If you haven't signed up for 2009, now is a great time. Our Preseason Preview Issue is just a couple of weeks away.
We detail how teams look as measured by our PossessionPoints stat.
We cover each team, game by game and tell you how good or how bad they may be.
This season's subscribers will get our Preseason Preview Issue as soon as it comes out. Some of the things we said in last year's issue:
"The Steelers could have a very special year...and a 12-4 record"
"Hey, hey, hey Cardinal fans, this could be your year! ...The result is a 9-7 record"
Of course, we didn't forecast every team's record right, but in our annual preseason issue, we also look at what could go right and what could go wrong and how it affects our forecast.
Here are some examples from last season:
We originally put the Patriots at 14-2, but when we talked about what could go wrong we said:
"It will probably take a key injury or two say to Tom Brady and Randy Moss (no jinx intended), to derail the Patriots this year. But if they do suffer such a hardship, their record could fall to 9-7."
"The computer does give hope if the Dolphins can improve their performance 15% more on offense and defense. If we up their improvement to 25% in each category, their projected record actually vaults all the way to 10-6." (they actually went 11-5 and improved 30% on offense and 28% on defense by our measure)
Sign up today to get 2009's issue as soon as it comes out in mid-August.
What is this one-of-a-kind information that PossessionPoints.com provides worth to you?
Well, until the end of preseason, you can be privy to PossessionPoints.com's information and analysis for an affordable price of $29.95 for the entire season. After the preseason, the subscription price doubles!
If you are a football fan or fantasy football player, don't miss out on our annual preseason special!
Go to PossessionPoints.com now
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Looking Forward to a Full Year of Mike Singletary
As pre-season camps get ready to get underway around the NFL, we find it is time to get rolling on our Pre-Season Preview issue. In this issue, PossessionPoints.com examines all teams’ off-season moves and upcoming schedules. We use this information to make forecasting adjustments for the upcoming season.
Coaching continuity is one key factor we use for forecasting adjustments. For last season’s winning teams, we place greater weight on coaching continuity than we do on last season’s losing teams.
This season, we find ourselves more concerned about the Indianapolis Colts than we do about the St. Louis Rams. Although the Colts have replaced Tony Dungy with his appointed heir, Jim Caldwell is still an unknown commodity in the head coach position.
The question mark around the Colts' new coach makes it difficult to automatically keep the team at a high level of performance; it prompts us to give a neutral to negative adjustment to the Colts in our assessment.
Even though Caldwell has been with the Colts’ organization, it’s hard to quantify his leadership abilities, chemistry with players, and game-day decision in this new position until he performs as a head coach.
Conversely, the Rams hired Steve Spagnuolo, who comes in with a good reputation that was built as the Giants defensive coordinator. Since the Rams have struggled in the past seasons, their performance in the upcoming season will most likely improve. In our calculations, a new coach in this situation becomes a neutral to positive adjustment.
The 49ers are an interesting case. They have Mike Singletary, who took over after the seventh game last season.
When we look to forecast the 49ers’ upcoming season, we need to decide if we want to base our calculations on their full season 2008 data or just the nine games Singletary coached, in which San Francisco went 5-4.
The chart below shows the 49ers’ season split into the pre-Singletary and post-Singletary periods:
Their overall PossessionPoints performance improved 109 percent under Singletary: that overall improvement was driven by the 40 percent improvement in their defense.
The other consideration that comes into play is the team’s '09 schedule. Based on last year’s “overall” PossessionPoints numbers, the 49ers’ '09 schedule is the 26th hardest or 7th easiest, depending on how you want to look at it.
We realize that when a coach takes over in the middle of the season, there is a limit of what he can change. For Mike Singletary to have the effect he had makes for some potentially high expectations next season.
Let’s face facts: the 49ers are not in the toughest division in football. If we get to December and they are contending with the Cardinals and Seahawks for the division title, we would not be surprised.
Coaching continuity is one key factor we use for forecasting adjustments. For last season’s winning teams, we place greater weight on coaching continuity than we do on last season’s losing teams.
This season, we find ourselves more concerned about the Indianapolis Colts than we do about the St. Louis Rams. Although the Colts have replaced Tony Dungy with his appointed heir, Jim Caldwell is still an unknown commodity in the head coach position.
The question mark around the Colts' new coach makes it difficult to automatically keep the team at a high level of performance; it prompts us to give a neutral to negative adjustment to the Colts in our assessment.
Even though Caldwell has been with the Colts’ organization, it’s hard to quantify his leadership abilities, chemistry with players, and game-day decision in this new position until he performs as a head coach.
Conversely, the Rams hired Steve Spagnuolo, who comes in with a good reputation that was built as the Giants defensive coordinator. Since the Rams have struggled in the past seasons, their performance in the upcoming season will most likely improve. In our calculations, a new coach in this situation becomes a neutral to positive adjustment.
The 49ers are an interesting case. They have Mike Singletary, who took over after the seventh game last season.
When we look to forecast the 49ers’ upcoming season, we need to decide if we want to base our calculations on their full season 2008 data or just the nine games Singletary coached, in which San Francisco went 5-4.
The chart below shows the 49ers’ season split into the pre-Singletary and post-Singletary periods:
Their overall PossessionPoints performance improved 109 percent under Singletary: that overall improvement was driven by the 40 percent improvement in their defense.
The other consideration that comes into play is the team’s '09 schedule. Based on last year’s “overall” PossessionPoints numbers, the 49ers’ '09 schedule is the 26th hardest or 7th easiest, depending on how you want to look at it.
We realize that when a coach takes over in the middle of the season, there is a limit of what he can change. For Mike Singletary to have the effect he had makes for some potentially high expectations next season.
Let’s face facts: the 49ers are not in the toughest division in football. If we get to December and they are contending with the Cardinals and Seahawks for the division title, we would not be surprised.
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