NFL Rushing Tendencies Visualization…or Ahhhh, It’s a Spider! by Zach Gemignani.
From the post:
The mad scientists over in Juice Labs cooked up a new treat for you all just in time for
HalloweenThanksgiving. We’ve crossbred some NFL Data (courtesy of our fellow friend in data Brian Burke) with a visualization we’ve kept under wraps for a while called The Spider. Now before any of you that suffer from arachnophobia start to freak out, this isn’t the spider that you may be accustomed to. The Spider visualization helps you understand the offensive rush tendencies for every NFL team for the last 4 seasons. EVERY rush that ever happened in the NFL from 2008-2011 is captured in the visualization. Information about the average yards gained, total yards gained, and the number of plays in each direction are also included. You may be surprised to find out which direction the Green Bay Packers run to on 4th and inches or how unsuccessful Arian Foster has historically been running the football on 1st and long situations (he’s a pretty awesome RB otherwise). You can filter the data by week, season, down, distance, player, and/or the opposing defense. Try it out for yourself here for some deliciously filling insights.
How to Read the Chart:
The thickness of the spider leg represents the number of rushes in that direction. A thicker line means more rushes were attempted to that area. The length of the spider leg stops on the average yards gained per rush in that direction. Click or hover over each leg for more detailed information about the team’s offensive rush tendencies.
About time they did something useful with data and visualization. 😉
Especially useful for armchair quarterbacks and coaches.
Now imagine an application that could track all the records for a player across their career starting in high school, including members of opposing teams, complete with plays and results.