feedback for norton's match up thing on the podcast (1 Viewer)

#jackiegleason

I honestly hate to be negative, especially since you guys put out all this time and effort, even getting a podcast out the day after thanksgiving, but since you asked......

first of all, I like your idea to broaden the utility of the feature from spitballing random guys, although I also liked the random spitballing, but I've always been fundamentally opposed to that kind of analysis, and have never really put a lot of faith in it.

so, you might throw a rating out there for cle browns vs DL, but on one side there could be a joe thomas, and on the other a chump thomas --- the side my guy plays on will make a pretty big difference, and averaging the numbers really doesn't help anyone.

there is sometimes a common element, like a qb who gets the ball out quick, or a team that runs 40x and throws 20x, so I know peyton manning is a bad match up regardless of side, but this is very hit and miss throughout the league.

to move over to safeties, as examples, there might be a throwing team that's a good fs play, or maybe a running team that gives points to box safeties, etc

whereas points given to LB includes both inside LB as well as 3-4 OLB, who are more like ends.

another problem I have with it is that it's very circumstantial data and has a fairly ephemeral shelf life.

I might remember this wrong, so let's call it a hypothetical, but you might say tenn is a poor match for DL, but they've lost their starting LT, and now the current tackles are both Q tomorrow and might not play.

I'd think if they're down to their 4th and 5th tackles the match up would be substantially more favorable, although peyton could be back there, blahblahblah.

for example, and this is a pretty poor example because det is already giving up sacks --- but I thought jared allen was a good spot play with reiff out, even though he hasn't done much on the year.

and this is all before even considering the small data set of opponents faced that can drastically skew results.

edit: did you mention kc being a good play for corners -- how is that even possible?

I don't have strong feelings about the format this week in particular, but I do think the matchups section on the podcast is a bit simplistic and not all that useful. It's generally presented as trend data, i.e. "in the last 4 weeks, X number of DBs have had 5 or more solo tackles against Y team" and so therefore DBs playing Y team this week are good plays. I'd be interested to see the success rate of the matchups identified because I feel like it would be pretty hit and miss.

Even though the matchups are hyped up by Bloom, I do think it's the weakest part of the podcast - I'm much more interested in the preceding discussion and analysis of situations, which is great.

Aye. Discussions and analysis on the IDP roundtable are great. Reading off matchup rankings not so much. I'd rather track down the data myself rather than listen to it on a podcast, to be honest. At least when it's just numbers and you don't go deeper into why. For matchups one can go deep into the specifics which is great info, or one can approach it on a more general level but at that point it really only serves as tie-breakers. It's easy to outsmart oneself with matchups and stat crew bias. You'll bench someone like Alec Ogletree because he has a bad matchup in a low tackle venue and of course he'll end up with 9 solos and 1 assist or something... And in terms of matchups they are generally based off of offensive tendencies and expected gameflow but we often fail to emphasize how difficult gameflow can be to predict in the NFL. How many unexpected games have we seen this season? It seems like every week half the games don't turn out as we would expect them to. I feel we need to start with discussing the individual players and their particular situations and matchups, and then the rest is just supporting info that has limited value. However the individual matchups, particularly when it is some new situation that has popped up like a re-shuffled o-line or player specific matchups in the secondary, it's very valuable and interesting info.

All good and appreciated feedback. I will say that this is much different than the email and twitter feedback that I have gotten which has been overwhelmingly positive.

I understand the points you are making and they are very valid. If I had an opportunity to spend hours researching matchups before recording the show on Wednesdays, and an unlimited amount of time to lay out my reasoning for the guys I highlight it would be great. Unfortunately I am limited on both ends of that.

As for actually grading out the matchup segment, I have loosely done that all along and feel pretty comfortable with my success rate. This is not a science by any stretch so there are plenty of misses but then I try to pick guys to highlight both ways who are not the obvious. No one needs me to tell them to start Kuechly every week. If I did that my success rate would be much better. Instead I look for borderline guys or sleepers that can fill a void for a week and give some production. Such as Jared Allen last week.

