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[Vikings OC] An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:56 pm
by Funkytown
An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Ready for something completely out of left field? Speaking of left field, it actually has something to do with baseball. A while back I had the idea of trying to implement the advanced statistic called WAR that is commonly used in baseball and try and translate it into the NFL. So I've set some time aside to conduct a fun experiment that will most likely result in any viable or realistic statistics.
You're probably asking yourself, "What the heck is WAR anyways?"
"Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is an attempt by the sabermetric baseball community to summarize a player’s total contributions to their team in one statistic" (Source: Fangraphs.com). MLB statheads like to use this stat to try and calculate the value the team would lose if a certain player had to be replaced by a backup or free agent.
The way WAR is calculated by many websites is rather complicated, but my attempt here is going to be rather simple. It's far more difficult to quantify the performance of a NFL player than a MLB player just because of the wide array of stats baseball players accrue. So for this experiment, I'm going to use PFF ratings only because that's the only method I have that can put all players on the same grading scale (I apologize for using PFF grades so often, but they're basically all I have to do this). This also means that I will not include punters and kickers as I don't have a great way to compare their performances to the rest of the players. Perhaps they could be added later.
First what I'll have to do for this experiment is to find what replacement level actually is. It falls somewhere between the "average" player and "worst" player at each position. After tinkering with several numbers, I have decided to use 35% as the cutoff for replacement level. If a player is worse than 65% of the other players at his position, then he is a "sub-replacement" player and he will carry a negative value.
Ranking all players wasn't easy - I took every single snap played by every single player (even the guys who recorded a total of one snap on the season) and I was able to find replacement level at 35%. Here are the results...
Read more:
http://www.purplepainforums.com/thread/ ... ng-war-nfl
Re: [Vikings OC] An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:35 pm
by S197
What is this good for? Absolutely nothing!
Sorry, couldn't resist. Seriously though that's some interesting analysis. I think the one that will probably stick out to people on the negative end is Elflein. I'd venture to guess most fans think he's not as easily replaceable as this WAR suggests. Mac Alexander too perhaps, I felt like he started having some good traction late in the season.
On the flip side, it's a good representation of the value we have at WR and LB. Even though he feels LB was due to a weak showing, I think they are worth those scores. Especially Kendricks. I'm glad Morgan is up there because I think he's the most underrated player on the team.
Robison is an interesting one and perhaps was hurt by moving between DE/DT but the drop in pass rush was rather noticeable and Father Time may be catching up with him. Other than Treadwell and perhaps Alexander, it shows the Vikings have extrapolated pretty good value out of their pickups.
Re: [Vikings OC] An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:21 pm
by halfgiz
Interesting read Funky.
Surprised that Remmers and Berger are the highest rated OL.
Some other interesting scores.
Thanks for sharing
Re: [Vikings OC] An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:06 pm
by Funkytown
S197 wrote:What is this good for? Absolutely nothing!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Hey! It's the offseason!
lol, jk.
Glad a couple of you found it interesting.
Re: [Vikings OC] An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:48 pm
by S197
Funkytown wrote:S197 wrote:What is this good for? Absolutely nothing!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Hey! It's the offseason!
lol, jk.
Glad a couple of you found it interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw
Re: [Vikings OC] An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 6:39 pm
by Funkytown
I knew what you were referring to.
You guys didn't post the Teddy Deep Ball Dive article over here? DP must be slacking!
Here is some discussion:
http://purplepainforums.com/thread/1016 ... ive?page=1
Re: [Vikings OC] An Attempt at Calculating WAR in the NFL
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:35 pm
by dead_poet
Funkytown wrote:DP must be slacking!
I'm not slacking. I was pouting. There's a difference.