Hello. A new season has begun and new reasons for joy seem to begin. But then let's immediately remove from the road the most painful (at least for me) story. It may well be … not even so. Surely you are now reading the last. . .

Sofa Kvutterbek: arrived

Hello. A new season has begun and new reasons for joy seem to begin. But then let's immediately remove from the road the most painful (at least for me) story. It may well be … not even so. Surely you are now reading the last release of the sofa quota. Yes, unfortunately, in the offseason, not only blown away, the balls, drove the cars into prison. Some received a slightly wider field of responsibility on their heads on their own, hmm. Therefore, having evaluated my updated opportunities (or, rather, impossibility), I warned my colleagues on the site in March, that the recreation center would be more likely to rest this year. In May, I already had no doubt about this – because it was then that I finished the translation of one material (it will be used below in this article), which began in January! Four months to transfer 20 thousand characters?! It was a huge red flag, with which an understanding of severe reality came.

But in fact, even with the advent of an understanding in the need to “chop the ropes”, such decisions are very difficult. Because normal people just can’t chop off what brings them pleasure. And from writing this column, I received little with a comparable pleasure. So, take my word for my word – these letters to fill quite sadly. But, as usual in this crazy world, no specific phenomenon stops the general whirl of events. The world will not turn over, will not disappear into tartarara, hell will not open and will not absorb all things. Just very, very, very small part of it will go a little different branch. So I want to express my gratitude to everyone for the opportunity, for the support and expressed criticism that have been allocated to me over the past four years. It was an invaluable experience and awesome pastime. Thank you!
Who would have thought that the sofa quota will retire earlier than Tom Brady or Paiton Manning? But unlike them, my work is bulging me from the field of American football, and for them American football is work. Here are the lucky assholes.
Spoon of honey in a barrel of tar: In order to somehow brighten up the sadness of the closing of the blog, the final note will be a record in volume in the entire history of the column.

Rewinding back: Over the past six months, only the lazy did not write his detailed opinion about Deflaitgate. And it turned out that I was just the lazy list and I relate. For now.
I wrote this part several times and erased it again.Then he wrote again, erased again, and so on several more times. Because the topic is so unpleasant that it is about nothing and everything at the same time, it is tired, but it is not going to go anywhere, and in addition, it pushes me head-on with the widest American-football fan base on the Runet. But, the football gods see, throughout the life of this column, the author has never shied away from skirmishes with no-huddle fans, Andy Luck's personal fans, or even the supporters of The Greatest Franchise. So that. About deflategate means about deflategate.
Let's first go back to what were the hot topics in the off-season: – domestic violence; – drunk driving; – life sentence for murder; – multiple retirements of very young players; – deflate-gate. The first three (the third, as a sooooo stretched case of the first) themes are so familiar to the NFL that they hardly go unnoticed at all. The fourth one made a lot of noise. What happened to the NFL, with its players, that led to such serious steps? Isn't something rotten in the Danish kingdom? This, I think, will be the main theme in the coming years. In the same year, item number five was the main one – because it led to the fact that my unconscious reaction to any seen photo of Tom Brady was: “Here you are a cheater, friend.” Honestly. And this despite the fact that I initially used the deflate gate only as a source of funny situations.
Therefore, I decided to tell about the evolution of my attitude to this story, and about how and why this story was bound to become a scandal. First, let's recall the chronology of the ball pressure epic: 1) The first mention in January of blowing balls and the vast majority of fans have the same reaction: “WTF?! Seriously? 2) The case not only did not die out, but was developed in the form of a press conference by Bill Belichick and his indifferent, even almost accusatory: Ask Tom. 3) Tom was asked. His conference with a constant look at the floor, rubbing his nose and hiding under his hat in general could become material for someone for a good dissertation in physiognomy. Unfortunately, this someone will not be in time, because almost immediately it came to the point that even the FBI agents (.) did it all. 4) A video appears on the network, which depicts a member of the staff of the Patriots, secluded in some room for a minute and a half with a bag of game balls. 5) The Super Bowl has passed and everyone, it seems, has become indifferent to the topic of lowering balls. Until the Wells Report came out. And there are some incomprehensible correspondence of equipment managers, scientific justifications for blowing off balls and even a statistical analysis of the inadequacy of the pressure drop in them. 6) Thanks to the Wells Report, the phrase more probable than not enters the English language, apparently forever. 7) There are several critiques of the scientific content of the Wells Report, each with its own flaws.Then he wrote again, erased again, and so on several more times. Because the topic is so unpleasant that it is about nothing and everything at the same time, it is tired, but it is not going to go anywhere, and in addition, it pushes me head-on with the widest American-football fan base on the Runet. But, the football gods see, throughout the life of this column, the author has never shied away from skirmishes with no-huddle fans, Andy Luck's personal fans, or even the supporters of The Greatest Franchise. So that. About deflategate means about deflategate.
Let's first go back to what were the hot topics in the off-season: – domestic violence; – drunk driving; – life sentence for murder; – multiple retirements of very young players; – deflate-gate. The first three (the third, as a sooooo stretched case of the first) themes are so familiar to the NFL that they hardly go unnoticed at all. The fourth one made a lot of noise. What happened to the NFL, with its players, that led to such serious steps? Isn't something rotten in the Danish kingdom? This, I think, will be the main theme in the coming years. In the same year, item number five was the main one – because it led to the fact that my unconscious reaction to any seen photo of Tom Brady was: “Here you are a cheater, friend.” Honestly. And this despite the fact that I initially used the deflate gate only as a source of funny situations.
