{"id":112866,"date":"2018-02-02T11:53:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T16:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=112866"},"modified":"2018-02-02T14:12:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T19:12:02","slug":"need-to-establish-the-run-not-so-fast-say-bates-researchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/02\/02\/need-to-establish-the-run-not-so-fast-say-bates-researchers\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Establish the run’ for Super Bowl success? Not so fast, say Bates researchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one of the oldest football truisms, and it\u2019s being heard this week as the Patriots and Eagles prepare for the Super Bowl: You\u2019ve got to \u201cestablish the run\u201d to win.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Associate Professor of Economics Paul Shea. (Mike Bradley\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

But it might be a false-ism, according to Bates economist Paul Shea and his former student Jared Quenzel \u201913.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had often heard football commentators talk about how important it is to run the ball, even when it does not appear to have any success,\u201d says Shea, an associate professor of economics. \u201cSo we decided to take the question to the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is their paper, \u201cPredicting the Winner of Tied NFL Games: \u00a0Do the Details Matter?<\/a>\u201d published in the Journal of Sports Economics<\/i> in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jared Quenzel \u201913.<\/p><\/div>\n

Constructing a dataset of 429 NFL games between 1994 and 2012 that were tied at halftime, Shea and Quenzel looked at the myriad variables that led to the tie \u2014 such as rushing yards and attempts, passing attempts and yards, turnovers, sacks, red-zone efficiency, and third-down efficiency.<\/p>\n

Of all those variables in play during the first half, did any predict the eventual winner? Yes, but not the ones you might think. Trying to \u201cestablish the run for its own sake,\u201d the researchers found, \u201cdoes not maximize a team\u2019s chances of winning the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Shea and Quenzel found:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There is \u201cno evidence that running the football provides a team with a latent advantage that pays off late in a close game.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If teams choose to run the football, \u201cthey should thus do so on the basis of the expected yards gained and the risk involved. \u2018Establishing the run\u2019 for its own sake does not maximize a team\u2019s chances of winning the game.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There is some, albeit weak, evidence that allowing sacks reduces a team\u2019s chances of winning.<\/li>\n
  • \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0An optimal strategy is to try to attain as large a halftime lead as possible. At first glance, \u201cthis may seem obvious,\u201d yet teams sometimes insist on pounding the running game; they are guilty of \u201coverthinking the game.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As expected, there\u2019s a high level of confidence that the favored team, in terms of point spread, is more likely to win a tied game.<\/li>\n
  • \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Surprisingly, \u201cthe team receiving the first possession of the second half\u201d \u2014 a favorite Patriots strategy, when they have the choice \u2014 does not have a statistically significant effect on a team\u2019s chances of winning.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    As for Sunday\u2019s game, Shea is rooting for the Eagles. He says he\u2019s no fan of the Patriots\u2019 history of bending the rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Bates economist Paul Shea and his former student Jared Quenzel \u201913 tested a football truism, and here’s what they found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":112867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,224],"tags":[3117,10875,9755],"class_list":["post-112866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-society-culture","tag-economics","tag-football","tag-paul-shea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112866"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112869,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112866\/revisions\/112869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}