NFL Network Cynthia Frelund breaks down the math and “data science” and Luke Jones gets his stat nerd going on this Super Bowl Radio Row chat from Miami 2020.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
math, analytics, work, people, ravens, piece, jimmy garoppolo, baseball, thought, football, math nerd, run, quarterbacks, lamar jackson, talking, nfl network, points, coach, strategy, ultimately
SPEAKERS
Cynthia Frelund, Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome back, WN St. Towson, Baltimore and W. N S. t.net. We’re in Miami Beach. Super Bowl 54 coverage brought to you by our friends at Royal farms and liberty pure and Raskin global. And you know, I’ve done a lot of talking I’m losing my voice a little bit as we get through the week here. Come on, you’re gonna have Hawk keep keep no I’m not I’m hydrated. I’m gonna let Luke does handle this segment because he’s looking forward to the most because he is the resident stat nerd.
Luke Jones 00:29
The Nerd Yeah. And I own a cover baseball as well and pretty metrics guy. So if you go to Cynthia Freeland, Twitter account and a little wallpaper at the top math with her kissing the word, man. Yes. I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 00:45
maligned, you know, so
Cynthia Frelund 00:48
I think that like it can there’s a lot of like teachers who are like, see, like the main teachers gravitate toward teaching math. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.
Nestor Aparicio 00:54
I had it may mean that he was a fifth grade school teacher, though. You will
Luke Jones 00:57
love math. I did cow can trig. And did really well. I didn’t do that in college. But
Cynthia Frelund 01:03
like, I used to pretend I was bad at math. Like I used to just be like, Oh, it’s Yeah, and it didn’t work for very long. But yes, so I used to pretend it was the worst part.
Nestor Aparicio 01:11
For me. It’s like I was in 99 percentile. I would test kid like when I was a kid, and then I hit algebra. It f me all up. I mean, the x’s, the O’s the variable I like, and I got lost. And then Algebra Two really destroyed me. And then I never made it to geometry or trig or calculus or anything like that. Sorry that we lost you. I went verbal. I went verbal. I went I went out of math. I went verbal. So
Luke Jones 01:33
my best one of my works out well for me.
Nestor Aparicio 01:37
27 later, here I am.
Luke Jones 01:39
One of my best friends in high school was our valedictorian. But to this day, I still will heckle him a little bit and be like, Yeah, who was the guy you’re calling at 11 o’clock to help you with their truth? Exactly.
Nestor Aparicio 01:50
I’m talking theory here, because once you guys get nerd it up. I’ll just be here drinking some liberty, pure water, math in football, and Eric d’acosta in Baltimore. And I know Eric exceedingly well. And I know Eric started to push toward Yankees and Astros and baseball people to figure out how do we take this analytic revolution in baseball, and apply it to football? And I think Lamar Jackson is at least the early part of this experiment. Am I correct in saying that?
Cynthia Frelund 02:22
Well, first of all, I don’t know if I think it’s an experiment because I see all I’m really lucky in my role, I get a chance to see almost every single team’s analytics departments. Correct. And they may not call it analytics. But every team does do some version mainly, they may not the word might not be analytics that they call it but the Ravens so scouting, scouting for operations, some of the quality controls, like different names for different different strokes for different folks, right, but no team has it set up better or the communication better or the actual utilization of analytics better than the Ravens by like, this is the ravens and then
Nestor Aparicio 03:03
superior astral ball without the cheating. I was about to say.