Therefore, I decided to tell about the evolution of my attitude to this story, and about how and why this story was bound to become a scandal. First, let's recall the chronology of the ball pressure epic: 1) The first mention in January of blowing balls and the vast majority of fans have the same reaction: “WTF?! Seriously? 2) The case not only did not die out, but was developed in the form of a press conference by Bill Belichick and his indifferent, even almost accusatory: Ask Tom. 3) Tom was asked. His conference with a constant look at the floor, rubbing his nose and hiding under his hat in general could become material for someone for a good dissertation in physiognomy. Unfortunately, this someone will not be in time, because almost immediately it came to the point that even the FBI agents (.) did it all. 4) A video appears on the network, which depicts a member of the staff of the Patriots, secluded in some room for a minute and a half with a bag of game balls. 5) The Super Bowl has passed and everyone, it seems, has become indifferent to the topic of lowering balls. Until the Wells Report came out. And there are some incomprehensible correspondence of equipment managers, scientific justifications for blowing off balls and even a statistical analysis of the inadequacy of the pressure drop in them. 6) Thanks to the Wells Report, the phrase more probable than not enters the English language, apparently forever. 7) There are several critiques of the scientific content of the Wells Report, each with its own flaws.8) As a result of the resulting chaos, the fans were free to choose: what do they believe, who do they believe (Wells or his critics) and what is more important – physics and statistics or text messages and cooperation with the investigation? 9) At the end of June, an 11-hour (. ) hearing on Tom Brady's appeal was held. 10) During the hearing, it turned out that Tom Brady, it turns out, destroyed his phone in March before a meeting with investigators in the deflategate case. 11) A month after the hearing, the NFL confirmed a 4-game suspension for the Patriots' star quarterback. 12) A team of lawyers is preparing to save Tom Brady from disqualification in a New York court. The hearing will take place tomorrow (August 12, 2015).
In fact, the last point is not even particularly important. He will not answer the question: Is Tom Brady to blame for the fact that something was wrong with the balls? The court will look at whether the NFL behaved in accordance with the collective agreement. So, similarly, earlier this year, the court sided with runner Adrian Peterson, not the NFL, although, it seems, no one disputed his guilt in the domestic violence case. So don't expect any revelations from tomorrow's hearings, unless, of course, someone from the Patriots staff comes out with completely new data. I wouldn't be surprised, but the chances of it happening are extremely low.
In general, the whole story was an extremely amusing spectacle. It seemed, and even now it seems that before our eyes the mountain (NFL) gave birth to a mouse (the theme of lowering balls). I remember that the moment when the NFL issued fines to the Patriots in May for their fair play violations, personally, seemed to me the climax of the farce that was taking place. Because after the distribution of fines, which were supposed to be the point in this case, there were even more questions. But from all parties to the conflict in response to silence.
What about further answers? For example, I have a question: how long have cheaters been using their cheat? Isn't anyone interested? Why was the famous “ignorance is not an excuse” argument not used and the main leadership of the Patriots (i.e. Kraft or there Belichick) did not fly out of their posts for the whole season? Why is Brady suspended for four games and not, say, five? In addition to the farce, why does the suspension end exactly before the match with the Colts?
There were no answers.And there couldn't have been, because the NFL, during Goodell's tenure, was never able to adequately bring even one high-profile case to an end. Always some leaks, plums, oversights and fog. So let's not pay attention to the poor, but return to the defendants in the case from the other side.
It seems to me that after all this action (video, statistics, correspondence, phones, etc.), any sane person had no doubt that the Boston franchise was doing something so tricky with balls bypassing the rules of the game. It remained only to determine the answers to several important questions: 1) Could Tom Brady be unaware of the antics of his staff in particular and the requirements of the NFL for footballs in general? 2) Did blowing the balls provide any advantage to the Patriot team? 3) And finally, what punishment would be adequate for such an offense?
The answers to these questions will help us find the logic (my logic is the weak point of this concept, since your logic may be different) and the opinion of relevant people.
First of all, I don't allow a single thought that the staff even in Jacksonville, not to mention the helpers of the best passer of this century, can do something with the balls without the knowledge of the main fighting unit of the team. Secondly, my logic tells me that the man who was one of the main promoters of the rule that allows each team to prepare their own balls for games knew quite a lot about these very rules for preparing balls. And thirdly, colleagues in the field (for example, Montana, Manning Jr. and Breeze) have expressed a number of opinions over the past six months that it is easy for a passer with sufficient practice, like Tom Brady, to distinguish the level of pumping the ball with an accuracy of almost 0 .1 psi.
Now, what gives an underinflated ball? Purely aerodynamically, such a ball is more difficult to throw over long distances – less mass, more loose relief. But the Patriots did not need this, they have been playing a short-mid-pass game exactly since they introduced the fashion for the slot receiver (Welker, Edelman).And it is in this component that the unnecessary ball gives its advantages – the fingers are denser in the ball, allowing it to be more accurate to deliver to short distances, it is easier to catch short -tired guns of the receivers due to the loose structure of the ball.
