You can go ahead and put running the football in the group of things I have an unhealthy relationship with.  Other members of this group include:

• Any movie where Maggie Gyllenhaal is described as hot.
• Barack Obama’s ridiculous claim that he crossed over Chris Paul (or at least that he did it when Chris Paul was trying)
• Any restaurant menu that includes superfluous adjectives like “farm raised”.  Nothing I love more than forgetting what I’m reading about because I had to wade through 8 adjectives that I don’t give a shit about.
• The NCAA cartel that fixes prices on athlete compensation instead of letting the free market work
• People who race around you in traffic only to stop at the same red light as you.  They’re probably on the way to the lab to finish up that cancer cure I’m sure.
• A movie about a 100 year old vampire hooking up with a 17 year old girl.  Nice message.
• Magician-comedians

 

At a certain point you know you’ve gone crazy when the mere mention of something increases your blood pressure and makes an aneurism more likely.  Running the football is in the group for me now.

One of the things that you have to look at when you’re talking about running the ball is whether a team is doing it to end the game, or whether they are doing it to get a lead.

I thought I would look at play calling when the score is tied to see if it tells us anything about team success.  It does.  Teams who call more run plays when the score is tied are on average worse than teams who call pass plays when the score is tied.

The table I’ve pasted on the right shows each team’s percent of plays called that were runs (while tied) along with their point differential for 2011.  It’s sorted by point differential and then it shows the percent of run plays called when the score is tied.

There is actually a statistically significant relationship if you want to run a regression to check.  The more run plays you call when tied, the worse your team is likely to be.

I should clarify here because it’s not the kind of thing you’re going to use to predict point differentials.  Instead it’s just another examination of the relationship between running and winning.

The reality is that teams who call pass plays when they are tied are going to have better passing offenses.  They can afford to pass the ball.  But every team has a choice between whether it wants to be a passing team or a running team.  Some teams just choose to be running teams.

About a month ago I posted on the Mike Wallace tender and how I thought the math was in favor of not giving up a draft pick in order to sign Wallace.  You can read the full post here.

At the heart of that argument was a probability problem related to the odds that a late 1st round pick could outperform Wallace over the course of his contract.  I said an NFL team was getting 5:1 odds to just stay in their draft spot and not give it up for Wallace.

This isn’t scientific at all, but here are all of the late 1st round picks from the last decade.  You can make up your own mind as to whether 5:1 odds are good enough to pass on Wallace.

Year	Pick	Player	Tm	College/Univ
2011	26	Jonathan Baldwin	KAN	Pittsburgh
2010	22	Demaryius Thomas	DEN	Georgia Tech
2010	24	Dez Bryant	DAL	Oklahoma St.
2009	22	Percy Harvin	MIN	Florida
2009	29	Hakeem Nicks	NYG	North Carolina
2009	30	Kenny Britt	TEN	Rutgers
2007	23	Dwayne Bowe	KAN	LSU
2007	27	Robert Meachem	NOR	Tennessee
2007	30	Craig Davis	SDG	LSU
2007	32	Anthony Gonzalez	IND	Ohio St.
2006	25	Santonio Holmes	PIT	Ohio St.
2005	21	Matt Jones	JAX	Arkansas
2005	22	Mark Clayton	BAL	Oklahoma
2005	27	Roddy White	ATL	Ala-Birmingham
2004	29	Michael Jenkins	ATL	Ohio St.
2004	31	Rashaun Woods	SFO	Oklahoma St.
2002	20	Javon Walker	GNB	Florida St.

As I mentioned yesterday, I love discovering new content.  But it’s not that easy.  Twitter is a good example of how difficult content discovery can be.  There are millions of twitter accounts.  How do you know which accounts are good to follow?  I use sort of a “maven” rule.  I like to follow accounts that are being followed by mavens in any domain. 

When I want to figure out who to follow related to the NFL draft I find about 10 draft twitter accounts and then I figure out who those accounts are following.  That’s step one.  There’s one more needed step.  Some accounts just have a lot of followers.  For instance, @barackobama might be followed by a lot of draft experts, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a relevant draft account.  So in order to negate the affect of an account having a lot of followers (like Bill Simmons for instance), I measure how many mavens among the draft community follow that account, but then I control for total followers. 

