The NFL Trying to Take Every Last Surplus from the Super Bowl

I think this story pretty much is the last nail in the coffin of the idea that hosting a Super Bowl is a big benefit to the local community (H/T).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

And for the Lions-Packers game, I am rooting for a tie.  At this point in the season that seems like the best outcome for the Bears.

Inter-Divisional NFL Games, Part II

Friday I looked at the commonness of the Patriots and Colts playing each other.  That match-up has happened 10 out of the 11 years of the current scheduling arrangement.  There is one other match-up that has happened 9 out of 11 years:

	Panthers	Cardinals	Divisions Play?
2002	4*	4*	No
2003	4	4	No
2004	1	4	Yes
2005	3	3	No
2006	1	3	No
2007	2	4	Yes
2008	2	2	No
2009	1	1	No
2010	3	1	Yes
2011	4	4	No
2012	3	2	No

Yes.  The Cardinals and Panthers have played that often only missing each other in 2006 and this year.  While the Patriots-Colts match-up has been the result of consistent excellence of both teams, this match-up is primarily random.  They have finished in the same spot in all four possible spots.  They have only finished in the same spot in the standings six times, but none of them when they would have been playing anyway.   They will also automatically be playing next year, as the South and West are matched up next year.

Inter-Divisional NFL Games, Part I

Peter King talks today about how the Patriots and Colts have played the past 10 seasons.  To do this they had to have finished in the same spot in the standings the previous year except in years where the divisions were matched up.  What is amazing is that it is not primarily luck that has accounted for this result, as the Colts and Patriots have finished in the same position all but last year.  Here is the how they finished in their division the year before:

 

Year	Patriots	Colts	Divisions Play?
2002	1	Not 1	No
2003	2	2	Yes
2004	1	1	No
2005	1	1	No
2006	1	1	Yes
2007	1	1	No
2008	1	1	No
2009	2	2	Yes
2010	1	1	No
2011	1	1	No
2012	1	4	Yes

The finish in the division refers to the year before.  2002 uses the three division set-up of 2001, so the results are not as obvious.  The two teams have been so closely tied together.  Usually this is because they are both good.

There is a second match-up of inter-divisional foes who have played almost as much.  They have played 9 out of the 11 years of the current arrangement.  However, they are not matched up because of consistently being good or bad.  I will discuss that combination in a post on Monday.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Last week I did an interview with Brian Schwartz who published a short editorial about my work in the Daily Camera. The paper he cited was my Economic Inquiry article with Christian End, "A Winning Proposition: The Economic Impact of Successful National Football League Franchises". One interesting thing to come out of the interview was that I realized when I give estimates for the dollar impact of a team winning, I typically use the real income number. Using real income makes sense from a research point of view, but people do not think in 1984 dollars. Inflation has more than doubled the dollar amount in the last 25 years, so I should probably adjust the numbers to state nominal income.

You can find the editorial here (it is the last one), and you can find Brian's blog entry about it here.

Quick Advice for NFL Players

A quick personal service announcement to all professional football players. Do not say anything about the Saints' Bounty story. Do not become the Clinton Portis of the Bounty story. The implications in this case are probably worse, as Portis only embarrassed himself, whereas this time players might inadvertently implicate their own teams.

Sports Labor Unrest Links

1. 
   The drop-dead date for the NFL impasse to be resolved and still save some of the season is mid-November.
   
2. Contraction again? Ugh (H/T).
   

My Suggestion on How to Fix Overtime

Over at Advanced NFL Stats, they have some suggested rule changes for the NFL. One of them is for changing the overtime rules (#11). Their suggestion is for the home-team to automatically get the ball in overtime. This approach has one big advantage to it, that the teams know who will get the ball in overtime, so that they can play the game in regulation with that knowledge. The team that knows they will not get the ball will be more willing to play to win the game in regulation. The problem with their approach is that giving the advantage to the home team seems arbitrary.

My suggestion is to treat overtime as a third half, continuing the coin toss from the beginning of the game. Also if you defer until the second half, you lose out on choosing for the overtime. And if you really want the option in overtime, then you can choose to defer from the second-half choice. It balances out the original winner’s value in they would lose the ability to defer unless they are willing to sacrifice the overtime choice. Everything going into overtime is known ahead of time. It is not gimmicky like a lot of other approaches, i.e. the college football overtime system. It does not change things very much, so it is should not be too controversial.

I honestly do not know if anyone else has suggested this before. If I come across someone else who suggested this earlier, I will give him or her credit.

