Fantasy News
There's a nice article posted at the Sports Illustrated web site, written by Kerry J. Byrne of ColdHardFootballFacts.com.
With the AFL a topic of discussion right now -- that league celebrates it's 50th-anniversary this year -- Byrne argues that the notion that it was a more wide-open league than the older NFL to be an overrated myth.
He trots out a lot of numbers, which I'll let you see in his article.
My only criticism of the article is that I don't feel it to be that convincing. Sure, the NFL quarterbacks during the 10-year time sample he looked at (when the leagues were operating as separate entities) completed a higher percentage of passes and threw fewer interceptions, but I don't think that proves his point.
To me, when you talk about a team being more wide open and aggressive -- more "pass happy" -- I think you want to look predominantly at pass attempts. And in that category, the AFL teams averaged more pass attempts than the NFL teams in every season.
I also look at yards per completion -- not per attempt, per completion. What kind of passes are the quarterbacks trying to throw? Are they throwing little dumpoff balls? Or are they trying for big strikes downfield.
Byrne ignores yards per completion. But if you look at those numbers, you'll see that the AFL in each of its last four seasons averaged at least a half a yard more per completion than the AFL -- because, I think, you had more guys like Daryle Lamonica trying to throw bombs. In three of the past four years that these leagues co-existed, the AFL teams averaged close to a yard more per completion.
To me, that's the key stat. I don't care that AFL quarterbacks threw more interceptions. That's only further evidence that they were taking chances with their throws -- trying to make things happen.
Anyway, it's an interesting topic to kick around.
—Ian Allan
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Posted by ADAM HOLTZ | Mar. 26 at 12:59 PM
Actually, Ian, Byrne does discuss yards per completion on page 2 of his article: "We can measure the downfield efforts of each league by looking at Yards Per Completion -- in this area, the findings are relatively inconclusive." Can't say I agree with Byrne's analysis - I think you are more right on with your conclusions - but he doesn't ignore y/Comp. :-)
Posted by IAN ALLAN | Mar. 26 at 01:35 PM
OK. You got me. I read the first page and didn't check out the jump. I was busy working on other stuff. And while I liked the topic, I wasn't really on board with his findings -- I felt he was trying to prove his point, rather than really looking at the thing honestly. I did input the completion and yards numbers into a separate file and take a look at those. I've since thrown them away, but I believe it worked out where in those last four years, the AFL was ahead by something like .5, .8, .9 and 1.1 per year in average length of completion. For the other six years, there were two that were even. The NFL won at least three of the remaining four, but there wasn't much difference. So to me, the AFL in the late '60s was the more aggressive and hip league. They were the league with the names on the backs of the jerseys, too. So to me, I don't think there was an AFL myth. More pass attempts, and more aggressive passing. That's what I'm looking. Completion percentage, yards-per-attempt, interception numbers -- I don't care about that.