Monday, January 19, 2015

Advanced Football Analytics! Go ahead: geek out!

Here's a great visual of how unlikely the Seattle comeback was over Green Bay yesterday. If you've never seen Advanced Football Analytics, and you're a football fan AND a geek, this is Christmas day for you! 

Basically, the graph is telling you that at halftime, the Pack had about a 91% chance of winning the game...and with 3:07 to go in regulation, the likelihood of winning the NFC title for Green Bay was over 98%...and yet, it's Seattle that's going to the Super Bowl. That's what the ridiculously sharp downward spike in the graph right after that point is telling you.

(To orient you: the time of the game progresses from left to right, with the scale on the bottom. The probability of Green Bay winning increases as the graph's line goes UP, and it decreases as the graph's line goes DOWN. For Seattle, it's exactly the opposite, since the more likely it is for Seattle to win, the LESS likely it is for Green Bay to win. That's why one line works for both. The line can't hit 100% for either team until the game actually ends.)


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