If my reasoning about the first two questions seem slightly far -fetched to you, then I am ready to add you another “far -fetched” for boring weight. Connect such logic to this. Imagine that a team that wins about ten games every one and a half decades, decides to use such a bypass interpretation of the rules for pumping balls. Introduced? Well, that is, think for yourself, every year you win 10+ games and do you really decide on such an absurd adventure, not being sure that it will significantly give you something? After all, otherwise it turns out that if the blowing does not give anything, then those who implemented it and participated in inventing are the ended idiots. But, my opinion is that Tom Brady is not an idiot, he, hmm, is a sly (let it be so), and therefore the logic here is on the side of the fact that blowing significantly helped the work of the ball promotion around the field, only because it existed.
So, somewhere in June, after many hours of thought, I came to the conclusion that the fundamental basis of sports was impudently violated-the purity of the game. Yes, the same thing that stuffed the Integrit. And before considering the last issue regarding punishment, let's look at what the purity of the game is and how to fight for it, because such cunning will always exist.
What is Integrity perfectly makes it clear in its interview with the legendary sports agent Lee Steinberg, who at one time became a prototype for the protagonist of the famous film “Jerry Maguire”. The interview is awesome – the person clearly knows what he is talking about. And the very first answer in that interview shed light on the topic of honesty in sports. In general, the bottom line is that the concept of “purity of the game” is the most important thing is that it holds spectators at the screens.They must believe that everything happens under equal conditions and only the skills of players and the mind of coaches determine the outcome of the struggle. Any undermining of this confidence is terrible for business (in this case for NFL).
A little later, I read that about the same thirty years earlier he also said the most famous commissioner of NFL Pit Rosell, when he had a lifetime disqualified the Kvoterma Schlichter quota (it would tell a separate story, but if briefly, then he was played on the totalizer, and now Sitting in prison). Here is what Rosell said then: “Despite my sympathy for art and the awareness of his painful addiction to gambling, I must say that the NFL player with such a track record in the field of totalizers cannot be allowed before participating in the games until the league is until the league It will not be sure that those violations that were committed to them before will not be repeated from now on. The confidence of the audience in the honesty of playing football obliges me to make such a decision.
That is, understand? Not a conscience, the moral or book of NFL rules obliges, but the confidence of the audience in the honesty of the game. And if any rot is kneaded in this confidence, then fans begin to quickly reject the product, and the league, in order to maintain the status quo, is obliged to act quickly and rigidly. As soon as after the “Wells report”, the nozzles of fans began among the fans-Bah-Bangammer sank into patriots. The nozzles-shoes stopped and most of the fans again began to calmly wait for the start of the season. The integrity for them was restored.
That's just my personal Brekhny detector went off scale. At first it seemed to me that the patriots were punished well, too harshly. However, this was a deceptive impression that formed against the background of the fact that I initially did not believe that they would be punished. There were days, there was time to think over everything and I realized that this was a props, and not a punishment at all. Seriously, well, look at how in normal organizations they hit the violators of the purity of sports. Lance Armstrong – Goodbye titles, hello oblivion! Pete Rose is absolutely the same! Turin Juventus – goodbye titles, hello the lower league for the first time in the history of the club! Yes, even take an example of the previously mentioned shlichter or recent Baunthegite.That is how it should work everywhere, that is how the viewer retains, letting him know what kind of cleanliness of the game is exactly what they are fighting! And why did the NFL fight, imposing a fine of 1/150 of the Salary-Cap, taking a couple of drafts and removing the quota-Turner for four games from the team that was never famous for the games at the start of the season, but always rolled to the playoffs? This, as the Americans say, is a slap on the arm, not punishment.
The fine power is also confirmed by the opinion of the famous Linbekker Ravens and Jets Bart Scott, who said a couple of months ago: “If someone had told me that I will have a chance to win a super-beard, if you lower a couple of goals, then I am easy I would have exchanged such an opportunity even for a fine of $ 20 million and all the draft peaks. ” Here you have the root of the problem – no one wants to play honestly and is not afraid of punishment, because it is insignificant. There is no incentive to play honestly.
This indirectly confirms the legend of NFL Joe Montana: “Everyone is trying to come up with something cunning. Our attacks of the attack used a sticky spray until they were caught. And when you were caught, you must be punished. No questions. I do not want to say that the whole career of Tom is now unclean, but the question is: how long did he use unnecessary balls? No one knows. You see, this is one of those things that are spelled out in the rules. Yes, it can be a stupid rule, but this is a rule. Tom, of course, did not let down the balls himself, but as a quoterbek you can always easily say they are pumped, unproving or such as it should only touched them. Everyone is afraid to say this out loud, but if Tom was somehow involved in this matter, then what is this in this? Just bear the punishment and move on. It's OK.
Hmm, here you have one. Another confirmation that the incentive to play honestly is not. After all, you can just be punished. It is only a pity that it is extremely cheap in the present days of NFL.
