Warning-this is a longer post. If you want to skip to the end to see the conclusions I came to, they are posted in red.
With NFL on every Thursday night this season, it has seemed like those TNF games have been underwhelming, scores have been down, and that players playing in those games have sub-standard FF performances. I wanted to see if this was actually occuring, or whether it was a mis-perception. So I looked at the 10 TNF games thus far, and how the QBs have fared in those games, vs their season FF averages.
*Note-the FF scores noted below are based on 1 pts/30 yards passing, 4 pts/pass TD*
Week 1: Romo-23.4, season avg-15.9 (+7.5); E Manning-11.1, season avg-13.7 (-2.6)
Week 2: Rodgers-10.7, season avg-21.8 (-11.1); Cutler-9.4, season avg-13.6 (-4.2)
Week 3: E Manning-14.1, season avg-13.7 (+0.4); Newton-14.7, season avg-18.1 (-3.4)
Week 4: Weeden-10.7, season avg-12.4 (-1.7)l Flacco-22.3, season avg-16.1 (+6.2)
Week 5: Kolb-9.8, season avg-14.5 (-4.7); Bradford-12.7, season avg-13.5 (-0.8)
Week 6: Roethlisberger-17.5, season avg-16.7 (-0.8); Hasselbeck-13.9, season avg-9.6 (+4.3)
Week 7: Wilson-5.1, season avg-14.0 (-8.9); A Smith-9.8, season avg-13.7 (-3.9)
Week 8: Freeman-20.6, season avg-17.0 (+3.6); Ponder-13.6, season avg-13.6 (no change)
Week 9: Cassel-9.7, season avg-12.7 (-3.0); Rivers-15.1, season avg-15.0 (+0.1)
Week 10: Luck-20.7, season avg-19.3 (+1.4); Gabbert-8.0/Henne-8.0; season avg-10.7 (+5.3)
Of the 20** QBs who've played on Thursday night, 9 have scored more FF points than their season average, 10 have scored fewer FF points than their season average, and 1 scored exactly the same. (**Eli played in 2 TNF games, but last week Gabbert and Henne both played significant minutes**)
The QBs who were better on TNF were (on average) 3.3 FF points better than their season averages, while the QBs who were worse scored (on average) 4.4 FF points fewer than their season averages. This doesn't seem to be a statistically signficant difference, in either direction. However, the only top-10 QBs to play on TNF this year were Rodgers, Luck, and Newton. Two of those 3 scored fewer FF points than their season average, and the 3rd (Luck) didn't throw a single passing TD, but scored to rushing TDs to boost his FF total.
My belief, going into this, was that QBs have been doing poorer, because there is less time to gameplan for the opponent on these short weeks. However, the FF numbers don't necessarily support that theory. More research could be done comparing passing numbers (instead of FF points), as well as looking at strength of opponent on TNF, but I don't currently have the time to do this.
Any thoughts, opinions, mistakes in my numbers, reasoning, etc would be appreciated.
With NFL on every Thursday night this season, it has seemed like those TNF games have been underwhelming, scores have been down, and that players playing in those games have sub-standard FF performances. I wanted to see if this was actually occuring, or whether it was a mis-perception. So I looked at the 10 TNF games thus far, and how the QBs have fared in those games, vs their season FF averages.
*Note-the FF scores noted below are based on 1 pts/30 yards passing, 4 pts/pass TD*
Week 1: Romo-23.4, season avg-15.9 (+7.5); E Manning-11.1, season avg-13.7 (-2.6)
Week 2: Rodgers-10.7, season avg-21.8 (-11.1); Cutler-9.4, season avg-13.6 (-4.2)
Week 3: E Manning-14.1, season avg-13.7 (+0.4); Newton-14.7, season avg-18.1 (-3.4)
Week 4: Weeden-10.7, season avg-12.4 (-1.7)l Flacco-22.3, season avg-16.1 (+6.2)
Week 5: Kolb-9.8, season avg-14.5 (-4.7); Bradford-12.7, season avg-13.5 (-0.8)
Week 6: Roethlisberger-17.5, season avg-16.7 (-0.8); Hasselbeck-13.9, season avg-9.6 (+4.3)
Week 7: Wilson-5.1, season avg-14.0 (-8.9); A Smith-9.8, season avg-13.7 (-3.9)
Week 8: Freeman-20.6, season avg-17.0 (+3.6); Ponder-13.6, season avg-13.6 (no change)
Week 9: Cassel-9.7, season avg-12.7 (-3.0); Rivers-15.1, season avg-15.0 (+0.1)
Week 10: Luck-20.7, season avg-19.3 (+1.4); Gabbert-8.0/Henne-8.0; season avg-10.7 (+5.3)
Of the 20** QBs who've played on Thursday night, 9 have scored more FF points than their season average, 10 have scored fewer FF points than their season average, and 1 scored exactly the same. (**Eli played in 2 TNF games, but last week Gabbert and Henne both played significant minutes**)
The QBs who were better on TNF were (on average) 3.3 FF points better than their season averages, while the QBs who were worse scored (on average) 4.4 FF points fewer than their season averages. This doesn't seem to be a statistically signficant difference, in either direction. However, the only top-10 QBs to play on TNF this year were Rodgers, Luck, and Newton. Two of those 3 scored fewer FF points than their season average, and the 3rd (Luck) didn't throw a single passing TD, but scored to rushing TDs to boost his FF total.
My belief, going into this, was that QBs have been doing poorer, because there is less time to gameplan for the opponent on these short weeks. However, the FF numbers don't necessarily support that theory. More research could be done comparing passing numbers (instead of FF points), as well as looking at strength of opponent on TNF, but I don't currently have the time to do this.
Any thoughts, opinions, mistakes in my numbers, reasoning, etc would be appreciated.
