Quote Originally Posted by srobert96 View Post
Thank you for gathering these stats. Is there a site you go to for these stats?
Yeah no prob. When I chart for FO, they produce the stats each week for all the teams in a very easy format to cut up. The stats are all publicly available somewhere, but I think they've got a bunch of macros which pull a lot of it out of text-based replay calls. Honestly I'm not really sure where they get it or how they chop it up. But I download the Excel file each week, save it in full, then save a duplicate with just the halves/games I need to chart.

I can add to it from there. So for instance, they don't have 3rd and long scenarios. They show it's 3rd down, they show there's 8 yards to go. I just write If statements in an added column to say that if it's 3 or fewer, call it short; if it's 4-7, call it medium and if it's 8+, call it long. I can then easily change that formula to adjust if you'd rather consider long as 7+ or as 9+...the data's very easy to cut up in that format. I pivot it to get all the stat break-downs.

Quote Originally Posted by JimZipCode View Post
Well no. I think the argument is – and I'm not saying this is correct, this is just what I think the theory is – is that the extra investment in sub-optimal plays will result in a "teaching effect", where all pass plays become more effective as the players gain more experience executing them. So these plays that initially are sub-optimal, become less sub-optimal during the season, even eventually becoming efficient and productive.

The theory might go further, where if you are changing the in-game run/pass ratio, then presumably you are also changing the ratio in practice. So the players are not just gaining a teaching effect from the extra 50 pass plays on game day, but also the extra emphasis in practice and extra reps, etc.

I don't know if there's anything to that theory. But just talking about it makes me even more eager to see what this offense will be like in 2012, with all the young receivers having gotten a full offseason of work in with Flacco and the coaches. I wish Ozzie had taken the money used on Jacoby Jones, and instead put it toward another O-lineman, but oh well.
I get that, but I don't buy it. I don't believe that running an additional 50 pass plays on 1st/2nd down when they've run 427 will make that difference. I don't believe that practicing for a 6% shift in run/pass on 1st/2nd down would really make that difference either. And while you can extrapolate that if it does make a difference and helps improve the offense, you can very easily argue that running more sub-optimal passing plays for an offense learning how to pass when they're not good at it, will result in more 3rd and long situations, fewer conversions, shortened drives, fewer overall plays, and thus instead of 822 plays on 1st and 2nd down, they instead have 800 1st and 2nd down plays. And so arguing they should have passed on 58.0% of their plays (by saying they should have passed 50 additional plays) instead results in 464 passing plays, or an increase in passing plays of only 37 over the 427 they ran. All that with less offensive production, fewer points, probably fewer wins.

Ultimately I don't think it makes sense to argue. The Ravens threw the ball plenty last year. I don't understand why people are trying to turn them into Green Bay, throwing close to 60% of the time, in an offense where we have two of the better runners and a passer with receivers that don't measure up to close that. And the arguments of specific situations don't particularly hold up either, because they weren't unbalanced in any particular fashion, as people were claiming them to be.

- C -