Lavachebeadsman
Footballguy
Unlike many folks, I actually truly enjoy playing in return yardage leagues and have tried for years to try and quantify who is good at punt returns and who isn’t. Given the fluky nature of punt return touchdowns, I imagine that predicting success year to year is pretty difficult, and the best way to approach it is to simply look for opportunity and raw physical skill. However, that didn’t stop me from trying! I present to you Punt Return Yards Above Replacement and Adjusted Punt Return Yards Above Replacement.
For Punt Return Yards Above Replacement, I simply eliminated all players with 2 or less punt returns and averaged together all of the returns by the remaining players. I found that the average punt return in the NFL in 2012 was 9.985 yards (after the adjustment). To find a players ability, I simply subtracted the league average from each remaining players’ average. The idea of removing players with only 1 or 2 returns was to eliminate some noise, although I don’t believe this statistic is close to perfect.
Adjusted Punt Return Yards Above Replacement was even more difficult. Essentially, I wanted to take the ideas from Adjusted Yards Per Attempt that touchdowns are good and that not moving the ball is bad. However, after repeated attempts to find a way to punish fair catches, I just realized that it was impossible. Could not be done until I attached an expected point evaluation for each and every fair catch by each and every player. Therefore, to create the ‘adjusted’ part of the statistic, I averaged the length of every punt return touchdown in 2012 (subtracting Darius Reynaud’s pitch to Tommie Campbell for the Titans) and found that the average length was 76.7 yards. Each returner was awarded 76.7 yards for each touchdown. That explains why Leodis Mckelvin basically broke the scale.
What I have created here is a very imperfect, rudimentary way to look at punt returning performance from 2012. If there is more interest, I will go back and look at the numbers from 2011 and 2010 to create a 3-year average and see if there if the numbers have any predictive value. Very interested in feedback. Feel free to email me spfocusfilms@hotmail.com , leave a comment, or contact me on twitter @davismattek.
Table is here (unless someone can show me how to post it?)
For Punt Return Yards Above Replacement, I simply eliminated all players with 2 or less punt returns and averaged together all of the returns by the remaining players. I found that the average punt return in the NFL in 2012 was 9.985 yards (after the adjustment). To find a players ability, I simply subtracted the league average from each remaining players’ average. The idea of removing players with only 1 or 2 returns was to eliminate some noise, although I don’t believe this statistic is close to perfect.
Adjusted Punt Return Yards Above Replacement was even more difficult. Essentially, I wanted to take the ideas from Adjusted Yards Per Attempt that touchdowns are good and that not moving the ball is bad. However, after repeated attempts to find a way to punish fair catches, I just realized that it was impossible. Could not be done until I attached an expected point evaluation for each and every fair catch by each and every player. Therefore, to create the ‘adjusted’ part of the statistic, I averaged the length of every punt return touchdown in 2012 (subtracting Darius Reynaud’s pitch to Tommie Campbell for the Titans) and found that the average length was 76.7 yards. Each returner was awarded 76.7 yards for each touchdown. That explains why Leodis Mckelvin basically broke the scale.
What I have created here is a very imperfect, rudimentary way to look at punt returning performance from 2012. If there is more interest, I will go back and look at the numbers from 2011 and 2010 to create a 3-year average and see if there if the numbers have any predictive value. Very interested in feedback. Feel free to email me spfocusfilms@hotmail.com , leave a comment, or contact me on twitter @davismattek.
Table is here (unless someone can show me how to post it?)
