Football Outsiders
Football Outsiders (FO) is a website started in 2003 which focusses on advanced statistical analysis of the NFL. The site is run by a staff of regular writers, who produce a series of weekly columns using both the site's in house statistics and objective analysis of NFL games.
Midway through the 2005-2006 season, the site partnered with FOXsports.com, which now cross-publishes many of the Outsiders' regular features, and uses a "weighted" version of DVOA for its weekly power rankings.
History
Football Outsiders was launched in August 2003 by Aaron Schatz, with two regular columns, one of which was using an early version of DVOA. The original purpose of the site was to disprove a statement by Boston Globe reporter Ron Borges that the 2002 New England Patriots failed to make the postseason because they could not establish the run. Over the course of time, the site added more writers, and paid host to Gregg Easterbrook for part of 2003. Between 2004 and 2005 the site became much more visited, and continued to expand, introducing new statistics such as DPAR (Defence adjusted points above replacement, a measure of how many more points a player is worth than a "replacement level" player), and Adjusted Line Yards (A method of analysing offensive and defensive line success). Part way through 2005, the site began to cross-publish many of its columns on FOXsports.com. In 2005 and 2006, Football Outsiders published the Pro Football Prospectus, a book giving a preview of the upcoming NFL season using their statistics. As of 2006, the site has converted the 1997-2005 NFL seasons into their statistics in their entirety.
The Football Outsiders statistics
DVOA
This is the acronym for Defense-adjusted Value Over Average. The original Football Outsiders statistic, it was created by Aaron Schatz, and has since seen several updates. It is a statistic that analyses a given offensive play, and compares its success with the league average for a play in that situation. The system takes into account down, distance to go, position of the ball on the field, score, time remaining, and whether the player scores or achieves a first down as a result of the play. Finally, the skill of the opponent's defence is taken into account. The system is applied to every play of the season, to provide DVOA rankings both for individual players and teams as a whole.
The statistic was the result of Aaron Schatz trying to disprove a statement by Boston Globe reporter Ron Borges that the 2002 New England Patriots failed to make the postseason because they could not establish the run. The creation of the statistic led to the founding of Football Outsiders, as a showcase for the new statistic.
DPAR
DPAR (Defence-adjusted Points Above Replacement) is a statistic created to deal with a strange tendency where well regarded players would tend to come out of DVOA at a league average level, despite their high production. This is a result of DVOA looking at events on a play by play basis. DPAR calculates how much more a player has contributed over the course of a game or season than a "replacement" level player. In this way, their plays are not compared to the league average, but to 13.3% less than the league average, the average level of play for a replacement level player. This shows how much more or less valuable a player is to their team than a replacement level player.
Kubiak
This is a proprietary fantasy football projection algorithm created for the 2005 season and introduced in Pro Football Prospectus 2005. The name is derived from the current head coach of the Houston Texans, Gary Kubiak. The name is an homage to PECOTA, the player forecasting system developed by Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus. Kubiak's name was chosen because he was a relatively obscure backup quarterback for the Denver Broncos, similar to the role played by MLB player Bill Pecota.
The system provided some accurate predictions about the decline of several players including Ahman Green and Tony Gonzalez. Currently it is remembered mostly for projecting Detroit Lions running back Kevin Jones as the leading rusher for 2005, which induced many fantasy football players to draft him early in the first round only to see him have a below average year for a running back.
Regular Features
The site has a number of regular columns and articles, as well as guest contributions.
Confessions of a Football Junkie is a regular column published by Russell Levine on Mondays during the football season. It provides non-statistical based analysis of a given weekend's football action, covering both NFL and NCAA play.
Any Given Sunday analyses the biggest upset of the weekend using Football Outsiders stats. It is written by Ned Macey and runs on Mondays.
DVOA Rankings and Analysis is Tuesday's in-season regular column. The column is written around the DVOA rankings, with these providing a basis. The rankings are combined with commentary and analysis, based around the various teams' DVOA.
Every Play Counts is published on Wednesdays by Michael David Smith. This column analyses a specific area of a single game, using film analysis to attempt to provide a detailed and impartial analysis. Common themes are individual matchups between players, the performance of a particular unit or group of players, or plays frequently run by a particular team.
Scramble for the Ball, is another non-statistical based piece, published on Thursdays. The column consisted of Al Bogdan and Vivek Ramgopal's discussions and analysis of the past weeks' games, opinions about future matchups, and fantasy football tips and advice. The column will continue in 2006 with new writer Ian Dembsky and a greater focus on fantasy football. Scramble for the Ball features a weekly comic, topical to the NFL, often featuring Gil Thorp. It is drawn by Jason Beattie.
Seventh Day Adventure is the other regular Thursday column, consisting of Russell Levine and Vinny Gauri's discussion of the next weekend's NCAA games.
Too Deep Zone is a catch-all column on NFL history or strategy written on Fridays by Mike Tanier.
Extra Points are links to various football news reports, with discussion threads, allowing fans to discuss the latest developments in football, and providing links to articles of interest which fans might not otherwise find.