SABERMETRICS COMES TO FOOTBALL.

SABERMETRICS COMES TO FOOTBALL. Sabermetrics—statistical analysis of baseball—has made great inroads with major league teams. Most teams employ sabermatricians. Football seems to be more resistant to the use of statistics. Two articles by Reed Albergotti in the Wall Street Journal show what statistical analysis can reveal. In this year’s Superbowl, Sean Payton, the coach of the New Orleans Saints, received deserved credit for beginning the second half with an onside kick. The Saints recovered the kick and went on to win the Super Bowl. This article by Albergotti is headlined “The Play That Won the Superbowl.” The next day an Albergotti article looked at what statistics said about what had been characterized as a “big gamble.” Albergotti broke out onside kicks into “surprise onside kicks”, defined as those in the first three quarters, and “desperation onside kicks”, onside kicks in the fourth quarter when presumably one team is gambling to catch up. Since 2000, onside kicks have been successful 14.7% of the time in the fourth quarter and 58.6% in the first three quarters—which means that a surprise kick gets you possession over half the time. However, teams seem to ignore these statistics: in the first three quarters, there have been only about twelve onside kicks a year for all teams combined.