docwhoblocked

Mod Edit: Bumped to diaries for effort. [zl]

My brother and I have griped for several seasons now about the number of punts that seem to drop and roll for extra yards on on us.  He has suggested that we actually put one man deep and another 15-20 yards further up to catch the short ones before they can bounce and roll.  So I went to the stats and checked out the kicking game and made a .......chart? 

chart...

Our opponents punted to us 48 times and we returned punts only 13 times (27%).   Seems we should have had more returns.  Punts out of bounds or into the end zone could account for fewer punt returns. Wouldn't those into the end zone result in reduced net yards/punt for our opponents?  This does not seem to be the case. Our opponents have averaged 42.4 yards per punt and have net of 39.3.  We have a average punt of 41.6 and our net is 36.3.  The punt average difference is less than one yard but the net yards per punt were 3 yards in favor of our opponents.

Maybe there have been more fair catches by our returners (or maybe they are not catching the ball and it is dropping and rolling for extra yards).  Short of re-watching all the games and actually counting these different scenarios I am not sure I can come up with an answer.  (Maybe there is another data base out there somewhere with the details.  I just looked at the posted stats at the U of M site.) 

I did look anther data set.  It was in the form of a ………

chart.

This chart of NFL expected points by first down starting position.  This suggests that it is particularly important not to allow the drop and roll type kick when the opponent is pinned back as the yards lost in field position are even more important since it costs you points. (Duh!)

It is also interesting to look at the kick off data.  We have kicked off 60 times and our opponents have returned it 35 times (58.3%).

They kicked off to us 44 times and we returned it 34 times (77.4%) The kickoffs are averaging about 60 yards for both us and our opponents and returns are averaging about 23 yards per return for both us and our opponents.  Our net is better and I assume that is because Wile is kicking it out of or deep enough and high enough into the end zone that it is tough to return or maybe they are just smart enough not to return it.  Looking at these numbers the average benefit for returning a kick off looks like it would only be about 3 yards beyond the 25.  (The average kick goes from the 35, 60 yards to the 5 and we return it to the 27 on average.)  You can get that for free almost every time without the risk of a fumble or injury to a good returner.  Perhaps we should never return a kick off out of the end zone and only return those kicks that are short of the 5 yard line since any beyond that will roll into the end zone.  The NFL chart above also suggests that the extra yards gained say out to the 35 or so by running it back do not put you into much better position to score points vs. the 25.  (My eyeball says you would gain less than ½ point even if you could reliably make the 35 yard line instead of the 25 which only the best punt returner can do on average.)

My brother made the following observation-

"There may be a large cost/benefit factor favoring the risk of the kick off return. Let’s say you always take the touch back. Call it 20 kicks. Then let’s say you always run it out. On 19 you end up on the 18. That’s a negative 133 yards. On the 20^th you run it out for a TD. Would you trade the 19 cases of -7 in field position for the one TD? I guess it depends upon whether the TD is against ND or OSU or MSU or not."

I guess this is what the NCAA wanted with the rule change.  Maybe we are trying to return too many kickoffs. (An AP article on the kick off rule change notes the following..."Spotting the ball at the 25 should discourage .... risk-taking by the college kids. From 5 yards deep, it’ll take a 30-yard return to get to the 25. The top kick returner in the country, Purdue’s Raheem Mostert, averaged 33.48 yards per return. Seven others averaged more than 30 per return". )

[Ed-S: Bumped from boards]

Which team/conference should a high school recruit choose given the a desire to reach the NFL. Here are the tables that I abstracted from databaseFootball.com.  They are only through 2010 so they would not include this years rookies.  Starred teams have moved conferences recently.  ( I gave up trying to star all the past and future moves the Big East is making.)  This was a bit of a project with lots of cut and paste into a set of spread sheets.  It would appear that one might want to play college football in the BIG 10 if you want to maximize the likelihood that you will play in the NFL although it will still be a long shot that you will play very long even if drafted.

As you look at the databaseFootball.com tables it's obvious just how short the careers of NFL players really are.  By the eyeball it is about 4 years on average over the history of the NFL but here is the official NFL line from NFL Communications:

"One fan on the conference call said she has read many times that the average career length of an NFL player is about three years, adding it seemed so many played much longer than that. She asked Commissioner Goodell about his knowledge of NFL career length.

“There is a little bit of a misrepresentation or a misunderstanding on that.  Frequently, it is said that the average career is about 3.5 years.  In fact, if a player makes an opening day roster, his career is very close to six years,” Commissioner Goodell said. “If you are a first-round draft choice, the average career is close to nine years.  That 3.5-year average is really a misrepresentation.  What it adds is a lot of players who don’t make an NFL roster and it brings down the average.”

According to a recent NFL Management Council analysis of players who entered the NFL between 1993 and 2002, the average career length for a player who is on his club’s opening-day roster as a rookie is 6.0 years.

That 6.0 average is 88 percent higher than NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith’s recent claim.

“The fundamental principle of our business model necessarily includes that every player only plays for an average of 3.2 years,” Smith said in a March 31 forum with MBA students at the University of Virginia .

Following are the facts from the career-length analysis (using regular-season and postseason rosters):

• The average career length for a player who makes a club’s opening-day roster (active/inactive roster or injured reserve) in his rookie season is 6.0 years.
• The average career length for a player with at least three pension-credited seasons* is 7.1 years (*a player receives a pension credit for each season in which he spends at least three games on an active/inactive roster and/or injured reserve).
• The average career length for a first-round draft pick is 9.3 years.
• The average career length for a player who is selected for or plays in at least one Pro Bowl is 11.7 years.  Of the 318 players who began careers between 1993 and 2002 and made the Pro Bowl at least once, 113 of those players – 36 percent – were on a club’s roster in 2010."

As usual there is a disagreement between management and labor on the facts.  Charts? Charts....

PS for laughs I looked up the MAC teams too.  Temple got most of their player into the NFL while they were in the Big East.