The Myth of “Disciplined” Teams in the NFL

We often hear TV personalities or analysts describe NFL teams in terms of how “disciplined” they are, and how the good teams aren't prone to committing dumb penalties.  But is that true?  Is there any correlation/causation between the number of penalties a team commits and their win-loss record?  I've been pretty fascinated by the http://www.nflpenalties.com/ website which tracks all penalties called throughout the NFL.  Using that data, not only is it clear that there is no relationship between being “disciplined” and winning … but that the teams we call “disciplined” may not be.

So far this season, on a per game basis, the four teams that are most penalty prone are: Denver (which sports a 7-3 record while committing a league-high 8.7 penalties a game); New England (8-2, with 8.4 penalties a game); then Seattle (6-4) and Buffalo (5-5) each at 8.1 penalties per game.

One of the league’s worst teams, Jacksonville (1-9), has committed the least at 4.2 penalties per game - if there’s an NFL analyst out there gushing over how “disciplined” Jacksonville is, they’re not on my TV.

Green Bay is seventh from the bottom at 5.6 a game.

If you break it down by penalty yards given up, New England (752 yards on 84 total penalties) and Denver (711 yards on 87 total penalties) again are tops in the league, compared to Jacksonville at just 331 yards on only 42 total penalties.  That’s around 400 yards through 10 games that the Patriots and Broncos have given up that the Jaguars haven’t - a pretty sizable chunk of real estate (not to mention the Jags’ total penalty count is half the size).

This isn’t just an aberration, let’s go back to last year, the most-penalized teams were:

1. Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks (152 total penalties, 8 per game, for 1,415 total yards given up)
2. 7-9 St. Louis Rams (123 total, 7.69 per, 1,009 yards)
3. 4-12 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (121 total, 7.56 per, 1136 yards

In 2012:

1. 7-8-1 St. Louis Rams (129 total, 8.06 per, 973 yards)
2. 8-8 Dallas Cowboys (118 total, 7.38 per, 853 yards)
3. Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens (145 total, 7.25 per, 1,335 yards)

In the cases of the ‘13 Seahawks and ‘12 Ravens, the additional playoff games skew their totals a bit, but the per game averages are still very telling.

The website has data going back to the 2009 season, so if you’re curious, go check it out for yourself.

Obviously, no team tries to lead the league in penalties, and I’m not making the argument they should, but I just think it’s interesting how the media and NFL fans come up with these narratives (like “Bill Belichick demands his Patriots be the most disciplined team”) when the data simply does not back up these claims.  Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of these stats, but that’s sort of my point: maybe we get too caught up in the play-to-play reaction to realize that we don’t really understand what we’re watching when it comes to judging the “discipline” of NFL teams.

Reaction to the (Over)Reaction: NFL Week 1 [Packers v. Seahawks]

Richard Sherman gets in people's heads.  He gets in opposing players' heads, he gets in opposing coaches' heads.  Now he's in our heads.  In fact, he's so good at getting in people's heads (and at football) that his greatness in these areas has us confused as to who or what caused the Packers loss in Seattle Thursday night.  

In our sports culture today, fans and media put way more attention and focus on placing blame rather than giving credit.  Why?  I'm not sure, but here's my best guess: We're at a place in sports where everybody loves to say "I told you so."  We're all coaches sitting on our couches.  We can't say "I told you so" when we give credit, so we focus on the negative.  Further, in our effort to prove we know more than the guys in uniform or on the sideline, when a certain play or game plan doesn't pan out, today's sports fan loves nothing more than to second-guess said play/game plan.  Because when you second-guess what did happen, you can never be wrong in saying what didnot happen would have worked.  Thus, the greatness of Richard Sherman has us blaming Mike McCarthy and the Green Bay coaching staff for GB's loss.

Now, I have seen people challenge Sherman's awesomeness by claiming he can't be that great if he only plays one side of the field.  This is simply ridiculous.  Seattle has obviously made this part of their gameplan, and they know much more about this than any of us will (or can).  By making Sherman a staple on one side, it affects the way the safties, linebackers, ect. play.  Perhaps Seattle figured that, by putting Sherman on one side of the field, they can put their best cover-safety on the other - because if Sherman practically shuts off one half of the field, it'd be a waste to also have your best safety on that side, no?  Also, by placing Sherman on one side, it forces the opponent to adjust to them.  There's a big difference between game planning for an opponent and game planning around an opponent.  If you force and opponent to game plan around you, you've already got an edge.  By playing Sherman on one side, Seattle basically offers a challenge - here he is, you know where he's gonna be, have at it, hoss.  For the Seahawks and Sherman, there are only right answers, and the one they choose is to have him play one side of the field.  Suggesting he's somehow a lesser player for that holds no water.