Domed Stadium in Los Angeles?

In last week's Monday Morning Quarterback, it was mentioned that there is talk of building a retractable-dome stadium in Los Angeles (about halfway down the page). Why would LA need a domed stadium? To deal with the three days of rain that the area gets a year? Because of the brutal 60-degree cold days? Of course the story mentions that it would be so they could host the Final Four. However, retractable domes add a lot to the cost of a stadium and adding one to host two or three Final Fours over the life of the stadium seems pretty excessive. If this was a privately-financed facility no one would undertake the cost associated with adding a roof, but since the taxpayer is on the hook why not add a 200-million dollar roof?

Highest Scoring NFL Playoff Game

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I had attended the highest scoring NFL playoff game in history. This morning that is no longer true. For a long time that Eagles-Lions game was a trifecta for me: the only NFL game I ever attended was the highest scoring playoff game in NFL history, while being the coldest I have ever been. I have attended two Rams games in the last few years, so now only that last part is still true. I would really prefer to avoid breaking that (admittedly subjective) record.

Wild Cards and Meaningless Games in the NFL

It seems every season there is a discussion about teams resting their starters for meaningless/nearly meaningless games at the end of the NFL season. These discussions get a little confusing because there are three different questions associated with the problem. This season the questions have come up with the Colts-Jets game last week and the Bengals-Jets game this week. Since most writers at least relate to the first two issues, I will just link to a number of examples to begin with (see here,
here,
here,
here, here and here)

1. Is it optimal for the team to rest starters? The optimal choice in this question differs between the Bengals and the Colts. When the Colts played the Jets, they still had one regular season game and were locked into a bye. A case could be made that they took their foot off the gas too soon. In the Bengals case, however, it is their last game and they will not be getting a bye, so they will have to play next week as well. Not only that, but their last playoff trip was ended when their quarterback got injured on the first series of their first playoff game. For that reason, I think they will be a little worried about injuries. I think I would be inclined to not go all out in the last game.
   
2. Is it moral for the teams to not try/go half speed in games that don't matter? Is it ok to do so unless the other team is going to be in the playoffs? I will not discuss the first question, but I will point out a problem with answering in the affirmative to the second. Let us say that the 4 and 5 seeds are locked in place, but that the 4 seed is playing a contender for the last playoff spot and the 5 seed is playing non-contender. If there is an advantage to resting players (see question 1) then the 5-seed would have an advantage over the 4-seed. That result does not seem fair to me.
   
3. Is there a way to design a playoff system that does not lead to teams resting players for key games for other teams? Jerome Bettis suggests that the NFL fix this problem but does not suggest any solutions. One reason he does not suggest a solution (and for that matter why the NFL has fixed the problem yet) is that there are no easy solutions to this problem. Pro-football Reference suggests three proposals that would help in some circumstances. Proposal 1 would eliminate the automatic home game for division winners, meaning that relatively poor teams that have clinched the division would still have an incentive to win to get a better seed. Proposal 2 at the same link would have a flexible number of playoff teams, meaning a 2-seed would lose its bye unless it was at least three games ahead of the 7-seed. The third proposal would be to have flex games for the last two games of an 18-game schedule. These flex games would be chosen so that playoff contenders played other playoff contenders. There are a couple of problems with these solutions. Proposals 2 and 3 are pretty revolutionary. Proposals 1 and 2 would not have fixed the Colts' and Bengals' problems this year, not that fixing this particular problem was the only idea behind the proposals. The only way to completely fix this problem would be to have no wild card teams and guarantee that teams only play intra-divisional games the last two weeks of the season. So unless you are willing to suggest that or something truly unusual like the above, it is simply a problem you will have to live with.

Was Belichick’s decision to go for it on 4th down correct?

Belichick is getting blasted for his decision to go for two late in the game against the Colts last night (see here, here, here and probably a hundred other places). A detailed statistical analysis seems to suggest that it was actually the right call. See these posts (1, 2) at the pro-footballreference.com blog and this one at Advance NFL Stats. For a less cerebral analysis in support of the decision see Merril Hoge.

One last point. It seems from this video that Peyton Manning was not happy about the Patriots going for it at the time. Since football games are zero-sum games, what is good for the Colts is necessarily bad for the Patriots. If the Colts want them to punt, then the best thing for the Patriots is to not punt. However, this analysis assumes rationality on the part of both teams, which may not be a correct assumption.