When I do that, I get the following list of names.  It’s a “Who’s Who” in the draft community.  I’m offering this list because there might be a few names on there that you’re not following, but you should be.  I think it’s helpful to see those names next to the widely known names.  It’s sort of a “proof of relevance”.  Again, these are the accounts that the draft mavens are following at a higher rate than can be explained by total followers.

Apologies for such a long list, but there are a lot of draft relevant accounts out there.

Name	Followers	Tweets	Link	Description
Evan Silva	16604	31879	evansilva	Senior NFL Editor for Rotoworld, writer for NBC Sports & Profootballtalk.com.
Greg Cosell	32535	1219	gregcosell	Executive producer of NFL Matchup, Senior Producer NFL Films for 33 years, Co-author of The Games That Changed The Game
Sigmund Bloom	9468	51901	SigmundBloom	NFL Draft lead writer for Bleacher Report, Audible co-host, projector, writer for Footballguys.com, Stay-at-Home Dad, Pontificater
Chad Reuter	4445	10616	ChadReuter	NFL Network – Senior Researcher – College Football/Draft
SC_DougFarrar	14149	28668	SC_DougFarrar	Football dork for Yahoo Sports; Editor of Shutdown Corner. Team player w/rebellious tendencies. Yes, I am pissed off for greatness.
Adam Caplan	30775	41535	caplannfl	NFL Reporter/Analyst/Radio Host–Host: XM (87)/Sir. (210); WCHE 1520 AM (2-3 pm on Sat.); Host: Film Room (Philadelphiaeagles.com); Contact: caplannfl@gmail.com
Josh Norris	3100	12531	JoshNorris	Rotoworld NFL Draft Contributor. One NFL Team’s Scouting Department Intern during ’10 Training Camp & ’11 NFL Draft. Elon Graduate.
Cecil Lammey	5780	9024	cecillammey	NFL Insider for 102.3 ESPN Denver and senior writer for Footballguys.com
Dan Shonka	6095	5651	Ourlads_Shonka	Former NFL Scout with Eagles,Redskins,Chiefs,Now GM and National Scout for Ourlads’NFL Scouting Services LLC, wife of 33 yrs Peggy,kids:Sarah & Teddy.
Wes Bunting	15335	10460	WesBunting	Blogger @FootballPost
Matt Williamson	19483	6821	WilliamsonNFL	NFL Scout for ESPN.com and Scouts, Inc. Also host of Football Today Podcast.
Ryan Lownes	2101	11069	ryanlownes	NFL Draft analyst, enthusiast, and writer for DraftBreakdown.com. Undergraduate student at Ohio University from the Philadelphia area. Let’s talk some football.
Aaron Aloysius	2380	12809	AaronAloysius	Draft prospect video guy (http://bit.ly/ph5IAx) who writes for DraftBreakdown.com & TheOBR.com. Avatar by the great @RumfordJohnny
Dane Brugler	2473	1910	dpbrugler	NFL Draft Analyst for NFLDraftScout.com, a partner of CBSSports.com.
Tony  Pauline	4720	1124	TonyPauline	NFL Draft Analyst for SI.com & owner, TFYDraft.com, devout/diehard Led Zeppelin fan for a looonnnnnnngg time…
Russell S. Baxter	5242	9242	BaxFootballGuru	Veteran NFL writer/researcher. @thenflmagazine,  FootballPros.com, NationalFootballAuthority.com, NFL.com, ThePostGame.com, SportsReviewMagazine.com
Senior Bowl	6263	2991	seniorbowl	The official twitter page of the Senior Bowl.
Howard Balzer	7034	4030	HBalzer721
Rob Rang	7823	2867	RobRang	Senior NFL Draft Analyst for NFLDraftScout.com, The Sports XChange and CBSSports.com. Interview requests can be sent to rrang@nfldraftscout.com.
Lance Zierlein	12698	31568	LanceZierlein	I’m a sports talk host in Houston, a football blogger for the Houston Chronicle, co-own TheSidelineView.com.  I have an awesome wife and 5 kids.
Matt Miller	20257	21529	nfldraftscout	Senior NFL Draft Lead Writer at Bleacher Report–Founder of New Era Scouting