What was the punishment? And should it be at all? Here it is necessary to make a reservation that fans of patriots are absolutely true to San Diego, Atlanta and other clubs, where Integrit was also violated.They correctly indicate that the “witch hunt” is being conducted. But they only forget that this is how it should be. To eradicate something, you need to make an example on someone. Everyone would have spit on an example based on San Diego, but a witch from patriots is such a good, fat witch. Therefore, NFL did everything right. Crookedly, obliquely, stupidly, but in general is true. So it was with Spyegeite and the Baunthegite, on someone always made an example. On someone strong and significant.
In some ways, I even understand the fans of New England. No seriously. Five years ago, when the League suddenly decided to tighten the rules for tackling, she needed to make an example from someone, find the most suitable witch. That's right, I quit James Harrison. Overnight, the League forbade playing the head and shoulders and made James an outcast, rewarding him with even post -facts, i.e. For the hits that were made before the introduction of a new rule. At the same time, at that moment there were headhangers and worse, such as Brandon Merivezer, etc. Ward or even Harrison's teammate Ryan Clark. None of them was awarded half the fines of Harrison. Because the names are too weak. But James was a top linbekker and the current best defender of the NFL, an ideal candidate. On James’s career, this affected little, but on the reputation – very (do not be mistaken, I do not detract from Harrison's “merits”, I only show that a gorgeous example was made on his basis). Few people now doubt that Harrison is the dirtiest player in the NFL, although he has several times less disqualifications than Ndamong Su or the same Mariweger. But they would not have turned out to be an ideal witch. And from James it is. Of course, he does not reach the level of patriots, and therefore his opal did not cause a wide resonance, although he even (in 2011) in an interview said exactly the same thing that the patriots say now-“Hoodlle of a doll, which cannot be respected” . So, if you still consider me a hater of patriots, then I won’t dissuade you, this is your right, but I want to say that I approximately understand how you feel.It was just necessary for the League that it was necessary to do this, and Boston was an ideal target – they linked themselves and lured the league, for which they received a well -deserved, albeit very modest, even alienating, punishment.
What is the result? In the dry remnant, this stupid farce gave me only one answer – the honesty of the game is much more important to me than most fans and it is quite possible that even more than the NFL itself. And this one angers me. This condition was described by Mike Tanya three years ago (then the author of the Football Outsiders website, and now the columnist on the Bleacherreport portal) against the backdrop of the Bountyeite developed then: “Let's be angry and indignant about these scandals, but not because we hate teams involved In them, and because we really love football. ” And I admit, I love this cool game very irrationally for our latitudes and I hope that there will be no more similar nonsense (Baunthegite, Defletegate). Because, I don’t know how you are, but the current story was worth one great athlete – after all, when I look at any photo of Tom Brady, the first thing I unconsciously think is “And you are a friend, a dirty Chiter!” And, believe me, I'm not the only one, and therefore I have one question for Brady: Was it worth it? That's just, unfortunately, I’m sure that both Patriots will say to you: “Yes, absolutely, it was worth a hundred times.”
P.S: In the offseason, I began to read the autobiography of the famous commentator Ela Michaels and, although I had not yet managed to overpower it, nevertheless, I caught a couple of interesting points. I will give a small passage. Being in the 70s of the last century an employee of Cincinnati Reds, El was closely familiar with their main star – Pete Rose. And after the MLS accused Pete of all kinds of gambling divisions associated with baseball, she removed him from participating in the games and forever forbade him to be elected into the Glory Hall of MLS. Rose always denied, said that all this is a lie, that he did not bet on games, although it was even clear to everyone that he was to blame.Michaels writes that Pete denied all the accusations for so long that he even began to believe in his inventions. And El once in a personal conversation said to Rose: Pete, one day you will simply have to tell the whole truth. Years passed and everything remained in their places, until in 2004 in his autobiography, Pete Rose still told the truth: he played on a totalizer at MLS matches! Ehm. Please send someone Ela Michaels to the New Hingland office Patriots.
Documentary film
: It is very likely that by the current moment you have repeatedly heard about the analytical and statistical website of the ProfootBallfocus. But did you know that he was created as a person remotely remotely from NFL? His founding father is the British Nile Hornsby. He threw a rather profitable job to do the analysis of American football games. In total, during its existence, a site that began with a ridiculous attendance of 80 people a week has grown to the level of a company consisting of 80 employees, on the way changing the appearance of football statistics and, in some way, even the face of the league.
What began ten years ago in provincial English Luton with a small exotic hobby is now no longer a job of love of business, now it is a serious business. At the end of the season 2014-15. The Nile had 13 NFL clubs in the clients (this, for a second, is 40% of the league), including seven clubs that hit the playoffs last season. Eighty people are working on processing and analysis of the video, on the collection of the most diverse data, while being in completely different corners of the globe – from California to Ireland.
The site so quickly gained popularity, but a year ago, the next wave of fame was added to him by the famous cinzinnati Bengalls receiver, and now a wonderful commentator, Chris Colinsworth, who made a decent investment of his own funds in the development of the PFF. Now the trade union -boldocus penetrates the NFL’s life that their data is quoted almost everywhere, almost being an industrial standard.The only thing that ordinary fans do not know is that the amount of data they see on the PFF website, even in its paid part, is actually only a drop in the sea of ​​the information that the site customers in the NFL receive.
