Stiff Competition Atop the Latest Coach Rankings

NFL Week 15 – The top two coaches remain unchanged yet again, as Brandon Staley (LAC) and Matt LaFleur (GB) remain neck-and-neck atop the EdjSports Coach Rankings. Frank Reich (IND) jumps Kliff Kingsbury (ARI) for 3rd on the heels of several fourth down GOs in Week 15. Sean McDermott (BUF) rounds out the top five once again. Two coaches are tied for the biggest jump this week with Matt Nagy (CHI) and Brian Flores (MIA) moving up four spots each. You’re probably surprised at Nagy’s jump considering the Bears looked awful on Monday night, but he made several correct fourth down decisions, which helped him rise. The biggest fall belongs to the Browns, though Kevin Stefanski was out with COVID, so it’s not completely fair to attribute the drop to him. It was his interim coach Mike Prieffer who made the largest fourth down error of Week 15, outweighing his top-five best decision and causing the Cleveland coaching duo to drop 10 spots. Joe Judge (NYG) and Mike Tomlin (PIT) continue to bring up the rear, and Pete Carroll (SEA) joins them in the bottom three at 30th after dropping three spots.

The EdjSports Coach Rankings are based on team performance to date and fourth-down decision making to determine which coaches are best at maximizing their teams’ win probability. More specifically, instead of subjectively ranking coaches based on the “eye test” or trying to compare things like scheme, roster-building, and motivation, EdjSports uses data to analyze and rank NFL coaches with a strong emphasis on fourth-down decision making. Games can be, and often are, won and lost on fourth downs alone. So coach rankings consist of two factors: performance to date, referred to as Edj Power Index, or EPI, and fourth-down decision making, referred to as Critical Call Index, or CCI. For a deeper explanation please review EdjSports methodology below.

Methodology

EdjSports is widely acclaimed for its in-game risk management analysis and proprietary Game-Winning Chance (GWC) metric used by NFL teams and media. GWC is a team’s win probability at any point in the game and is generated from the proprietary EdjFootball simulation model. EdjSports is creating the industry standard for head coach rankings by allocating its GWC to coaching decisions.

About the EdjFootball model

Built on 20+ years of historical NFL play-by-play and statistical data, the EdjFootball model is a fully customizable simulation engine. It accounts for each team’s strengths and weaknesses on offense, defense, and special teams. Model inputs include game state (score, timeouts, quarter, clock, down and distance, and field position), venue characteristics (indoor, outdoor, grass, turf, elevation), second half kickoff team, key injuries and Football Outsiders DVOA. Each week the model evaluates team performances and adjusts team strengths and weakness accordingly. As a result of these analyses, over the course of a season the EdjFootball model simulates over 3 billion games to conclusion.

About the EdjSports Coach Rankings

EdjSports analyzes every coaching decision during the course of a season. The EdjFootball model enables an in-depth examination of all critical calls (fourth downs, PATs, and kickoffs), in terms of the amount of GWC at stake. The coach’s play-calling choices (run, pass, field goal, punt) are assessed at the point of decision (pre-snap) and rated with respect to their impact on winning the game. As a result of this process all play calling decisions can be objectively classified as either optimal decisions (correct calls) or suboptimal decisions (errors).

The EdjSports Coach Rankings are based on this methodology and consist of two main components that result in the overall ranking.

Edj Power Indexes (EPI) Ranking

This is a cumulative ranking of the Edj Power Indexes (EPIs) including Offensive Pass, Offensive Rush, Defensive Pass and Defensive Rush. This ranking is a reflection of how teams performed in every situation during the season.

Offensive Play Calling (CCI) Ranking

This ranking is based on an analysis of offensive play calling on fourth downs and compares teams in terms of GWC lost or gained, on a normalized basis so that all teams are given the same test. Additionally, the CCI rankings are adjusted to account for the frequency and situational nature of critical calls to allow for fair comparisons of all 32 teams.

EdjSports Coach Ranking

This ranking is a weighted average of the Edj Power Indexes (EPI) and Offensive Play Calling (CCI) Rankings that provides a more comprehensive assessment of coaching strengths and weaknesses.