Pats/Colts Structures (Suggestion for Miguel)

[PatsFanInVa]

Another thread got me thinking of different philosophies vis a vis the salary cap, which led me to compare some scatter plots derived from the numbers on Miguel's page, to scatter plots derived from ColtsCap, to which he links.

My eyes were opened. I do not say either approach is superior. We are looking at the two premier franchises in football. The Colts are the reigning champs, and the Pats have won 3 times in 6 years (but we're 2 removed from making a showing.)

I do say that, whether taking full rosters, full rosters down to # 53, or full rosters down to 53 at the bottom and kicking out the #1 salary at the top, these two teams' cap hits arrange themselves very differently.

This is a different discussion from "The top 3 players eat up X%." This goes to the top-to-bottom structure.

It is also a one-season (offseason at that), quick and dirty study.

But what you see if you plot them in excel, is a curve for the Pats - gentler if you remove Brady and some JAGS (the "2-53" method,) somewhat more bowed otherwise.

The Colts show a very sharp bow, almost a right angle, occuring somewhere south of the $2M mark. Where the Pats have a smoother progression, the Colts start having a smaller number of higher salaries.

By the way, their chart-topper by present counts is Freeney, followed by Harrison, and only then, Manning. Ours is far and away Tom Brady.

The comparison is striking, and I would urge anybody making statements about structures pursued by the teams to repeat the experiment, and look at the shape of the scatters. I am not saying one is better, or one is worse.

I am only saying, if we are able to collect data for, say, 5 years, and these curves bear out over time, it will make sense to talk about a Pioli Curve and a Polian Curve, or at least to think of them as having distinct philosophies with distinct implications.

I may come back to this when I don't have quite as much on my plate, but Miguel, I think throwing those scatterplots up using Top 53 players, would be cool for you and your capologist buddies... you'd be able to compare structures at a glance. Hopefully with a little coaxing, Excel will layer them on one single chart.

PFnV

 

[stinkypete]

Excellent, excellent analysis. Could you post a link to the plots themselves? I'm very interested in seeing them.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Pete, I've sent this as an attachment (you have to scroll down in this message to see it). The big fat chart on the bottom is the total Caps roster, with Brady... Inset 1 is same roster, but limited to 53 players, w/Brady lopped off. The other 2 are the Colts roster, raw, then Colts roster, w/Freeney lopped off, and limited to top 53.

You'll notice the distinct L shape of the Colts' plot, again, for what it's worth. Given the data, we could pick one range (say, 1-53) to use against 5 years of data, and watch how any curve morphed, and we could also see if shapes were characteristic.

PFnV

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Are these values cap hits to the team or cash to the player or just naked salary w/o bonus amortization?

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Sorry! Yes, these are cap hits to the team (not salary or some other number).

PFnV

You can check the work by going to Miguel's page, copying the data, deleting the columns not used (everything but "player" and "cap hit"), and running the "chart" function in excel (choose "scatter.") Then use Miguel's link to Colt$cap.com, lather, rinse, repeat. You have to re-sort the Coltscap ones, because they are alphabetic by name, instead of arranged by number.

 

[psychoPat]

.... what you see if you plot them in Excel, is a curve for the Pats - gentler if you remove Brady and some JAGS (the "2-53" method,) somewhat more bowed otherwise.

The Colts show a very sharp bow, almost a right angle, occuring somewhere south of the $2M mark. Where the Pats have a smoother progression, the Colts start having a smaller number of higher salaries.

.... I would urge anybody making statements about structures pursued by the teams to repeat the experiment, and look at the shape of the scatters.

.... if we are able to collect data for, say, 5 years, and these curves bear out over time, it will make sense to talk about a Pioli Curve and a Polian Curve, or at least to think of them as having distinct philosophies with distinct implications.

.... Miguel, I think throwing those scatterplots up using Top 53 players, would be cool for you and your capologist buddies... you'd be able to compare structures at a glance. Hopefully with a little coaxing, Excel will layer them on one single chart.

PFnV

PFnV has been willing to spend the time that many of us have only mused about doing. Good man!

What he has shown ... with a "hockey stick" for the Colts and a less concave curve for the Pats ...
is the robust middle class of New England.
That is the depth.
Some year the Colts may suffer more than a handful of injuries and get to test their "middle class".

I wouldn't lay the task on Miguel, but if anyone does care to take up this challenge
... i'd like to see cap expenditures by major position groups (OL, DL, WR, etc.)

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Couple of caveats:

Let's not forget that what we do have, and the Colts don't have (this year,) is that "outlier," meaning Brady.

If we take the one-year snapshot, we've conspicuously spent on him especially.

But you're right, the big difference between the curve and the hockey stick is the big number of guys the Pats have between 2 and 4 million... the Colts have a vertical pecking order from 8 million to under 2, then a lot of guys at under 2 million.

Again, it's a one-year snapshot. And yes, position breakdown would be interesting as well. I'd find it more interesting to run five years... I know I could do that on the Pats numbers, since Miguel has them. Don't know that the Colts page goes back beyond the present year.

I'm curious whether there is a Colts curve and a Pats curve, or whether this snapshot just shows how we presently stack up... I'll see if the Colts numbers and Pats numbers are still available.

PFnV

 

[Miguel]

If anyone wants to download the underlying workbook, it can be found at
http://www.patscap.com/2007capinfo.zip

There are no macros in it.

 

[Miguel]

Some year the Colts may suffer more than a handful of injuries and get to test their "middle class".

