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July 26, 2008
John Kitna versus the World
In a previous post, I wrote about the statistical z-score that we can generate on a game-by-game basis for each player. This score compares them to a population, which includes all other players at the same position in all other games (from 01-07). With this score, we can take it a step further and compare their average z-score for each team they play against. For example, here is the result of the equation for the Lions' QB John Kitna
+----------+----------+--------+-------+ | name | opponent | score | games | +----------+----------+--------+-------+ | J. Kitna | CAR | 1.470 | 1 | | J. Kitna | PHI | 0.978 | 2 | | J. Kitna | DAL | 0.891 | 2 | | J. Kitna | HOU | 0.872 | 2 | | J. Kitna | OAK | 0.811 | 2 | | J. Kitna | SD | 0.619 | 3 | | J. Kitna | DEN | 0.610 | 2 | | J. Kitna | CHI | 0.516 | 5 | | J. Kitna | PIT | 0.482 | 6 | | J. Kitna | SEA | 0.340 | 2 | | J. Kitna | SF | 0.315 | 2 | | J. Kitna | BAL | 0.298 | 6 | | J. Kitna | NYG | 0.227 | 2 | | J. Kitna | CLE | 0.213 | 5 | | J. Kitna | MIA | 0.175 | 1 | | J. Kitna | STL | 0.152 | 2 | | J. Kitna | NYJ | 0.105 | 2 | | J. Kitna | NE | 0.043 | 3 | | J. Kitna | TEN | 0.009 | 3 | | J. Kitna | GB | -0.062 | 4 | | J. Kitna | MIN | -0.064 | 4 | | J. Kitna | ARI | -0.068 | 3 | | J. Kitna | TB | -0.200 | 2 | | J. Kitna | ATL | -0.256 | 2 | | J. Kitna | IND | -0.302 | 1 | | J. Kitna | BUF | -0.444 | 5 | | J. Kitna | JAC | -0.531 | 3 | | J. Kitna | KC | -0.534 | 3 | | J. Kitna | NO | -0.539 | 1 | | J. Kitna | DET | -0.549 | 2 | | J. Kitna | WAS | -1.229 | 1 | | J. Kitna | CIN | -1.401 | 0 | +----------+----------+--------+-------+
Statistically, it looks like Kitna would be a good quarterback to have if you were an AFC team (the Lions are an NFC team). Even better, Kitna does pretty poorly against two other teams in the NFC North { GB,MIN } and does better than other quarterbacks against one { CHI }.
What about everyone else? If we restrict our search to players who have played at least 2 games against an opponent, we get:
+--------------+----------+-------+-------+ | name | opponent | score | games | +--------------+----------+-------+-------+ | D. Brees | JAC | 2.003 | 3 | | P. Manning | ATL | 1.978 | 3 | | T. Green | CLE | 1.776 | 3 | | K. Collins | TEN | 1.724 | 3 | | P. Manning | NO | 1.629 | 3 | | T. Brady | PIT | 1.515 | 4 | | D. Culpepper | NO | 1.500 | 4 | | P. Manning | CIN | 1.490 | 3 | +--------------+----------+-------+-------+
Wow, Drew Brees seems to really provide a whooping to Jacksonville. Also, Peyton Manning is represented three times in the top 8. What if we restrict this further to 5+ games?
+------------+----------+-------+-------+ | name | opponent | score | games | +------------+----------+-------+-------+ | B. Favre | CAR | 1.297 | 5 | | C. Palmer | CLE | 1.167 | 8 | | P. Manning | BAL | 1.152 | 5 | | P. Manning | NE | 1.121 | 7 | | P. Manning | HOU | 1.018 | 12 | | T. Brady | BUF | 1.003 | 14 | | R. Gannon | SD | 0.998 | 5 | | D. Brees | TB | 0.992 | 5 | +------------+----------+-------+-------+
There's Peyton Manning on the list three times again. It doesn't hurt that he's going to play all three teams {BAL, NE, HOU} this year. IN my next post, I'm going to load the 2008 schedule into the system and see which quarterbacks have the most favorable schedule.
Posted by haydenth at July 26, 2008 12:14 AM