Cynthia Frelund 03:08
I’m not gonna give them that because I like yeah, whatever the connotation is poor but there they are. They are really doing it and in a way that it should be the model for other kids. So
Nestor Aparicio 03:17
for you being on the math nerd side, we’re familiar with you from the television and really
Cynthia Frelund 03:21
did your I didn’t listen, I did ravens preseason game. And that meant a lot to me. I actually really like I loved to do I was the most overprepared preseason sideline reporter in the history of preseason sideline reporters. Like a way to revert, but ultimately, I loved it. I had so much
Nestor Aparicio 03:38
fun. Well, we’re football was 510 years ago for you as a fan as a math nerd as someone that we didn’t know about to finding market in equities. I mean, and that certainly, from a baseball perspective, Luke has spent a lifetime being a nerd to being the first guys on to war and you know, all of those statistical things that as a 29 year sports radio guy in the 90s, we talked to RBI and who was the winning pitcher and all of that type of stuff. Right. But I think in the modern era, people have come, especially on the internet, John, boy included, have come out of the closet to say, all right, these were things I’ve been thinking all along, like Bill James did in the 1970s. Right,
Cynthia Frelund 04:20
Bill James, Bill Walsh. You know, that’s probably to me, if I had to say the father of analytics and football is definitely he wouldn’t have called it that, you know, like, I don’t think he was like, Hey, I’m doing advanced math concepts here. You know, like, I don’t think that’s what it was. But the strategy, it’s really about, like creating a cohesive unit, like, it’s a lot harder because 11 variables on either side each time moving in every single snap, like that’s a lot. It’s just a much more difficult equation, then, you know, one in baseball kind of one thing happens and then a cascade of other things could happen, right? Like, they determine what kind of pitch right like that’s, we don’t have a version of that, right? Like we don’t
Nestor Aparicio 04:56
know. mahomes does but
Cynthia Frelund 04:58
fair enough. But I would argue maybe Lamar Jackson rushing to the outside is the
Nestor Aparicio 05:04
measure of Lamar statistically against other quarterbacks. It’s just it’s apples and grapes.
Cynthia Frelund 05:08
And you can’t because it’s also the personnel around him because you can’t like drop one thing into another thing and because the what really needs to be like can’t be stated enough is the personnel matches what you want them to do. That’s analytics right there that strategy right like without those tight ends without that type of Oh, right without drafting Hollywood brown without all of these pieces work together to make the strategy work right Greg Roman orchestrated this thing to, to work with what assets he
Nestor Aparicio 05:37
say Ronnie Stanley’s a better run blocker. Marshall yonder at this point is crippling run block.
Cynthia Frelund 05:42
Me. Sure. But why? Because the scheme fits. If you like, when you have these, when you’re showing this, this look to a defense. That’s what they’re going to expect or what that’s what they’re going to do and they’ve become a better at because that’s their strategy and you’re able to execute it given all your good run blocker if your other guys are good, too. You know what I’m saying? You’re a good system pass blocker. If your other guys are good, too. It’s it all works together. It’s not what like one piece. Yes, a quarterback makes a huge difference because he touched the ball and every single snap, but ultimately one one piece. And if you want to get the most out of it, you got to get all of the pieces to work. Right like not just one.
Nestor Aparicio 06:17
That’s trick and then the Titans come to town and the pieces don’t work anymore. Cynthia freely joining us here and you can follow her. On Twitter, obviously NFL gameday morning. Go ahead, Luke.
Luke Jones 06:26
Well, I was checking out your piece where you were breaking down different numbers in over the Superbowl. And the one that really stood out to me was 16. Since the start of last season, you mentioned 16 And Patrick mahomes 17 interceptions came when the defense rushed four or fewer players? Well, all we’ve heard about with the 1400s defense is their front four, how unlike the ravens, how the Ravens kind of had the Blitz to create pressure, they hardly ever Blitz and they create that pressure. And I keep looking at that number. And this is where someone who appreciates math like I do. We always have these talking points in football, and some of them are cliche, and some of them are very dense travels. Yeah, but there’s some of those cliches are some of those talking points are appropriate for certain games. But can you give me a meaningful number, a meaningful statistic that actually offers some context, and I thought that number there, Patrick mahomes. Now maybe it’s kind of a no Doug kind of concept. But when there are seven in coverage, he’s not quite as godly as he can be when teams try to blitz and he just kills you. So
Cynthia Frelund 07:30
for nfl.com, that’s where the article is, there’s 10 numbers on there. And I don’t get to write everything that I have about it, because it would be boring, and people would stop reading it. So the thing that’s not also included in there, that’s like the next level of nerdy is like, so I looked at all of those interceptions, and how close their defense was to that like the separation between. And ultimately what you’re having is you’re really having more often than not like nine, I believe nine of those 16 were when Tyreke Hill hat was bracketed. So that’s an interesting kind of additional points on there were two defenders were very close to Tyreke. Hill, I thought it was gonna be more Travis Kelce base because they do those quick strike little things, right. And it was actually more when Tyreke Hill was covered up, then the other pieces weren’t as good as him to get the ball right, like so to on Tyreke. Hill was kind of the other part that was interesting about that.
