that red zone statistics may be more predictive than a team's overall performance. Others disagree with this theory. Here then are what I see as the pro and con for going only with red zone stats:
|
Pro
|
Con
|
- Measures crunch time performance
- Measures tight quarters execution
- reflects meaningful scoring opportunities, rather than gaining possibly meaningless yards at midfield
- rewards bend don't break defenses
- is based on the key basic plays of a game
|
- discounts teams with good long distance offense (St. Louis, Minnesota)
- uses smaller amount of data for calculations than overall stats do
- can reflect too much garbage time, with bad teams that only get into the red zone at the end of games when the opponent is in a prevent defense
|
Drive Chart RED ZONE Summary
Using the TMW Drive Chart Red Zone Stats we create a predicted score
for every game each week. We then compare our projection to the
actual line to calculate the overlay.
| Match-up |
Predicted Score |
TMW
Line |
Line
(home) |
Pick |
Overlay |
| Miami at Seattle |
SEA 30-17 |
-13 |
+2.5 |
Seattle |
15.5 |
| Oakland at Philadelphia |
PHI 28-15 |
-13 |
-1 |
Philadelphia |
12 |
| N.Y Giants at Washington |
NYG 26-9 |
+17 |
+7.5 |
N.Y Giants |
9.5 |
| Cincinnati at Detroit |
CIN 22-17 |
+5 |
-3 |
Cincinnati |
8 |
| Tennessee at Pittsburgh |
TEN 21-16 |
+5 |
-3 |
Tennessee |
8 |
| New Orleans at St. Louis |
STL 25-20 |
-5 |
-12 |
New Orleans |
7 |
| Jacksonville at Baltimore |
BAL 20-19 |
-1 |
-7.5 |
Jacksonville |
6.5 |
| N.Y. Jets at Carolina |
NYJ 26-17 |
+9 |
+2.5 |
N.Y. Jets |
6.5 |
| Indianapolis at Kansas City |
KC 22-19 |
-3 |
+3 |
Kansas City |
6 |
| Arizona at Dallas |
ARI 24-19 |
+5 |
+0 |
Arizona |
5 |
| New England at Denver |
DEN 23-20 |
-3 |
-7.5 |
New England |
4.5 |
| Buffalo at San Diego |
SD 24-19 |
-5 |
-8 |
Buffalo |
3 |
| Minnesota at Tampa Bay |
TB 22-21 |
-1 |
-3 |
Minnesota |
2 |
| San Francisco at Chicago |
CHI 22-19 |
-3 |
-2.5 |
Chicago |
.5 |
Week 5 on Results
| Overlay |
0 - 1.5 |
2 - 3.5 |
4 - 5.5 |
6 - 7.5 |
8+ Pts |
ALL |
| HomeFavs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 1 |
1 - 4 |
1 - 5 |
| HomeDogs |
1 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
5 - 2 |
9 - 2 |
| AwayFavs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 2 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 2 |
| AwayDogs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
2 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
2 - 0 |
4 - 0 |
|
| Favorites |
0 - 0 |
0 - 2 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 1 |
1 - 4 |
1 - 7 |
| Underdogs |
1 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
3 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
7 - 2 |
13 - 2 |
| Home Teams |
1 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
1 - 1 |
6 - 6 |
10 - 7 |
| Away Teams |
0 - 0 |
0 - 2 |
2 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
2 - 0 |
4 - 2 |
|
| ALL PICKS |
1 - 0 |
1 - 2 |
3 - 0 |
1 - 1 |
8 - 6 |
14 - 9 |
| WIN % |
100 % |
33 % |
100 % |
50 % |
57 % |
61 % |
| Spread Range |
10+ points |
5 to 9.5 |
0 to 4.5 |
| Favorites |
0 - 1 |
0 - 1 |
1 - 5 |
| Underdogs |
2 - 0 |
5 - 1 |
6 - 1 |
Play-By-Play RED ZONE Summary
Using the TMW Play-By-Play Red Zone ratings we create a predicted score
for every game each week. We then compare our projection to the
actual line to calculate the overlay.
| Match-up |
Predicted Score |
TMW
Line |
Line
(home) |
Pick |
Overlay |
| Jacksonville at Baltimore |
JAX 35-8 |
+27 |
-7.5 |
Jacksonville |
34.5 |
| Oakland at Philadelphia |
PHI 31-0 |
-31 |
-1 |
Philadelphia |
30 |
| N.Y. Jets at Carolina |
NYJ 36-9 |
+27 |
+2.5 |
N.Y. Jets |
24.5 |
| Miami at Seattle |
SEA 30-9 |
-21 |
+2.5 |
Seattle |
23.5 |
| Buffalo at San Diego |
SD 33-3 |
-30 |
-8 |
San Diego |
22 |
| Arizona at Dallas |
ARI 29-8 |
+21 |
+0 |
Arizona |
21 |
| N.Y Giants at Washington |
NYG 25-0 |
+25 |
+7.5 |
N.Y Giants |
17.5 |
| New England at Denver |
DEN 33-10 |
-23 |
-7.5 |
Denver |
15.5 |
| Cincinnati at Detroit |
CIN 20-13 |
+7 |
-3 |
Cincinnati |
10 |
| Minnesota at Tampa Bay |
MIN 15-8 |
+7 |
-3 |
Minnesota |
10 |
| San Francisco at Chicago |
SF 25-18 |
+7 |
-2.5 |
San Francisco |
9.5 |
| Indianapolis at Kansas City |
IND 20-9 |
+11 |
+3 |
Indianapolis |
8 |
| New Orleans at St. Louis |
STL 29-10 |
-19 |
-12 |
St. Louis |
7 |
| Tennessee at Pittsburgh |
PIT 17-14 |
-3 |
-3 |
|
0 |
Week 5 on Results
| Overlay |
0 - 1.5 |
2 - 3.5 |
4 - 5.5 |
6 - 7.5 |
8+ Pts |
ALL |
| HomeFavs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 1 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
1 - 5 |
1 - 6 |
| HomeDogs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
5 - 2 |
5 - 2 |
| AwayFavs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 5 |
0 - 5 |
| AwayDogs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
4 - 0 |
5 - 0 |
|
| Favorites |
0 - 0 |
0 - 1 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
1 - 10 |
1 - 11 |
| Underdogs |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
9 - 2 |
10 - 2 |
| Home Teams |
0 - 0 |
0 - 1 |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
6 - 7 |
6 - 8 |
| Away Teams |
0 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
1 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
4 - 5 |
5 - 5 |
|
| ALL PICKS |
0 - 0 |
0 - 1 |
1 - 0 |
0 - 0 |
10 - 12 |
11 - 13 |
| WIN % |
0 % |
0 % |
100 % |
0 % |
45 % |
46 % |
| Spread Range |
10+ points |
5 to 9.5 |
0 to 4.5 |
| Favorites |
0 - 1 |
0 - 5 |
1 - 5 |
| Underdogs |
2 - 0 |
2 - 1 |
6 - 1 |
ANALYSIS: Last week I pointed out that there appears to be a tendency for big dogs to get picked by the drive red zone predictions. This might mean that the red zone predictions are making the scores too close. Obviously that's ok at a time like this when the dogs are covering but it could be that I will need to make changes in how the predicted scores get calculated if this is true. A danger is that the red zone statistics make teams look too similar since most teams can at least kick the field goal. This week the drive stuff picks 9 underdogs and 4 favorites with one pick game.
This column is a work in progress. All formulas are subject to change as we get more data. Thanks to all those who have contacted me about this and I will be in touch with everyone soon. Anyone with Red Zone theories can send them to me at:
Craig@twominutewarning.com
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