Let’s talk about “Yards per Turnover”
March 27, 2024 by Paul Würtztack in Analysis with 0 comments
The WUL is back, and so begins BBSMs fourth season of number crunching and nattering, all in the service of, well, not sure. In any event, onward!
Given the small number of WUL games that will be played each weekend, I will only do periodic EDGE roundups, and so to actually kick off the season, I will turn to the updated and even more spectacular WUL Stats page, and you should too. In particular, check out the Game Reports, Team Page, and Player Page tabs for their diner-length menu of offerings and state-of-the art charts. While BBSM is hopelessly wordy and reductionist, looking to distill the differences between players into just a few key metrics, WUL Stats is the opposite, a candy store of multi-dimensional player portraits, team profiles, and graphical game analysis.
So I hope it doesn’t seem like bad spirit to start the season off with a quibble. It’s more generally about “x per turnover” metrics, which come in a number of varieties and with a healthy number of advocates, but because the WUL features one of the species in this genus, I will use it as an example, looking at the problem it’s trying to solve, why it doesn’t, and how we might fix it.
Under the Microscope: Effective Yards Per Turnover
First, the WUL’s definition of Effective Yards: “total yards + throwing yards on incompletions.” EY per Turnover (EYPT) is merely EY divided by Turns, and is one of five metrics WUL voters use in weighing OPOTY candidates, and one of the seven for MVP.
Why feature it? I can surmise five main reasons, with the first four also applying to the more basic Yards per Turn (YPT) version:
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