PFF performs any, even seemingly completely ridiculous requests of customers to search for information that they consider important: for example, measurement to hundredths of a second, the time of the ball of the ball during panta, the indicators about which direction the center looks immediately after SNEP, like a guideline, like a guideline The team considers the one from the guard weaker. In addition, the PFF has its own computer application in which all the draws are loaded that took place last season (32,779 pieces). The appendix reflects absolutely all the details, including the initial placement of receivers, their distance to the drawing line, made by mosyns and traveled routes. Moreover, all this information is related to the video, so if you wish, at any time you can immediately look at the draw and connect the numbers with a real picture.
All this data is used by both the head coach and his assistants in almost half of the league clubs. And when you understand that all this became possible thanks to the efforts of a man who had never spent a single Down, even at the student level, who generally lived on the other side of the Atlantic away from the NFL, you just wonder. And if we take into account that with most of his subordinates, Neil Hornsby, as I saw, is seen only on Skype, then this is simply absolutely phenomenal success contrary to all logic.
To look at the “inside” PFF, let's go back to September last year. In the suburbs of London, an employee of PF HALADE ELSEED is a description of the Redskins-Yaants match. Khaled stood at 04:30 a.m. local time in order to have time to collect all the data by the moment when customers in the USA will come in the USA. Elsaed works at the full rate at the PFF, analyzing the NFL matches from his own apartment in Stoke Newwington.While his fiancée sleeps peacefully in the next room, Khaled is already halfway through the second quarter of the game. The next play is the usual three-yard run by Andre Williams. But even after such an ordinary event, the Excel spreadsheet receives more than 30 records from Khaled's cursor. At the first viewing of the draw, general data is entered. Was there a timeout? N – no. Know Huddle? N – no. Snap point? L is like a left hashmark. Shotgun? Y – yes. Trick play? N – no. The runner didn't change the trajectory, but if he did, Khaled would note this and even why he did it (because of the defender or of his own free will). Yards after contact? 2. Who was the first contact? 31R is number 31 for the Redskins. Takeaway concept? C – cutback. Etc.
– There are a lot of different little things in this game, each of which one or another coach considers important. For example, one club wants us to record whether a defender was met by an offensive lineman before he made a tackle on the runner,” says Elsayed, “a lot of data that at first, and even at second glance, seems useless. But NFL teams love the little things.
Then Khaled rewinds the rally and looks beyond the offensive line, giving points to the players of those positions that are practically not analyzed by anyone at all. The offensive line is usually bypassed by statistical sites. Khaled immediately notices that rookie left guard Weston Richburg did a great job of closing Jason Jenkins's defensive end, keeping him out of the left A-gap. Richburg gets a positive score. His two colleagues in the central part of the on-line were much less fortunate. JD Center. Walton tried to block the linebacker and blurred the block, and the right guard John Jerry allowed his ward to pass into the defended gap. Both received a negative score.
These scores are extremely often criticized by the PFF from other analytical sites, as well as players, coaches, and sometimes even the company's clients themselves. What is the criticism?
“They take a subjective assessment and then translate it into numerical meaning with a few signs after the comma, giving it the appearance of objective significance,” says the author of the Bleacherreport site Mike Tanya, this is how the data is given the aroma of scientific, although it seems to be not in this component, this is me And bothers.
PFF sets his grade for each draw in each season match on a scale from -2 to +2. To clarify the scale, we will again turn to the game that Elsaeda analyzed. In it, only one draw received a minimum rating of “minus 2”. She was “awarded” by the queenerbek of Washington Kirk Kazins for the fact that at the very end of the third quarter he did not read the obvious zone cover and abandoned a stupid interception.
The idea of ​​assessments is to evaluate the player’s actions at each draw, especially this was important for those players for whom the collected traditional statistics are doubtful, or it is not at all. The prototype of the idea was invented by the Nile in the 80s of the last century. Then he only acquired a cable channel showing American football. To begin with, in order to understand who was the best on the field, the Nile used the assessment methodology invented by Paul Zimmerman (the legendary journalist athletes illustrated, better known under the pseudonym Dr. Z), which he based on the study of the video. As a result, after many brainstorms, the Nile created a 106-page grading manual, which is now used by all his subordinates. This manual is as detailed as it was possible to do. For example, in it 71 the word is assigned to the explanation of the rare term “Wham Block” and explained three (and only three) possible options when the attack linman can get a positive grade with a launcher on a defender.
PFF experts in the analysis of games are not left in the care of themselves, they often use the help of others. So, when Khaled doubts the correctness of the assessment, he marks the jokes to ask the opinions of colleagues or revise them later when other videos (television or All-22) will be available.In order not to forget his doubts, he puts comments like: “I'm not too liberal?”, When he evaluates the pass in the touchdown of Ilai Manning with an assessment of +1. Was it a good throw that beat the defender, or just Dibek “blown up” his responsibilities in defense? New All-22 videos help in the assessment. Indeed, sometimes distant defenders (most often sifts) appear in the broadcast frame only at the end of the draw. But how to understand was it so conceived, or did the player read the draw perfectly and ran from the other end of the field? No way. And until the All-22 is released, no ratings on such draws are exhibited.
