Live data from Hacker News

Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

advancednflstats.com

31–40 of 105 posts

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#31

Here is an idea: build a predictive model of an offensive coach that predicts the play he will call, given a game situation (and based on that, build a predictiveness quotient for a coach).

It doesn't work like that in practice. Football is very dependent on matchups. Coaches will vary gameplans from week-to-week to exploit weaknesses they see on film.

Matchup would be a part of the model. My experience with predictive modeling in various domains has taught me that people tend to underestimate how predictive they are (NFL offensive/defensive coaches are no exception).

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#32

Here is an idea: build a predictive model of an offensive coach that predicts the play he will call, given a game situation (and based on that, build a predictiveness quotient for a coach).

It doesn't work like that in practice. Football is very dependent on matchups. Coaches will vary gameplans from week-to-week to exploit weaknesses they see on film.

It could still be useful for finding tendencies, though.

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#33

Here is an idea: build a predictive model of an offensive coach that predicts the play he will call, given a game situation (and based on that, build a predictiveness quotient for a coach).

There are too many missing variables. The most obvious being who made the actual play call, the head coach, the offensive coordinator, or the quarterback.

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#34
I've started uploading these CSVs to a public Google BigQuery dataset called [nfl], so you can run queries over them like this:

    SELECT off, COUNT(off) AS count
    FROM [nfl.2012reg]
    WHERE description CONTAINS "INTERCEPTED"
    GROUP BY off
    ORDER BY count DESC
(This counts the number of plays that resulted in an interception by the team that threw the interception, sorted from most to fewest INTs)

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#35
post #9

From Line 42536 of the 2008 CSV file: 20090201_PIT@ARI,2,30,18,ARI,PIT,1,1,1,(:18) (Shotgun) K.Warner pass short middle intended for A.Boldin INTERCEPTED by J.Harrison at PIT 0. J.Harrison for 100 yards TOUCHDOWN. Super Bowl Record longest interception return yards. Penalty on ARZ-E.Brown Face Mask (15 Yards) declined. The Replay Assistant challenged the runner broke the plane ruling and the play was Upheld.,7,10,200…

@edw518, Awesome! Thank you for sharing what you're doing here with the data. I was thinking of playing with this dataset too and since I'm new to this field (data), look forward to learning from you if you post more info in the future!

Thanks!

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#36

I wrote a small wrapper around the 4th down calculator on that site, which should help you figure out if your team should go for it on 4th down: http://downanddistance.herokuapp.com/

Need a bounds check or two in there. Tried setting the number of yards you need to 1 and the yards away from the endzone to 99 and it threw up a nice exception. Cool calculator though!

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#37
post #9

From Line 42536 of the 2008 CSV file: 20090201_PIT@ARI,2,30,18,ARI,PIT,1,1,1,(:18) (Shotgun) K.Warner pass short middle intended for A.Boldin INTERCEPTED by J.Harrison at PIT 0. J.Harrison for 100 yards TOUCHDOWN. Super Bowl Record longest interception return yards. Penalty on ARZ-E.Brown Face Mask (15 Yards) declined. The Replay Assistant challenged the runner broke the plane ruling and the play was Upheld.,7,10,200…

It looks like a lot of the work you are hoping to do has already been done on http://statsheet.com/nfl

Though perhaps not as open...

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#38
post #5

I'm frankly surprised that this information is allowed to be distributed. I spent awhile in the financial services industry, and while it was really easy to obtain "public" information like stock quote data, I recall that we weren't allowed to simply scrape data from public sites... we had to pay a license fee to get a feed of the data if we were planning on repackaging & distributing it. It seems to me that the NFL…

Lets pretend he got it from memory.

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#39
As a French not interested in sports at all this would have made no sense at all to me before I watched the TV series The League [1]. Now I kind of enjoy the fact that these stats exist and are available in an open format, even if I don't really care myself.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1480684/

Re: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

#40
post #18

Amazing!!! Thanks to www.advancednflstats.com for doing all the leg-work. Highly recommend their site too. Their in-game win probability statistics are always a must-have for me on game-day ^_^

I really like his 4th Down analysis: http://www.advancednflstats.com/2009/09/4th-down-study-part-... The tl;dr version can be found at: http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/05/4th-down-briefs.html The conclusion is that teams should go for it on 4th down much more often than they currently do. He also has a calculator where you can get the exact values: http://wp.advancednflstats.com/4thdncalc1.php

The Patriots have used this analysis:

http://www.math.toronto.edu/mpugh/Teaching/Sci199_03/Footbal...

I also believe Belichek/Adams have funded some football economics research.

Post reply on HN