One of my favorite parts of every offseason is the chance to take a small step back from the Broncos in an effort to try and improve my understanding of football on a macro level. So when I first stumbled upon Tej Seth’s work on Twitter I was fascinated. I can say with some confidence there isn’t any one person I’ve learned from more over the last three months.
with training camp highlights in full swing, we can use market implied ratings to see which side of the ball should be winning battles for each team pic.twitter.com/egN9XrQDQE
— Tej Seth (@tejfbanalytics) August 5, 2021
A student at the University of Michigan, Seth works as a research and development intern for Pro Football Focus. As part of this role he’s works on new metrics for analyzing the game that NFL teams are implementing. He’s also written a number of enlightening articles so far, including :
- How injuries impacted every NFL teams ability to compete in 2020
- How coaches impacts win totals over expected
- How a receivers yards after catch is influenced by things beyond his ability
- What to target when drafting running backs
- The best quarterback prospects by CPOE since 2014
One of my favorite parts about hosting Cover2Broncos is the chance to speak with smart guests and pick their brains on my favorite team, and I was fortunate enough to get a chance to chat with Seth. What follows are just a few of the things we dug into:
- What statistical impact did Von Miller and Courtland Sutton’s injuries have on 2020?
- How much can a player at any given position impact win totals?
- Does the Broncos’ poor injury luck last season mean they should be healthier in ‘21?
- When injuries become more likely during the season.
- In what ways is the Fangio defense blazing a path in the NFL?
- Light boxes and their impact on run defense.
- Will dime personnel make a defense more susceptible to opposing rushing attacks?
- What makes the Broncos’ pass defense so different than the norm?
- Is there any statistical evidence to suggest Drew Lock can become “the guy” under center?
- How likely is a third year jump for Lock?
- Are there any commonalities among the passers who experience a third year breakout?
- One sneaky stat that could be Lock’s saving grace going forward.
- Are sacks a QB stat?
- Are pressures a QB stat?
- What does Teddy Bridgewater bring to the table as a potential starter?
- Evaluating the four big narratives about Bridgewater.
- Lock vs. Bridgewater.
- Is this Broncos roster good enough to win without a franchise quarterback?
- Did George Paton err in selecting Patrick Surtain II over Justin Fields?
- Were there any other quarterback moves the Broncos should have considered?
- What looks like the realistic range of outcomes for this Broncos’ roster?
-on average, quarterback's have a 0.00 difference between the EPA/play of their first two years and the rest of their career
— Tej Seth (@tejfbanalytics) August 4, 2021
-only 23% of quarterbacks increase their EPA/play by +0.1 or more
will be discussing if drew lock can buck this trend with @JoRo_NFL on @Cover2Broncos! pic.twitter.com/3pIScWqGn3
I really can’t tell you how fun it was to chat with Seth and I hope you take the opportunity to listen in. Analytics can get a bit intimidating for those of us who don’t work in data science, and he did an exceptional job making it accessible for me, even as I peppered him with follow up questions.
Let’s go Broncos.