As for the other side of the ball - the side we're more concerned about - the Packers did the right thing by forcing Sherman to cover Jarrett Boykin all game.  But before we get into that, let's put one thing to rest (I don't want to spend too much time on it because it's so dumb, but it's got a lot of attention); the Packers did NOT go into the game knowing they weren't going to throw Sherman's way, it was just a by-product of what the game dictated.  Think about it: Why would McCarthy tell the best quarterback on the planet not to throw to one side of the field?  And why would Aaron Rodgers listen?  Even if McCarthy did that, wouldn't Rodgers be inclined to take it as a challenge to throw at Sherman?  On the field, Rodgers is a quarterbacking robot programmed to throw to the open man, why would McCarthy intentionally mess with that programming?  I don't know McCarthy told Rodgers not to throw at Sherman, but it seems pretty implausible that he would have the balls to tell his all-world QB that Seattle's cornerback is better at his job than Rodgers is at his.  We're so insistent on placing blame, that let's just say the Rodgers threw Sherman's way a few times and all fell incomplete.  In theory, the criticism of McCarthy would have to go away, but I'm convinced that the criticism just would have been focused elsewhere.  We just look for the lowest-hanging fruit, and not throwing at Sherman was the easiest and juiciest fruit on the tree of criticism.

Criticizing in this way is just building a straw-man argument. That is: it's framing the conversation in a way (that's not even provable) so that it guarentees one will be on the right side of the conversation. Above that, it's also kind of mentally lazy.

Anyway, back to the decision to put Boykin on Sherman's side.  It was absolutely the route to go.  Think about like this:  if an NBA team could choose who LeBron James guarded on defense, wouldn't they choose to have him defend their third-best player?  Why would they want James to take out their best option and force their role-players to exceed expectations instead of allowing James to remove a role-player with the hopes their stars play like stars?  Seattle chose right in how they use(d) Sherman and the Packers chose right in trying to gameplan around him.  Here's the kicker: Anybody who's upset at McCarthy and/or convinced the Packers decided before the game not to throw to Sherman's side needs to 1) explain how getting the ball in Jarrett Boykin's hands changes the outcome of the game, and 2) show me a play where Boykin, ya know, got open.

Green Bay not throwing at Sherman was not designed, rather them just taking what the defense gave them (or did not give them).  Either way, Seattle made GB's passing game look about as average - I won't say bad - as it has looked probably since Rodgers' first season as a starter.  

There was a recent article in Forbes Magazine that named Packers fans the best in football, let's prove it by being a little different, let's give credit where credit is due instead of doing what everybody else is doing and forming the angry mob to seek out that week's scapegoat.  Seattle was just plain better on Thursday night. McCarthy's not our scapegoat, Richard Sherman is just that good.

R.I.P., "NBA Sucks" Guy

If there's one stereotypical sports fan out there that I'm increasingly running out of patience with, it's the "NBA sucks" guy.  Huge numbers of people out there just don't give the NBA the credit it deserves (for absurd reasons like "the college game is better," or "nobody in the NBA plays defense").  Further, they simply don't recognize the current wave of talent in the NBA - a wave that just might perhaps make today's NBA the most-talented basketball league ever.

One thing that I can't seem to get through to people is this:  I maintain that during the '90s (the Jordan Era), the NBA was down, from a talent standpoint.  That's not to take anything away from Jordan - again, he' s the unanimous G.O.A.T. (also, part of it may be that Jordan was so good, everyone else looked bad by comparison) - but let's take a closer look at the talent level in the NBA throughout the decades by using the Hall of Fame as an indicator of elite talent.  Broken down by decade, here's a cliff notes version of the number of active HoFers that were playing during any given time-span, starting with the '50-'51 season.

From the '50-'51 season, through the '59-'60 season, the most active HoFers in any season was 26 (in both '55-'56, and '56-'57).  The fewest number was 18 in '50-'51.  You get the idea, here's the breakdown by decade:

From '60-'70: High -  29 ('68-'69;'69-'70); Low - 23 ('60-'61; '61-'62)
From '70-'80: High - 31 ('70-'71); Low 21 ('75-'76)
From '80-'90: High - 29 ('85); Low - 24 ('81-'82)

From here on, it gets a bit tricky because some players are still active or haven't been retired long enough for induction, but for simplicity sake, the following players are added to the HoF list: Kobe Bryant, Shaq O'Neal, Jason Kidd, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Allen Iverson, and Kwame Brown. So, adding those guys:

From '90-'00: High - 20 ('90-'91) Low - 8 ('09-'10)

Now, the low of 8 in '09-'10 is misleading (stay tuned) because so many HoFers are still active/not yet eligible.  However, I think it's safe to say that anybody who played during the '90-'91 season that's worthy of HoF induction is in already ... okay, maybe not, you could talk me into Tim Hardaway, Glen Rice, and maybe a couple others.  But even if we add 3 more guys to the 20 already in, that number (representing the highest number of active HoFers during the decade) is still equal to or less than the low of any decade save for the '75-'76 season. Also, keep in mind that through the '70s, the talent was divided between the NBA and ABA (that's a very important sub-plot to all of this).