Joe Goodberry	1213	29040	JoeGoodberry	Contributor for CincyJungle.com | NFL Draft Analyst/Draftnik/Evaluator | Father & Fiancé | Tweets are 91.362% Bengals, Football & Draft related
Fran Duffy	1404	3762	fduffyEagles	Associate Producer with Philadelphiaeagles.com; former Video Coordinator with Temple. NFL Draft enthusiast. Tweets based on my opinion ONLY – not the Eagles’
Marc Lillibridge	2395	4024	NFL_Bridge	Proud to represent NFL Players. Only agent to play and scout in the NFL.  Played LB for Dolphins and Saints, then scouted for Packers and Chiefs.
Andrew Garda	2800	40560	Andrew_Garda	Footballguys Staff writer, NFC North lead writer for BleacherReport.com. Lucky dad and husband, huge nerd.
Kevin Weidl	3750	1464	Kevin_Weidl	College football and NFL draft analyst with ESPN
Shane P. Hallam	3774	30971	ShanePHallam	Fantasy Football/NFL Draft Expert.  Draft Analyst www.draftcountdown.com.  Member of the Football Writer’s Association of America
Matt Waldman	4431	8176	MattWaldman	Magazine journalist. Football writer. Rookie Scouting Portfolio author: The most comprehensive film study of rookie skill position players available.
Dave Razzano	5242	3377	DaveRazzano	NFL scout for more than 22 yrs,49ers, Rams, Cardinals. Have wrked with 5 Super Bwl teams. NFL Analyst on 95.7 TheGame in S.F.
Russell Lande	5246	1777	RUSSLANDE	NFL DRAFT EXPERT for GM Jr. Scouting (www.RUSSLANDE.com) & The Sporting News (www.sportingnews.com).
Scott Wright	6934	3333	DraftCountdown	Scott Wright is the founder of Draft Countdown.com
John McClain	33711	5716	McClain_on_NFL	Has covered the NFL for the Houston Chronicle for 33 years. Can be heard on Sports Radio 610 in Houston and 104.5 The Zone in Nashville.
gregg rosenthal	35762	7433	greggrosenthal	NFL.com
Matthew Elder	1278	22494	Matthewcelder	Director of Scouting for BuffaloBillsDraft.com, Selection Committee Member for 2012 BSN Collegiate Showcase
Josh Buchanan	2056	14729	JoshBDraft	JBScouting.com owner, former all-star game scout/SID, Pro Hopefuls writer for D2football.com, Phil Steele writer, and FWAA/PFWA member.
Matt Bitonti	2080	1066	DraftDaddy	NFL Draft news and knowledge.
Alen Dumonjic	2266	11220	Dumonjic_Alen	Just another young guy with a computer blogging  X’s and O’s for TheScore.com and Bleacherreport.com. A Gooner at heart. Fauvist fanatic. Opinions are own.
Chris Kouffman	2327	20303	ckparrot	NFL Draft Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report, Writer at UniversalDraft.com as well as Draft Winds series on Dave Hyde’s blog at South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Eric Galko	2869	11252	OptimumScouting	Director of Scouting for Optimum Scouting, OptimumScouting.com; EricG@OptimumScouting.com
Michael Schottey	3566	36303	Schottey	NFL Associate Editor at Bleacher Report, Member of the Pro Football Writers of America.
NFLDraftScout.com	3846	4182	DraftScout	NFLDraftScout.com is the leading source for information and analysis on the NFL Draft year round. We’re now on Twitter and Facebook as well!
Chris Wesseling	9032	21228	ChrisWesseling	Senior NFL football editor at Rotoworld.com, writer for NBCSports.com, creator of Sons of the Tundra Dynasty Rankings blog, part-time roisterer.
NFL Draft Insider	14763	6199	NFLDraftInsider	Jared Tokarz, NFL enthusiast, & NFL Draft expert. Follow for Breaking News Football tweets and One of a kind  interviews. Business: nfldraftinsider@gmail.com