Luke Jones 08:21
You mentioned some of the player tracking. And I think that’s where people hear analytics, and then just think, okay, a bunch of nerdy stats or, you know, splits and all that. But I think the player tracking piece is what and I was just reading about analytics and football and staffing and teams that are hiring more personnel, the player tracking data and next gen stats within the NFL, it really feels like a game changer. And maybe there’s a lot of filtering to, to really filter out what’s meaningful. What’s just boys, right? That seems to be the major direction where teams are going, where they’re hiring people to say, Okay, we know how fast this guy is in this situation or on this play. But to try to figure that out. I think that’s the big game changer. And that’s why not just in games, but you’re seeing all these players wearing the tracking stuff during practices even
Cynthia Frelund 09:10
Yeah, so there’s a kind of two ways that it works. The first one is like with the tracking information, it’s only going to be as good as credit. So this is what we have, we have that GPA, like the next gen stats have that. So when I look at what the next gen stats will be capable of doing, we’re only going to be as good as like how we kind of figure out how to use that speed inherently. There’s like a little bit of speed that drives me crazy because it’s like to reach top speed you typically haven’t been hit or you know, like, who cares? Like, oh, we’re gonna do point nine three or 22.830 He’s so much slower, like Stop it like like the 40 yard
Luke Jones 09:41
dash for an offensive lineman. Is that really useful?
Cynthia Frelund 09:45
No, no, after the first 10 Split if you’re if your alignments reading more than 10 years useful.
Nestor Aparicio 09:50
Rolando Brown didn’t run well, right. I mean, you know, it gets used against you, but it does not preclude you from doing the job. Right,
Cynthia Frelund 09:58
right. I mean, those or six to one half a dozen. But ultimately, the way that it’s really useful is when you say speed and context. So how fast are you going when another person is within two feet of you or whatever, like, now that’s interesting to me, right? Not like, you know, so now that we’re learning how to use it better, and people who are really smart way smarter than me are like taking the time to create like, like paradigms of what should or shouldn’t be happening on this. And my advantage is I hack it right, like, so I ask a coach to help me cheat. So I’m like, tell me what was supposed to happen here. So that when I create a model, I can infuse it with reality. Right? So the better and Italy? Yeah, really? Did you? Like, I’m really lucky. I like this never gets lost me the fact that I can call several coaches and be like, hey, what would happen on plate 47? I don’t understand. They’ll be like, safety was in the wrong spot. Like, got it like, like, sometimes it’s as simple as that, who always knows
Nestor Aparicio 10:54
who was right and wrong? Well, the
Cynthia Frelund 10:56
coach is right, and every else is wrong. That’s what it? No, but ultimately, it’s like, how do you infuse like these raw data points that you’re talking about? With some, like reality, right? So the blend of like, like, let’s say, I’m a hacker, right? Like, I read a bunch of computer code, which allows me to take all that info really quickly parse it, I also use computer vision, which allows me to see a little bit more because it like takes basically like, imagine, you know, that yellow line that comes up, right? For people who don’t know, it’s like this. That’s the type of thing I can measure how far away things are from other things. Without the tracking data. Like it just it’s dorky. So the Chi loser yet?
Nestor Aparicio 11:30
No, I’m with her.
Luke Jones 11:33
The computer programming, that’s that’s
Cynthia Frelund 11:36
the point is, is that you can do it fast. The idea is to just go really fast with it, right? So you can be fast, wrong and fast, right? So my goal is to like, then, you know, take it back to the coach and be like, Hey, Coach, is this kind of same, right? Like, and he’s or five that way? And so the vetting of that back and forth, the better you get the real, the real and the field to kind of commingle the better off you are
Nestor Aparicio 11:56
you spend time with the ravens, and you’re excited about and whatever this season. And we had Greg cosell here, I’ve had football players sit here, calling it a geometry, experiment with Lamar and trying to find an angle. But he’s faster than you. So we’re the angle is different than him. It’s different for him, right?