This brings us up to the present.  Who are the active HoFers playing today?  Well, of the years I looked at, the absolute highest number of active HoFers in any season is 31 (during '70-'71), but the number playing in today's game could eclipse that rather easily.  Let's break it down:

Sure-fire HoFers playing now: LeBron James, Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Kevin Garnett, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen.  (16 players)

Well on their way: Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Steph Curry, LaMarcus Aldridge, James Harden, Paul George, Russell Westbrook, and John Wall.  (9 players)

Work to do, but in the conversation: Rajon Rondo, Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis, Al Horford, Al Jefferson, Ricky Rubio, Serge Ibaka, Andrew Bogut, Deron Williams, Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, Eric Bledsoe, DeMarcus Cousins, Roy Hibbert, Chandler Parsons, Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, Joe Johnson, David West, Kyrie Irving, Andre Drummond, Bradley Beal, Klay Thompson, and Paul Millsap. (25 players)

And that's to say nothing of this year's draft class - supposedly one of the deepest drafts ever, and the draft prior.  So, combining the "Sure-fire" and "On their way" categories, there's 25 players set to be enshrined in the HoF.  That means out of the remaining players, we're 6 short of tying the record for most HoFers active during one season. (I think we'll get there.)

By breaking it down like this, one can see the level of elite talent in any season relative to the overall talent in the league itself.  I may be bias, but given the names mentioned of players active today that could one day be immortalized, it becomes clear that the NBA is rebounding nicely from the apparent lack of elite talent in the prior generation.  Enjoy the present, NBA fans, this is as good as it gets.  And to you, Mr. "NBA sucks" guy, I say good day, sir.

Segura's Tragedy Offers Moment of Reflection

I just read about how Brewers' Shortstop Jean Segura's nine-month old son died last night, and felt compelled to write something.  I kind of feel bad about this, because I feel like I'm using that tragedy to draw attention to myself (or something like that), but I hope you trust me when I say this is done with good intentions.  Back to Segura ... when I found out about the death of his young son today, I obviously felt bad - felt bad for him, his family, his son, and kind of oddly, Brewer fans.  I felt bad for Brewer fans (myself included) because Segura's recent misfortune - his son had been sick for a while - wasn't in the news until the child died hours ago.  We had no idea.  All we knew was what we saw on the field, and that was that Segura, as well as the Brewers as a whole, are struggling mightily as of late.  After such a great start to the season, how could the Brewers (and/or Segura) be this bad?  We needed an explanation.  As far as Segura goes, that explanation grimly led us to the harsh circumstances of his reality.

I can't put my finger on when it was exactly, but at some time or another, I sort of flipped the way I looked at sports.  Before, I never thought twice about blasting the "over-paid, selfish athlete" for hurting my team's chances to win.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with rooting for a sports team (that's what makes it so much fun).  But when you root for a team, you tend to lose sight of the individual players that make up that team.  Often, team takes precedent over the athlete(s), and it becomes easy to be overly critical of said athlete(s) in the name of allegiance to team.  We applaud teams for trading or releasing under-performing players, or celebrate when an opposing player goes out with an injury.  It's all done in the name of team.  We root for the cursive-M with the barley leaf underline found on Segura's hat more than we care about the man wearing the hat.  Much like the cliché-ish story of the comedian who got heckled in the club going to the office job of the audience member to heckle them, athletes' work is out there for all to see, warts and all.  And because their jobs dictate that they play in stadiums in front of large crowds, the criticism of their work is public, if not infectious.  But athletes don't come to our workplace to yell at us for our deficiencies.  Even as I wrote the first line of this note, I felt a little uncomfortable writing "Brewers' Shorstop Jean Segura," as if his identity exists only as property of the Brewers organization, and even more specifically, that patch of dirt between second and third base where he can be found game-to-game.  But Segura (and all athletes) are so much more than [Insert team/position-followed by-name].  