Projections and matchups are largely about anticipating offensive and defensive tendencies. It is easy enough to use the example given in reference to defensive linemen and I take such things into consideration when doing projections and matchups. But how does an injury to a stud offensive lineman affect a linebacker or a defensive back? I can call out a particular DB if I know he will be covering Calvin Johnson but how often do NFL teams tip their game plan to us about those things? Again I am back to speculating defensive tendencies.

"whereas points given to LB includes both inside LB as well as 3-4 OLB, who are more like ends". I never lump 3-4 outside backers together with other linebackers. You will often hear me say "outside pass rushers". I put 3-4 OLB and 4-3 DE together. When I say linebackers I am always talking about ILB or WLB unless otherwise noted. Maybe this is something I need to clarify as I am sure you are not the only one thinking along this line. Though you are the first to mention it.

Everything has a shelf life in this game and trends change weekly in many instances. This is why I often point out that the trend I speak of are "over the past 5 weeks, past 3 weeks" etc. When there is a substantial injury that could make a difference I point that out as well or simply skip that matchup all together. For example on the show we recorded tonight I made reference to the Giants being a quality matchup but only if Jennings plays.

If you had read my article last week you would understand how KC has been a good matchup for corners. Which bring up the point that I often go into greater detail on matchups in my weekly column than I have time for on the podcast. If you are not subscribing you are missing a great deal of info and a lot more detail not only from me but the rest of the staff.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that the podcast on its own can only do so much in the amount of time we have. If you take my column, Jene's column, my projections and the podcast and put them all together, there are a lot fewer holes. One of you mentioned lumping the numbers for all DL together when, for example, one end is facing Joe Thomas and the other player X. If you cross my podcast statement with my projections you will see that I have usually addressed that situation; and so forth.

Anyway, as I said, great feedback and thank you for taking the time. I will take these statements into consideration as we are always looking for ways to create a better product. Best of luck to you all.

John Norton said:

As for actually grading out the matchup segment, I have loosely done that all along and feel pretty comfortable with my success rate. This is not a science by any stretch so there are plenty of misses but then I try to pick guys to highlight both ways who are not the obvious. No one needs me to tell them to start Kuechly every week. If I did that my success rate would be much better. Instead I look for borderline guys or sleepers that can fill a void for a week and give some production. Such as Jared Allen last week.

"whereas points given to LB includes both inside LB as well as 3-4 OLB, who are more like ends". I never lump 3-4 outside backers together with other linebackers. You will often hear me say "outside pass rushers". I put 3-4 OLB and 4-3 DE together. When I say linebackers I am always talking about ILB or WLB unless otherwise noted. Maybe this is something I need to clarify as I am sure you are not the only one thinking along this line. Though you are the first to mention it.

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yeah, I kind of like the spot plays as a match up segment, and you can get some good match up info out of that even past the actual play because you might mention a guy being good this week vs jax as they have a terrible line, etc, so that gives me some info on jax going fwd

you're probably plenty clear on the lb thing on the pod, but I'm just typing this up off memory, and my feeling is generally these fantasy sites just use generic points against lb without splitting stuff out, and I just lumped you in with the rest, I guess, as it's kind of an ongoing peeve of mine.

I really never look at the general points against stats, and would rather see the actual list of players faced and how they did.

you guys record the show on wednesdays?

ps

if you guys are reading this thread I want to sneak in a couple match up questions ---- how can we expect breeland/amerson to match up on bailey/britt, and would clark be high safety with phillip thomas(?) closer to the action?

you guys record the show on wednesdays?

ps

if you guys are reading this thread I want to sneak in a couple match up questions ---- how can we expect breeland/amerson to match up on bailey/britt, and would clark be high safety with phillip thomas(?) closer to the action?

Click to expand...

We record late Wednesday night. Cecil mixes as soon as he can get to it and posts sometime Thursday.

