I Propose a New Red Zone Metric
I always see red zone efficiency reported as a percentage of trips into the red zone in which a team came away with points (or in which a defense came away without allowing points.) Even more often I just see the raw data reported (e.g. "scored 8 times in 14 trips...") I have never seen it differentiate between whether it was a FG or TD scored, but just whether the team came away with points. For instance...
http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/red-zone-scoring-pct
How about just reporting average points? Simply (Total points resulting from trip into red zone) / (Total trips into red zone)
It can be reported as a one or two decimal number and would give more information than the bulky "has-scored-x-times-in-y-trips-into-the-red-zone" model that is currently favored.
Posted Dec 29, 2011, 4:50 AM UTC