For Segura, he is a son, husband, father, player, and native of the Dominican Republic.  Baseball led him to America.  Baseball will make him millions (if it hasn't already).  Baseball will leave him suseptible to boos and taunts coming from fans in a language he still doesn't quite have a full grasp of.  But in the wake of the death of his son, baseball means little to nothing.  He would toss aside that navy blue hat with the cursive-M and barley leaf to have one more day with his son, and nobody would blame him.  But over the past month or so, we have sat in the seats at Miller Park, at our homes, or at our favorite bar criticizing Segura for his regressing stat line.  Little did we know his son lie dying, and we were yelling at him for an errant throw to first base or for *only* managing to connect with a 95 mph fastball enough to hit a lazy grounder to third base.  We had no right to know his son's status, but it's stories like this that give me pause when the urge hits me to throw an athlete under the proverbial bus in order to rationalize the struggles of my favorite team; it's stories like this that make me lean back on my barstool of judgement and think "When I turn off Fox Sports Net, these guys have lives that continue, these guys have sons that are sick, or daughters that are facing real-life challenges, and I'm evaluting their play like it represents their entire existence."  We've all let personal issues affect our lives in ways that has nothing to do with those personal issues, we do this because we're human.  

It's easy for us to stand by our favorite athlete in the face of tragedy when Brett Favre goes out and throws 4 touchdowns hours after his father's death.  It's hard to ease off the criticism of a slumping Jean Segura when we don't have context.  But given that context, we find out that we were bitching about Jean Segura's 0-for-4 game at the plate while his son lie dying.

"Respecting the Game" is Overrated

If the critics of Carlos Gomez, Yasiel Puig, ect. are correct, and these players are “disrespecting the game,” then those critics need to tell me where and why this “respect of the game”  originated.  The first Greatest Player of All-Time, Ty Cobb, sharpened his spikes so when he slid feet-first, he’d spike the defensive player trying to get him out.  Wasn’t he trying to one-up his opponent?  The unanimous Greatest Player of All-Time, Babe Ruth, pointed into the stands BEFORE THE PITCH to show the pitcher where he was going to hit it.  He wasn’t showing up the pitcher?  Specifically with Gomez and Puig, that’s where this starts and ends, no?  Isn’t it because they “show off”?  They stand to admire a hit a little too long instead of running the bases and petty things like that, isn’t that it?

If what Gomez did against the Pirates is in the wrong, then some of baseball’s greatest moments can be put under the same microscope and every single criticism of Gomez can be applied to these legendary moments.  Surely Kirk Gibson  pumping his fist rounding first was worse than Gomez watching the ball fly a little too long and flipping his bat a little too flipp-y.  How about Carlton Fisk  waving and begging the ball to be fair?  Shouldn’t he have just put his head down and ran the bases? 

Furthermore, was it not “respect for the game” that was (one of the reasons) used as justification for keeping Jackie Robinson and other Negro Leaguers out of baseball?

Come to think of it:  As noted above, Ruth, Gibson, Fisk, and Cobb were all guilty of “disrespecting the game” in a far greater manner than Puig or Gomez; that is, if Puig/Gomez is where you’re setting the standard.  Doesn’t seem the slightest bit odd that (with the possible exception of Bryce Harper) every player that gets hit with “not playing the right way” is a player of a minority ethnicity?  Why’s that?  It’s also always white players that take exception to these guys.  Last year, the Atlanta Braves were the gate-keepers of Baseball Morality.  They (Brian McCann, Freddie Freeman, ect.) took issue with the actions of Gomez and Jose Fernandez for showing them up after getting hits. How come Brian McCann gets to be Baseball Policeman?  Who had the problem with Gomez in Pittsburgh?  Gerrit Cole.

I'm not saying there's anything directly racist going on here, but I am saying there's a culture clash between ways of playing the game, and to say one way is better than the other kinda makes it racist in a round-about way.

There’s obviously a line to be drawn somewhere.  I think we can all agree that the Black Sox and Pete Rose disrespected the game by throwing games or betting on games which they managed.  But to classify showing emotion on the field as “disrespecting the game” is just stupid.  It doesn’t hold any water, and never has.  Anybody who says Gomez/Puig “disrespect the game” either knows nothing about baseball history or is under the illusion that players of baseball past were somehow more moral than today’s players – which is utter nonsense.

If you wanna talk about disrespecting the game, let’s go back to the creation of baseball.  According to Ken Burns’ Baseball documentaries, upon the creation of one of the first organized baseball leagues (the National Association of Baseball Players), the first three rules of the game were:

      1) An umpire was given authority to call balls and strikes
      2) No player was allowed to catch the ball in his cap
      3) Above all, baseball was to remain an amateur game; no player was ever no be paid to play

So if we start at the beginning, getting paid to play was “disrespecting the game.”  That waved bye-bye long ago. 