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...nfl/stories/011207dnsponflinjury.27b777c.html

 

[Miguel]

I wouldn't lay the task on Miguel, but if anyone does care to take up this challenge
... i'd like to see cap expenditures by major position groups (OL, DL, WR, etc.)

C 2948440
G 5278546
OT 5393672
RB 7563100
WR 8987292
TE 4751078
DE 11216880
DT 1277963
LB 17450260
CB 11570320
S 8707928
K 472970
LS 787720
P 1126720
QB 11861940
OL 13620658
RB 7563100
WR 8987292
TE 4751078
QB 11861940
DL 12494843
LB 17450260
Secondary 20278248
Special Teams 2387410
Grand Total 99394829
Offense 46784068
Defense 50223351
Special Teams 2387410
Grand Total 99394829

These numbers EXCLUDE Dead Money hits (Dillon, Bethel Johnson, etc.)

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Okay, first some caveats -

I did my copy/pasting from Miguel's web-site, rather than pulling from the underlying excels. This may have introduced a blank cell here and there, which took the place of one of the players, on the 53-man Pats chart. My bad... I discovered this while plotting the 2003-2006 Pats. This would only affect the range, i.e., where we cut off the right end of the chart, which is pretty flat to begin with.

A note on 2003: Brandin Gorin's number was not ranked on the web page in the order you'd expect to see it... I could have folded it in to make my curve nice and smooth, but I left it as an "outlier", because I think the 3+M Gorin got that year was a spend-to-the-cap move, and therefore possibly adds some info here (otherwise the shape would be a nice smooth curve -his player rank would go up, and he'd move to the left.)

Also - how quickly we forget! In 04 and 03, that top contract? It's Ty Law. Brady is your number 2 guy both years, stuck in the "upper middle class."

It's fun to watch our last 5 years of evolution this way... you can see Brady's hit climb away from the pack, obviously taking the place vacated by Law. I'm not sure if we had the Colts' last 5 (I did not find previous years,) that we'd end up with "hockey sticks" every year, and our 05 looks a lot like one as well, albeit still with a little more downslope to the "poor" end of the stick.

I'll let others draw more provocative conclusions.

 

[psychoPat]

Wow! That is SERVICE.
Thanks, M.!

Very informative fact-filled article has the Colts at 23rd-least-injured
... while Pats last season were tied for 21st.

The position sums require more study before i might glean any useful patterns.

Again ... much appreciated, Miguel.

 

[VJCPatriot]

Okay, first some caveats -

I did my copy/pasting from Miguel's web-site, rather than pulling from the underlying excels. This may have introduced a blank cell here and there, which took the place of one of the players, on the 53-man Pats chart. My bad... I discovered this while plotting the 2003-2006 Pats. This would only affect the range, i.e., where we cut off the right end of the chart, which is pretty flat to begin with.

A note on 2003: Brandin Gorin's number was not ranked on the web page in the order you'd expect to see it... I could have folded it in to make my curve nice and smooth, but I left it as an "outlier", because I think the 3+M Gorin got that year was a spend-to-the-cap move, and therefore possibly adds some info here (otherwise the shape would be a nice smooth curve -his player rank would go up, and he'd move to the left.)

Also - how quickly we forget! In 04 and 03, that top contract? It's Ty Law. Brady is your number 2 guy both years, stuck in the "upper middle class."

It's fun to watch our last 5 years of evolution this way... you can see Brady's hit climb away from the pack, obviously taking the place vacated by Law. I'm not sure if we had the Colts' last 5 (I did not find previous years,) that we'd end up with "hockey sticks" every year, and our 05 looks a lot like one as well, albeit still with a little more downslope to the "poor" end of the stick.

I'll let others draw more provocative conclusions.

Nice research and charting there. I like it. I notice how the Pats salaries crept up in 2005-2006 probably reflecting the increase in cap space. The middle class gets richer.

Surprisingly though when our middle class on average was poorer in 2003 and 2004 we won superbowls. Hmmm. I suppose that reflects the fact we got outstanding performance from our draft picks in those years and signed some good free agents on the cheap, harrison, vrabel, etc.?

 

[NormZauchin]

The Pats salary cap structure takes the form of what is known in science and statistics as a "power law": rare events with large magnitude, followed by increasingly more numerous events of ever decreasing size. Many natural phenomena and a good many human constructs follow power laws. To name a few: earthquakes, city populations, and the words of the English language (known as Zipf's law after the Harvard professor who discovered it). If you plot on the vertical axis the number of home runs hit in the majors by each player with, say 500 at bats, and start with the leader and then the second highest, etc., you get an almost perfect power law curve. I don't know what this says about the Patriots versus the Colts, except that maybe the Pats are more in harmony with the laws of nature.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

The Pats salary cap structure takes the form of what is known in science and statistics as a "power law": rare events with large magnitude, followed by increasingly more numerous events of ever decreasing size...

I think the distribution all must follow such a law, because the "rare event with large magnitude" will always occur on the left (first), since the X axis is simply the rank on the team, "followed" by the "increasingly more numerous events of ever decreasing size."

This is the case with all of the original graphs. The Colts 07 seems to have such a sharp curve that it resembles an angle, however, which probably makes it the exception rather than the rule, whereas the rule probably follows this "power law" more closely (just a guess.)

PFnV

 

[NormZauchin]

Power law curves are smooth. In Zipf's Law, the second position has a rate of occurence one-half that of the first, the third position a rate of occurence one-third that of the first, and so on. The Colts distribution has a kink - or mathematically speaking - a discontinuity, so it really wouldn't be considered as a power law distribution.