Strange Math
Okay. Help me out here. Yahoo is the host of our fantasy league. I was browsing some statistics just for fun, and have come across something that baffles me.
First, I checked league passing statistics for individuals, to see how many catagories Peyton Manning led. I was surprised to see that Marc Bulger actually holds the title for most passing yards... at 3267, after 11 games. Peyton Manning is second... 3196, 11 games.
Ended up checking out league passing statistics for teams, see where my Colts were. I was equally surprised to learn that they are in first place in the category of team passing yards per game. They have a per-game average of 286.4 yards. Second is Minnesota at 280.6. Green Bay then at 275.5, followed by St. Louis at 273.5.
How can this be?
If you multiply Indy's team-page listed average by their eleven games played you get 3150.4 passing yards.... for the whole team, including Manning. Peyton himself has 3196 on the individual page! How does Manning have 46 more yards than his team? And how is Marc Bulger throwing for 3267 yards when his team's average of 273.5 multiplied by 11 comes to a season team total of only 3008.5?! Which page has the correct numbers? Does Yahoo not use the standard mean average? I'm baffled.
Not a super important matter, I guess. But it doesn't make sense that their two pages would be drawing from a different set of numbers, does it? This is all under the main Yahoo NFL Stats page, and sub-pages of that.
Hope that wasn't confusing, or boring, or maddening. Just having trouble sleeping, and wondering how Yahoo works.
posted by Kennelworthy @ 12/03/2004 12:43:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I think this is how it works. In the NFL, team passing yards subtract sacks. So, if a QB has 3000 passing yards, but the offensive line has given up 150 yards in sacks, the team passing number is 2850. This looks confusing when comparing QB to team sacks, but it makes sense in that the loss of yardage due to sacks have to fit in somewhere.
Well, that would certainly account for the discrepancy. However, if you go now and check Yahoo's stats page, the team passing yards per game is completely different from what it was last night, with St. Louis now in front, and Indy's in third with a 291.2 average instead of the 286 from last night. Strange. I would have guessed sacks were tallied under rushing, as they are in fantasy football stats, but who knows. It appears as though they're just putting up any old numbers they choose on a given day. Tomorrow Minnesota will likely lead the average yards per game at 301. Running a pretty loose operation over there at Yahoo these days.
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