The analysis of one game takes six hours Elsayed. Now he is one of the top analysts of the PFF, although he caught the “disease” of the NFL by accident or, as he himself says, “one drunken night at the university.” A little later, at a meeting of NFL fans in England, he met with Nile Hornsby. It is the fans from that very meeting that are now the backbone of the PF.
“This is incredibly strange,” says Khaled, “some incomprehensible guys from the UK helped create a new industry based on the most popular American game from scratch.”
And this new industry grew by day, but by the hour. What was laid down at a meeting of fans in England quickly moved over the ocean.
Visconsin. Two hours riding Green-Bay, PFF analyst Nathan Yankke lives. He is distinguished by the technique of filling out statistics “On the fly”, that is, in the course of the game. For a faster assessment of the situation on the field, Nathan remembers everything about the players: the color of the laces, tattoos, hairstyles to quickly identify them during the broadcast. He begins with the fact that before the draw, he writes the whole arrangement of the players, both relative to the line of Skrimmed and relative to other players. In the attack, receivers and taide ends receive the following markers: L (left), R (right), SL (Left slot), SR (slot right), SLI (slot on the left inside), SLO (slot on the left) if the player is worth On the drawing line, then the^^il venue is attributed to him.
In addition to the arrangement, Yanka puts marking everything that players do on the field. For example, if the tita end goes to the block, then he is placed “K,” there are also different tags for cases when the player begins the draw from the reference position at two points or at three. Any player is not from the line that goes to the pass-rash will receive the ZA marker, and if the line of protection goes to Kaveraj, he receives “v.” All these markers Yankke did not come up with himself. Each of the NFL coaches uses a similar technique when creating games on games. The only difference is that the coaches are spent on such an analysis for a lot of time, but after the game you still need to do the analysis of the next opponent. This is the car of time. The PFF report is ready for 06:00 following the game of the day.
Yanka, which grew up a fan of Badges and Packers, decided to apply for a job in Pro Football Focus in 2010. He scored enough points in the test analysis of the match, then he took up experience, being employed in the PF for partial employment, and only then moved there for a full time.
– Every week I analyze a quarter of all games. So I already recognize almost who and where and where on the field, which teams have what trends in their games, ”says Nathan.
These trends help to form the basis of a geimplane contained in the weekly report, which the PFF is sent to their clients. There are all basic arrangements, staff, number of draws, the success of the game, etc. This year, the PFF added to this list not only the tree of all the routes of receivers, but also the exact marks of the beginning and end of the Mouses, and all the sets of the technician that each linen uses is also included there. All this is loaded into a program that allows you to easily filter the draws for each of these parameters, and besides, each draw is tied to the video. And all in order for the coach to come to work in the morning and he already has a lot of material for parsing.
For example, here is such a coach – Gunther Cunningham, senior assistant coach Detroit Lyons. The day after the end of conferences, he sits at his usual workplace at the headquarters of Detroit Lviv.It's been two weeks since the Lions lost to the Cowboys, but Cunningham continues to parse the game with PFF data. A fan of analytics and statistics, as he describes himself, the 68-year-old Cunningham first began analyzing matches on a computer back in 1991, when he worked as a linebacker coach for the Oakland Raiders. He turned to the PFF analysis three years ago as the Lions' defense coordinator. At the same time, Gunther himself continues to analyze the records of the games, but in terms of the amount of information and the speed of receiving, it is impossible for him to compete with the PFF, because now it takes him a few seconds to select all the draws of Dallas from the shotgun formation that they played in the previous five games. Then the found material is also quickly sorted into groups according to the type of personnel used on the field, then according to the routes of the receivers and according to the situations on the field – then some trends in the Dallas game become visible. – As soon as you understand the idea that the opponent implements in a given situation, then having players like Ndamukon Su
(Guenther didn't know that in the off-season Su would go to the Dolphins – approx. DK)
and Ziggy Anse can be quite inventive to let them off the leash on the quarterback. It's no longer a matter of solving the mysteries of the attack – now it's all about the quality of the draw, says Cunningham.
In his current role, Cunningham prepares early week scouting reports for Detroit's next challengers. After the game with Dallas, a 600-page report on the Seattle attack was left on his desk, because Detroit never got to them in the playoffs.
In addition to reporting on opposing teams, the PFF also helps coaches evaluate their players. Moreover, this assessment/grade is important not only for coaches, but also for managers with a correct financial assessment. However, as noted above, it is this assessment that causes the most fierce debate in many circles in the NFL. Vikings trainer Mike Zimmer is one of the site's most vocal critics.
“I guarantee that they have no idea who is in our blitz-picking of draws and what responsibilities,” he says, “therefore I ask you to treat their estimates.”
Patriots coach Bill Bilichik answered one of the press conferences about his protective draws with an indefinite collision with analytical sites, clearly referring to PFF: “I am sure that the Internet will help you in this, such as Pro Football Extra or like that. Gunter Cunningham agrees with part of this criticism, especially with what Zimmer says. After all, even being a protective coordinator of Lviv, he understood how difficult it is to keep in his head at all, what every player should do in a particular arrangement with a fan -shaped set of his duties. So the assessment of players from the PF without knowledge of what the player had to do on a particular draw, as he says, what the site is still behind. But in addition to frantic criticism, Gunther says that there is another side in the PFF grading. After all, the NFL coaches also give grades after each game and often they give their beloved players high grades, or they themselves overstate the assessment for how they successfully put the player on a particular draw. When last year one of the players of Lviv
(Unfortunately, I never managed to “excuse” who is talking about – approx. DK)
He said that PFF’s assessments were too low, then Cunningham raised his personal analysis and compared it to what the PFF had. Then, having two data sets in his hands, he approached this player.
