tazthenomad
Club Member
You are still missing the point and IMO not understanding or using statistics properly.I understand your point. However, ratios can have a large variance using a small sample size. Being near the bottom in total plays is a small sample size. If they ran more plays then your ratio can change quickly. If they were closer to the avg per team and still had the same ratio then I’d agree with your analysis.
https://www.footballdb.com/stats/play-selection.html?sort=numplays
I understand your point. However, ratios can have a large variance using a small sample size. Being near the bottom in total plays is a small sample size. If they ran more plays then your ratio can change quickly. If they were closer to the avg per team and still had the same ratio then I’d agree with your analysis.
https://www.footballdb.com/stats/play-selection.html?sort=numplays
I think you are missing the point still.
1. First, for the purposes of this point, the sample size is NOT the number of plays run by each team. It is about the choice made by the team to run or pass. All teams except for the Thursday night game, have the sample sample size of n=2.
But let's address your concern about sample size "variance" within this two game stretch. Even if the Dolphins are ranked "low" at 29th in plays run with 116 plays, the average number of plays they ran compared to the average is only six plays a game. That doesn't look like a "large variance" to me. (See the first histogram)
2. The purpose of ratios is to compare numbers when the sample size is not exactly the same. To your point, the Dolphins ran fewer plays. To my point, that was a CHOICE, not a random statistic. Because the Dolphins ran more as a percentage and ran fewer plays - your use of totals is, IMO, not a complete indicator of how effective the strategy is or how good the passing game is including receivers. As a fan I see areas for improvement but overall - if you look at passing YPA, we do not look bad for this stage of our development. One point that we hear time and again is how our passing is padded in "garbage time". We have had none of these situations this year. We are tied with Pittsburgh for 10th in YPA so I would say that overall the effectiveness of the passing game is not bad. (See the second histogram)
3. In summary:
* We ran fewer plays, we pass less often so it's not unreasonable to expect smaller "totals".
* The sample size variance that you were concerned about for using ratios is not large - six plays from the average run by the Dolphins less per game. And again, this was a CHOICE by the OC.
* When we do pass we get a pretty good YPA. This indicates to me that something is "right".