The Wages of Wins Journal

A few days ago I reviewed the quarterbacks who have played for the Lions since 1972, the last year a Detroit signal caller was named to the Pro Bowl.  My basic point was that although quarterbacks for the Lions often go on to great success off the football field, on the playing field Detroit has consistently witnessed very bad performances at the quarterback position.

Doug Drinen, though, at Pro-football-reference-com offered some analysis that shines a bit of happiness on the life of a Lions fan.  I argued that the Lions quarterbacks have not been very good.  Doug decided to see how bad the Lions have been at this position compared to the rest of the league.  Here was his methodology, taken directly from his post:

1.       Compute each team’s passer rating (just for quarterbacks — passing attempts by others have been discarded) for each season since 1978. I’m not a fan of the NFL’s passer rating formula and I’m not sure what possessed me to use it here, but you’ll get similar results if you use yards-per-attempt or, I suspect, any other reasonable metric.

2.       Compare it to league average and get a Passing Effectiveness Index for each team for each year. For example, Detroit’s quarterbacks posted a 69.1 passer rating last season. League average was 80.0. Dividing the Lions by the League gives you about .863, which I’ll multiply by 100 to make it more easily digestible. The Lions Passing Effectivness Index for 2005 was 86.3.

3.       Average each team’s Passing Effectiveness Index over all the years they’ve been in the league (since 1978). When you do that for the Lions, you get 92.9. This means that Detroit’s quarterback’s have been, on average, about 7.1% less effective than average (according to passer rating) over the past 28 years.

I agree with Doug, the NFL’s quarterback rating is not the best measure.  I also agree that whatever method he used the results would probably be the same.  And these results should give much joy to Lions fans everywhere.

It is true that the Lions have had bad quarterbacks. But four teams – Cardinals, Buccaneers, Texans, and Bears – have been worse.  Given that the Bears are one the Lions biggest rivals, there is some joy in seeing Chicago in last place in Doug's rankings. So Lions fans can now chant: We Are Not the Worst, We Are Not the Worst, We Are Not the Worst!!! 

Many thanks to Doug for doing this analysis.  It may not sound like much, but when you are a Lions fan you take what you can get.

– DJ

Over the last five years, five different teams have won Major League Baseball’s October Classic.  None of these teams were the New York Yankees.  The Yankees did play in the World Series in two of these years.  The remaining eight slots, however, where filled with eight different teams.   All in all, sounds pretty competitive.

Small sample you say?  Well, let’s look at the past 26 years.  Since 1980, there have been 25 World Series played – the 1994 games were cancelled.  There have been 18 different winners.  Moreover, 23 different teams have participated in at least one World Series during this period.  That’s more than 75% of MLB teams.  The Yankees did play in more than their fair share with four wins in seven appearances.  But after the Yankees, only the Atlanta Braves — with five appearances — averaged a trip the World Series more than every five years.

What if we compare this to the first 60 years of Baseball in the 20th century?  The Yankees filled 29 of the first 120 possible slots, or roughly 25%.  If we extend this to any team from New York City — the Yankees, Dodgers or Giants — we find that these three teams played in the World Series 53 times.  That’s close to half!  If we throw in Chicago teams we see that close to 60% of World Series teams came from just two cities.

What does all this mean?  Things may not be perfect today, but competitive balance in baseball is clearly better than it used to be!

-MBS

Recently The Economist “In a league of its own” explored the reasons the NFL has been so successful.  One of the reasons listed is the institutions that exist in the NFL, such as revenue sharing or a cap on team payrolls.  Given these institutions the article argues that “… teams are far more evenly matched competitively than those in other leagues.” Let’s take a second and see if this holds up.

The article contrasts the NFL with the English Premier League.  While the article is correct that the Premier League does not share revenues or cap payrolls like the NFL, and that the market value of the NFL teams is higher than the Premier League, the article is incorrect to go on and say that those internal incentives — revenue sharing and payroll caps –lead to greater competitive balance.  In our book, The Wages of Wins, we look at competitive balance with the Noll-Scully measure; which is simply the ratio of the actual standard deviation of wins or standing points to the standard deviation that would exist if a league consisted of equally competitive teams.  In simple words, the Noll-Scully compares reality to a world of perfect competitive balance.

From 1976 to 2005, we find that the Noll-Scully ratio of competitive balance in the NFL averaged 1.49. The English Premier League was a bit worse, with an average of 1.61. If we expand our attention to the other soccer leagues, though, we see little difference between competitive balance in American football and World Football.  The average Noll-Scully in the German Bundesliga 1, Italian Serie A, Spanish Primera Division, and the French Ligue 1 from 1976 to 2005 was respectively: 1.45, 1.58, 1.42, 1.40.  In sum, all football leagues, regardless of whether revenue is shared or payrolls capped, have very similar levels of competitive balance.

To put these results in further perspective, consider the NFL before and after the cap on payrolls was instituted in 1992.  From 1992 to 2005, the Noll-Scully measure in the NFL was 1.483.  From 1976 to 1991 the Noll-Scully was 1.487.  In simple words, competitive balance did not improve in the NFL with the institution of the cap on payrolls.

How about a bit more perspective?  The NBA shares television revenue, like the NFL, and also has a cap on payrolls.  The NBA even adds a cap on individual salaries.  But relative to both versions of football, the NBA is not competitively balanced.  The average Noll-Scully from the 1976-77 season to 2005-06 in the NBA was 2.70. 

What does all this mean?  League policies like revenue sharing and caps on payroll are not shown to improve competitive balance.  These policies, though, do lower player salaries.  Perhaps the players should ask: Why again are the players being asked to take less in the name of competitive balance?

- Stacey