Cynthia Frelund 12:17
Think about it like this, if you’re really fast, and you can rush off to the edge where there’s only one person and they’re not really they’re trying to come at you from this angle, and you get to run to that angle. So they’re on their off angle. Of course, you have a bet. But you can only do that if you’re fast enough, right? Like, Tom Brady can’t do that. Right. He can’t get outside that
Nestor Aparicio 12:34
quarterbacks in the history of the game have never been able to do that. I was just
Cynthia Frelund 12:37
went where like when that’s, you know, first ballot Hall of Famer. So just you know, just to give some context, right, like, but but the whole Yes, that. I don’t know if I think it’s an experiment, like my take issue with the word experiment. It’s smart. They knew they had this asset and they put it in a place where it could perform well, great.
Nestor Aparicio 12:53
Experiments, the longer the word but pioneer. Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah, sure. I mean,
Cynthia Frelund 13:00
I think but the pioneers
Nestor Aparicio 13:00
never know what’s going to happen. I mean, no one has ever tried to do season
Cynthia Frelund 13:04
ahead of the season, I wrote that this team could win 13 games or three, it was gonna go away.
Luke Jones 13:10
It’s I thought, I said, between six and 911, or 12.
Cynthia Frelund 13:16
I’m being like, you know, it’d
Nestor Aparicio 13:16
be hot potato though, right? Like, none of the teams wanted to touch him. Because they did see it as an experiment.
Cynthia Frelund 13:26
promise you, I promise you that when I go to the combine this season, I’m gonna be like, I had to hire these people are gonna come to you should have seen my rating on the marchex course. Just like they said to me last year about pet, you should have seen what I had on Patrick was like, okay, like, revisionist history is kind of amazing. But like,
Nestor Aparicio 13:41
are any of these other after the fact? I mean, come on? Of course,
Cynthia Frelund 13:44
of course. Well, obviously, everyone, like, you know, back to Tom Brady. Clearly, they knew what they were doing.
Nestor Aparicio 13:54
was interesting in that way, too, because and we’ve talked to a lot of people all week long. Everyone’s mahomes mahomes. You’ve been here, 14 minutes. We haven’t said the word Garoppolo yet, right. And there’s a lot of that going on this week.
Cynthia Frelund 14:05
But you know what, the best part about Jimmy Garoppolo leglock. It’s all about who, like you have this raw, this raw piece of clay and you get to mold it into something and you have sir, I’m never gonna dunk a basketball. I’m five foot six. I’m never gonna dunk a basketball. But like you, I can do other things. I can run a marathon, right? Like you have this asset that does this thing. If you know how to use it. Well, it’s going to perform better for you. The best part about Jimmy Garoppolo was this asset that Kyle Shanahan really understands well, and he’s making it be really efficient. If you look at his in that article he talks about he has the highest on deep passing attempts or 20 Plus areas attempts. He has the highest yards per attempt average meaning he’s able to connect with his receivers on those deep passes when they use them. So this strategy works. It’s not like you’re saying he can’t throw a deep pass. He just hasn’t had to. It’s a luxury not to have to write because more turnovers happen when you throw than when you run just it’s a fact. Right. So So it’s these are things that like all that stuff makes no sense to me. But the other brilliant part about Jimmy Garoppolo is they didn’t overpay for him so now you can get the better o lineman that you can pay your tight end you can pay the defensive front you know like same story with Lamar well right now right But Jimmy Garoppolo is on his side all comes back to math, math and money. Math and money so the free
Nestor Aparicio 15:15
limo right you can find her out on Twitter find her an NFL gameday morning in NFL Network and we appreciate it Phil network for sending by the wisdom and I know Luke appreciate it nerd that all up
Cynthia Frelund 15:26
and anytime. Anytime.
Nestor Aparicio 15:30
Thanks for coming on with us. I appreciate you there she goes at the Freeman from NFL network so brought to you by our friends at sports culture. Kansas City Chiefs San Francisco 40. Niners we’re live in Miami, so
Cynthia Frelund 15:41
I’m gonna take this No, I just liked it. I think it’s cute.
Nestor Aparicio 15:46
People thought this was cannabis. It’s not it’s just it’s just a little rubber. We haven’t had a chief yet thought of if we get to Hall of Famers on the 49 or so. Big shout out to court. Our friends at Royal farms Liberty pure and Rascon global we’re back for more from Miami since he didn’t want to leave. We’re back from war after this.