I would expect the safeties to be mostly interchangeable. I'd bet on Clark playing more of a strong safety role, but that may depend on how his shoulder is feeling.

I believe Breeland gets moved into the slot fairly often. Other than that, I don't know where Amerson aligns most often and I don't know which side Britt is more likely to align -- I'd guess he'd probably be the split end with Quick out, so the left side. If you've got Game Rewind, you could probably scout a quick series or two and confirm.

I liked it. I will take anything that I think is useful information. I thought that was useful information. That data can be found in other places, but I liked that John was looking at it over a more recent period of time rather than looking at data that weighs week 2 as much as week 12.

Sure, it's somewhat simplistic. It lacks context to say that safeties have only had X tackles vs. the Rams over the past four weeks or whatever. But I think IDP data is limited like that. There's far more useful data with offensive players and we all know how often even the best offensive projection guys are off.

If I had something on my wishlist, it would be some kind of consolidated resource, a cheatsheet or something, that just includes a few columns with some kind of rating in each category.

1) Opportunity (Scheme/Usage)

2) Match Up

3) Stat Crew

Maybe a fourth column to hold a rating that has to do with how talented the player actually is as well.

For example, if a 4-3 DE who plays 90% of his team's snaps is playing a team that is letting up the highest pressure/sack rate in the league, AND at a stadium that gives out tackles like candy, he'd have like a 5/5/5 rating or something. The following week, if he's playing like Peyton Manning with a stringier stat crew, maybe he's a 5/2/3.

This, to me, would hold a lot more value than trying to project a guy for 1.4 sacks and 2 solo tackles or whatever.

All of this information is available, but you really have to go around looking for it. I have to go look at one resource to find out what % of snaps a defensive player is on the field for. I have to go check another one to find out what kind of fantasy points/tackles/sacks the team he's facing this week is giving up. Then I have to go find a third resource to check if the stadium he's playing in has a generous or stingy stat crew.

Each of these are huge factors (for me anyway) when setting lineups. I'm in deep, deep IDP's leagues where I'm starting a DT and flexing CB's at times, so this stuff matters to me. I understand I'm probably in the minority, but it can be a pain.

I really think a weekly ranking like this would be more useful than actual statistical projections. And if you coupled this with the MyFBG capability of viewing each week's projections/rankings with the blue/yellow highlights, it would blow away anything I'm aware of in the market. I have a PFF subscription this year because I signed up for daily football and got one for free. They have stat projections/rankings, but they're extremely annoying to use without the MyFBG type capability. You can load your own players into their site one by one, but you can't sync up a league, and you can't see easily what players are available as FA's.

Using PFF rankings is like this:

- Huh, they have Jared Allen pretty low this week.

- Let me find the names of the other DE's or IDP flex options on my team and see how they compare.

- Scroll around, look up and down, type "Ctrl + F" to search for like Justin Houston's name.

- Oh hey, Player X is ranked ahead of Allen this week...is he a free agent?

- Go to MFL. Find Player X. Find out he's not a free agent. Back to the drawing board.

MyFBG is like this:

- There's a Blue DE ranked ahead of my best Yellow DE, let's look into that!

I've gone off topic, sorry. The point is I liked the segment, but IDP data is still smattered all over the place, and MyFBG is awesome, but could be so much awesome-er.

The ability to view the projections with highlights corresponding to players you own and players who are available in free agency in your league (through MyFBG) is, to me, the single greatest in-season tool that I use. When I go check the CB projections for a league and see that Courtney Roby is listed as a top 15 CB

"edit: did you mention kc being a good play for corners -- how is that even possible?"

Patrick Peterson 8-0-1...

that's why I should never doubt a guy named 'the guru'

John -

Do you accept PM's? I have a question for you, but I tried to send it and it came back to me...

Thanks

Where can I find the Norton podcast and rankings?

http://subscribers.footballguys.com/podcast/

Thanks!!