PatsCast Episode 16 (with Aaron Schatz of FootballOutsiders.com

[BradyFTW!]

As some of our listeners may know, we're huge fans of Football Outsiders, so we've been looking forward to this one for a while. In the podcast, we discuss Aaron's optimistic outlook on the Pats for 2010. Specifically, we look at Brady and the offense in general from 2009, the relative impacts of Ty Warren and Logan Mankins, and the abundance of young talent on defense. We also go into some depth on Football Outsiders advanced statistics such as DVOA, YAC+, and SackSEER (with a discussion of Jermaine Cunningham's prospects, too).

As Aaron points out, no one loss can end an era, and ultimately that's what the Ravens game was. It was an ugly loss, but anyone who's written the Pats off is being set up for a reality check over the next few months. If you find this stuff interesting, I'd definitely recommend heading over to FootballOutsiders.com and grabbing a copy of the 2010 Football Outsiders Almanac.

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[WinstonSmith]

Good job guys. I’m very impressed – you got an A-list Foot Ball geek to discuss the Pats at length.

I agree with Aaron’s over all analysis – especially – 1. LOMO isn't just some Dancing with the Stars fool. 2. The Pats outside LB’s, while obviously not a strength, isn't the Achilles ’ heel of their pass rush. The increased talent levels within their DB’s and ILB’s ranks coupled with appropriate strategic defensive schemes will pick up some of the slack from the OLB position and will create enough pressure to sustain a championship level defense*.

I’ve been a fan of FO since its launch but I’ve yet to buy their Almanac - You can tell Aaron that I decided to buy ($12 online version because I’m a cheap bastard) the FO Almanac while listening to your podcast.


*only if combined with an exceptional offense.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Good job guys. I’m very impressed – you got an A-list Foot Ball geek to discuss the Pats at length.

I agree with Aaron’s over all analysis – especially – 1. LOMO isn't just some Dancing with the Stars fool. 2. The Pats outside LB’s, while obviously not a strength, isn't the Achilles ’ heel of their pass rush. The increased talent levels within their DB’s and ILB’s ranks coupled with appropriate strategic defensive schemes will pick up some of the slack from the OLB position and will create enough pressure to sustain a championship level defense*.

I’ve been a fan of FO since its launch but I’ve yet to buy their Almanac - You can tell Aaron that I decided to buy ($12 online version because I’m a cheap bastard) the FO Almanac while listening to your podcast.


*only if combined with an exceptional offense.

Thanks for the kind words! I'm afraid I can't take too much credit for convincing him to talk Pats; turns out he is a Patriots fan anyways, which I assume is why he agreed to come on the show. That's just fine with me, though~

FYI, the Jermaine Cunningham SackSEER writeup is on page 540. FO ranks Cunningham roughly on par with Koa Misi, so that's encouraging. I'd also suggest checking out Jason Pierre-Paul for hilarity's sake.

The HGH writeup on page 530, while not directly Patriots-related, is also really interesting.

 

[Deus Irae]

The difference between the "I can see for myself" and the "stats with context" is something I find fascinating, and it really applies with all sports. Thanks for this one!

 

[PatsChamp88]

Can you upload the episodes on youtube too? Then you can embed them on your two different blogs as well.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Can you upload the episodes on youtube too? Then you can embed them on your two different blogs as well.

I'm sure we can, I'll look into how we could do it. There's the time constraint issue (10 minutes?), but we could break it out into chunks, so that wouldn't be a major worry. We also usually put our podcasts up on Ustream, though we haven't done that for the last couple because people weren't really using it for the most part. That's definitely something that we could restart if the demand's there, though.

 

[BradyFTW!]

The difference between the "I can see for myself" and the "stats with context" is something I find fascinating, and it really applies with all sports. Thanks for this one!

I definitely agree, and that's why I think baseball has historically been so far ahead of the other major sports in advanced statistics: because it's much, much easier to determine context. The Football Outsiders guys have done as good a job as anyone for building context into their stats, though.

 

[Deus Irae]

I've been a defender of Watson because I think the TE "issues" have been due to factors beyond just the tight ends on the team, but I was surprised at the analysis of his game.

 

[PatsChamp88]

I'm sure we can, I'll look into how we could do it. There's the time constraint issue (10 minutes?), but we could break it out into chunks, so that wouldn't be a major worry. We also usually put our podcasts up on Ustream, though we haven't done that for the last couple because people weren't really using it for the most part. That's definitely something that we could restart if the demand's there, though.

Forgot about that stupid time constraint they should really remove that for audio but then again it's a video site...

 

[Deus Irae]

I definitely agree, and that's why I think baseball has historically been so far ahead of the other major sports in advanced statistics: because it's much, much easier to determine context. The Football Outsiders guys have done as good a job as anyone for building context into their stats, though.

Indeed. I'm a big fan of the "success rate" idea, although it still needs some tweaking. I can see where the Barry Sanders' types might end up as exceptions in such a metric, but I think looking for steady and solid is where a guy like Belichick makes most of his bones.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I've been a defender of Watson because I think the TE "issues" have been due to factors beyond just the tight ends on the team, but I was surprised at the analysis of his game.

Yeah, me too. Regardless of any small sample size issues, I was still mildly shocked to hear that he ranked out at the top. I suppose that makes him more of a "pretty good tight end who was used only in optimal situations", which sounds much closer to the truth than what most people were labeling him as.