“I explained to him quite popularly how the PFF grades were received,” Gunter says, “but most importantly, I showed him that PFF got to the point when it was evaluated.”
So Cunningham considers PFF assessments as an additional scout look. Another fraction of information that can help.
– For a long time I have been in the NFL and the data for me is very important. In football, a lot can be obtained from data analysis and video analysis. Several times at the beginning of the century I thought about organizing my business and investing my funds in it when I tie up with a coaching career.But these young guys ahead of me by millions of light years.
Yes, these young guys really successfully entered the empty market. And the most amazing thing is that they take almost everywhere. We already know that the PFF contains British, Indians, scientists from Vincenskinsin. But, get acquainted, and another unexpected participant.
Steve Palazzolo “killed” eight years of his life, playing the Pitcher’s position in lower baseball leagues. His dream was to get into the MLB, but today his work is the analysis of football games. The change occurred in 2012. He planned to play another season as a closer in the team of the independent baseball league of the WORCESter Tornadoes because they were next to his home in Massachusetts. But the team was allowed to have only four veterans (players who spent more than six years in the League) and then a fairly famous character took his place.
“Jose Kansseko finished my career,” says Palazzolo.
Steve was always passionate about the baseball sabermetric and he came across a PF when he was looking for the same analysis of football games as in baseball, so that fans would better understand what the game consists of. After he became a full -fledged PFF analyst, calls with invitations from baseball leagues resumed – his name was for the role of a scout or coach of the pitchers. He refused.
He spent last season as the main driving forces of a completely new PFF direction – the analysis of NCAA colleges. The transition to the college games was a very smart business initiative that opened access to a broader fan base, and also gave the main client (NFL clubs) another pool of information in preparation for the draft. But this move was not easy – an increase in the analysis of almost 800 games per year at colleges to what was done for NFL (I recall, only 267 games of the year). This is a very large volume. To process all this information at Steve, there are three computers at the house, one of which is practically “shakes” the games in colleges “shakes” games in colleges.
Analysis of students' games is a gold core, which will help NFL maneuver teams among the avenues as they do in the Free Agents in the NFL. The grades clearly indicate the best and worst games of beginners. So, for example, for Jameis Winston, these were games with Boston College (the best) and with Florida (worst). The data also help to determine what a player’s skill is, how he throws average throws or how he copes with pressure.
– The main Scout of one NFL team told us: “Guys, we are looking for unpainted diamonds, players who are not visible to anyone, and then suddenly appear out of nowhere in their second or third years,” says the Palazzolo, “and I can’t wait until I wait We will have several years of analytical information to evaluate these “slipers”. I am almost sure that many of these low -round breakthroughs in our system would be appreciated very highly. It’s just that in the NFL they often become victims of non -football terms such as “weak college”, “short hands”, “low growth”, “dark past” and the like.
In front of the PFF draft, the Kvaterbek Marcus Mariota was put in first place in pure osmic qualities, and Winston was only somewhere in the middle of the Kvutterbekov pool. But with the consideration of all the information (in other words, with the context), a clearer picture is obtained: Mariota came across pressure twice as less often than Winston in 2014. This is where such a difference is possible. PFF also noted that Winston played better against Blitz than against the traditional pass-rash. Both quoters play the Rollouts poorly. Mariota used Plai Explosions by 51% of his dropbacks, while Winston is only 16%. For comparison – in the NFL the maximum was at Philadelphia (they resorted to Plai Explosions for 33% of the draws). It is in these data that the reasons for which many analysts doubt the Marcus Mariot lies: he looked good in the exotic system in college, but how will this help him in the NFL? Mystery. To help with such answers, the PFF just hopes in the coming years to start student football.
PFF grows and changes so quickly that it is easy to forget how long and how accidentally this site has appeared at all. In 1985, Neil Hornsby spent 85 pence to buy TouchDown magazine and was fascinated by all these tables and graphs, because before that he saw only slices of the best moments on television. Later he bought a collection of NFL record books and spent almost the entire 1990 year on entering this data to the computer, hoping to make the NFL Internet encyclopedia. He replenished his base for 10 years until his hopes collapsed in 2003, when he stumbled upon Pro-football-reference.com.
But only six months later, Pro Football Focus came to his mind, but the site collected only 80 visits per week at its start. Nile lived in Luton and was the owner of the consulting business on how to conduct business processes. By 2008, the football hobby was so absorbed by the Nile that it became his own business process. Together with Ben Stokevell, another NFL fan from England, they finished analysis of the 2008 season game of the 2008 season, exactly a week before the 2009th season began. Nile hired Stockwell for a full time, as well as at the same moment he hired Haled Elsayed and Sam Monson, who lived in Dublin. He paid the salary from his own pocket, because the PFF did not bring income yet.
The four of them took upon themselves the difficult process of analyzing all the games of one week before the other began. It was work on wear. But precisely during that starting season, John Berger, the senior director of football information, Jayants, decided to contact them.
