August 2023
Beginner to intermediate
352 pages
8h 40m
English
Content preview from Football Analytics with Python & R
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 3. Simple Linear Regression: Rushing Yards Over Expected
Football is a contextual sport. Consider whether a pass is completed. This depends on multiple factors: Was the quarterback under pressure (making it harder to complete)? Was the defense expecting a pass (which would make it harder to complete)? What was the depth of the pass (completion percentage goes down with the depth of the target)?
What turns people off to football analytics are conclusions that they feel lack a contextual understanding of the game. “Raw numbers” can be misleading. Sam Bradford once set the NFL record for completion percentage in a season as a member of the Minnesota Vikings in 2016. This was impressive, since he joined the team early in the season as a part of a trade and had to acclimate quickly to a new environment. While that was impressive, it did not necessarily mean he was the best quarterback in the NFL that year, or even the most accurate one. For one, he averaged just 6.6 yards average depth of target (aDOT) that year, which was 37th in the NFL according to PFF. That left his yards per pass attempt at a relatively average 7.0, tied for just 20th in football. Chapter 4 provides more context for that number and shows you how to adjust it yourself.
Luckily, given the great work of the people supporting nflfastR, you can provide your own context for metrics by applying the statistical tool known as regression. Through regression, you can normalize, or control for, variables (or features ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.