One thing that irks me with this whole thing is that we’re criticizing a player for showing emotion – for not playing as if they’re robots – and for not acting like “they’ve been there before.”  I don’t know about you, but if I were able to hit a home run in a Major League Baseball game, I’d like to think it’d be as fun the 500th time as it was the first time.  So what the hell is that argument all about?  The other thing is that, if you were to watch a game with these people who preach “act like you’ve been there before,” I’d bet most of them would get as emotional watching their favorite team play as anybody.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe my sports fandom gives me carte blanche to criticize players for things I myself could never, and would never live up to.

All this is to say:  If you’re a big enough fan of baseball, or sports for that matter, and I were a magic genie that granted your wish to play one professional game for your favorite team, I’d bet you would play that one game the same way Carlos Gomez or Yasiel Puig play every game.

Treatment of Jeter Highlights Long-held Issue with Sports Media/Fans

First and foremost, I consider myself a Derek Jeter fan.  He’s an amazing combination of a great athlete, extremely cool in general, and has a dating record that would make Hugh Hefner jealous.  Basically, if I could make one of those terrible body-switch movies that come out once every couple years, in my movie I’d swap lives with Jeter.  The following is not meant to be a slight against Jeter personally, but used to exemplify an issue I have with the sports media and fans alike.

My Theory: Often in sports, “We” the sports-viewing public, classify athletes in two categories.  One being the athletes we like, and the other being the ones we don’t like.  Once it’s decided whether We like a particular athlete, We fit the facts around that in order to prove our point.  In some cases, this becomes problematic, if not hypocritical.  This exercise can become as crazy as going around telling people the world is flat, then justifying it by pointing down at the concrete underneath you, and concluding that it being flat makes the world flat.

Before the 2004 season, the Yankees pulled off the Alex Rodriguez blockbuster trade.  The problem, however, was that A-Rod played shortstop – Jeter’s territory.  A-Rod was coming off three straight Gold Gloves, while Jeter hadn’t won any Gold Gloves up until that point.  All in all, it’s pretty obvious that Jeter should have been the one to switch positions.  Nothing better epitomizes my point that the baseball community went out of its way to justify what Jeter did by the fact that A-Rod never won another Gold Glove after joining the Yanks, yet Jeter, coincidentally won the Gold Glove at short the year A-Rod arrived in New York, then went on to win it four more times in the next six years.  Am I really supposed to believe that Jeter suddenly became the best defensive shortstop in the American League from age 30 to 35?

Here’s where it gets tricky; this is where I want to make this a larger-picture-type-deal.  Jeter was justified in not switching positions (even though it would have been in the best interest in the team to do so) because of things like “it’s Jeter’s team,” and “he’s the Captain, he gets to make the calls,” ect.  I take issue with this type of rhetoric because it being “Jeter’s team” really has nothing to do with it.  Were the 2002 Atlanta Braves not “Chipper Jones’s team” when he switched from third base to left field full-time?  Were the ’96 Baltimore Orioles not “Cal Ripken’s team” when he switched from short to third? How about when Barry Bonds moved to left so the Pirates could make room for Andy Van Slyke in center?  You get the point.  Now, obviously I don’t have the power to bend the Space/Time Continuum, but I feel pretty confident that if the roles were reversed – and Jeter’s was traded to A-Rod’s team – that the narrative would have been very different because We decided We don’t like A-Rod.  Had A-Rod refused a position switch, it would have been seen as “selfish” and a “me-first move.”  When Alfonso Soriano refused (at first) to switch from second to left, it was definitely seen as a selfish move, even though he was by far the best player on the 2006 Nationals, and arguably the best second basemen in the entire league.  The Nationals even went to Major League Baseball requesting permission to put Soriano on the Disqualified List because of his refusal to change positions.

In basketball, the positions certainly aren’t as definite as they are in baseball, but there was a point in time where LeBron and Chris Bosh were criticized because they were resistant to play power forward and center.  Why? Because We love to criticize the Heat.  Why wasn’t LeBron given the Jeter Treatment?  Could you imagine Skip Bayless saying anything along the lines of “It’s LeBron’s team, he can play whatever position he wants.”  I sure as hell can’t. 

Thus, it’s my conclusion that much of sports “analysis” can be explained by answering the question: Do We like this person?  Because when Jeter (“Leader Guy”) refused a position change, it was totally justified.  When LeBron did close to the same, it was criticized.  I suppose sports have always been somewhat of a popularity contest, but We have turned it into something much more trivial.