“At that time, NFL had not yet issued its own post -episy data for the participation of players in matches,” says Nile, “and Berger asked us if we can collect such information weekly?” I did not believe my happiness, because I naively believed that each NFL team had such information without this. On this sense of euphoria, we continued our work.
In 2012, Hornsby left his business consult and focused on the PF. He spent the last few years to increase the staff of employees, visiting the NFL teams to provide them with his product.Recently, the Nile, together with their family (wife Kleer and two sons Alex and Ethan) moved to Cincinnati, where they are rented by their largest investor, former Bengals receiver, and now CBS commentator Chris Collinsworth.
It was the investment of Collinsworth that helped expand the company and plunge into the analysis of college games. Chris found out about the PFF by chance, he simply searched for an additional source of information about the NFL teams in order to better inform the audience during broadcasts. When he first called Nila, he thought that he was played out, because the creator of the PFF had a heavy British accent. But the owner of the PFF went through all Chris tests, including a parallel analysis of one game from the 2013 season. They and the Nile Grady varyed very little and Colinsworth says that in the places where they were different, in most cases Hornsby managed to defend their point of view.
“What really impressed me is that 13 NFL clubs signed a contract with the PF,” says Chris, “I have been in the league for about 30 years and I can assure you that this is a very closed system, to her through all her obstacles is very It is difficult to get. And the Pff convinced 13 clubs in their need. This is a giant success.
With the investment of Chris, an analysis of college games came. And who knows what else will be next, maybe schoolchildren? However, the PFF focus center remains NFL, where they offer their customers new ways to get an advantage.
The Nile continues to draw different signs on the board in an attempt to come up with a more adequate formula for evaluating pass-rasers. He opened a document on the tablet, which the company is developing for customers showing how the Down number and the distance, the number of steps of the Quothesterbek at the dropback and the exact position of Rasher correlate with the success of pressure on the quota. Using their new methods of normalizing data for pass-rasers, the left-sided Rosher Robert Quinn rises in the ranking, because on his part it is much more difficult to get to the quota. And right -hand Rasher Charles Johnson sinks.Well, there is still J.J. Watt, who rash on the Kvutterbeks at 669 snaps in 2014 and no matter how you normalize his indicators, he is at least twice as better than his closest pursuer.
Of course, statistics, ultimately, does not answer all questions, sometimes it does not answer them at all, but it provides a different point of view of the familiar picture.
– Look. The usual question. Should the team play in the 4-I-1 situation? As for this, there are already some tests and conclusions, ”says Neil Hornsby,“ but the whole point is that this is not a contextual question and if you finish it off with context, then the data sample will narrow up to impossibility. Well, for example, is it worth playing 4-I-1 in Buffalo in terrible weather in December, when your right guard plays with a torn hip muscle, and Ranner broke up with a girlfriend yesterday? No statistics will help here. This is a coaching decision and make it to the coach. But! Our role is to situationally prompt the coach: “Coach, look. If you see that, for example, Calvin Johnson was lined up in an inside-plot and in the vast majority of cases, with this position, he fled such and such a route, then it will probably be better for you to keep this in mind. So? This is precisely the essence of the PF. Providing an additional view of what is happening in our favorite game. And I, as, probably, their largest fan in the Russian -speaking territory, I wish them all kinds of success.
Flash forward
: Before the start of the season, I have two news for Stylers fans. In the classical manner – good and, of course, bad.
Let's start, as usual, with a bad one. Do not wait for any repetition of last year’s attacking extravaganza, it will not be, because the attack is guaranteed to play worse. Why? Well, this effect has many names: “Plexiglass effect”, “spring effect”, “regression to medium”, etc. I call him Mike Vick 2010. In other words, flick seasons always fall from heaven to earth.
And there are many reasons for the fall in the efficiency of Stylers-2015.The first – two in a row of career years, it is very difficult to do, and that year they were among many players: Bella, Brown, Ben, Bichuma (hmm, all with the letter b). The second – at all without injuries of two seasons in a row, there is no in a row, and last year no one was injured in the attack (well, until the last week). The third is the main joker of the attack after the knee injury (well, the one that was in the last week) and if he is not Megafrick, like Adrian Peterson, then a decrease in the efficiency is guaranteed. The fourth is a schedule that, in addition to meetings with all the winners of the divisions, obliges this year to play with the best protective division of recent years (NFK West). So the attack this year will pass – 99.999%. This I do not write in order to spoil your mood. Just warned – means armed. And in addition, if you have not yet managed to ruin the season in fantasy leagues, taking the stylets in the first rounds, then exhale and tell me “thank you” for the information.
* * * * *
But … do not despair at all, because, as you remember, I have the second news in my tanning puzzle – good. Its nature is absolutely the same as the first news, but only concerns protection. All this flax in its wretched season, which has given the protection of steelmits that year, is also very difficult to repeat, and therefore the “spring effect” is applicable here: the protection will improve this year – 99.999%.
And now an interesting moment – the outcome of the entire season depends on how much the attack and defense will be improved and improved, respectively. So, start, to write off Pittsburgh from accounts very, very early. This will be another nervous and interesting season. Hurray, or what?