IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jqsprt/v16y2020i2p143-161n6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unsupervised methods for identifying pass coverage among defensive backs with NFL player tracking data

Author

Listed:
  • Dutta Rishav

    (Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

  • Yurko Ronald

    (Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Statistics & Data Science, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

  • Ventura Samuel L.

    (Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Statistics & Data Science, 5000 Forbes Ave., Baker Hall 132, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA)

Abstract

Statistical analysis of defensive players in football has lagged behind that of offensive players, special teams, and coaching decisions, largely because data on individual defensive players has historically been lacking. With the introduction of player tracking data from the NFL, researchers can now tackle these problems. However, event and strategy annotations in the NFL’s tracking data are limited, especially when it comes to describing what defensive players do on each play. Moreover, methods for creating these annotations typically require extensive human labeling, which is difficult and expensive. Because of the importance of the passing game and the limited prior research on the defensive side of passing, we provide annotations for the pass coverage types of cornerbacks using unsupervised learning techniques, which require no training data. We define a set of features from the tracking data that distinguish between “man” and “zone” coverage. We use mixture models to create clusters corresponding to each group, allowing us to provide probabilistic assignments to each coverage type (or cluster). Additionally, we quantify each feature’s influence in distinguishing defensive pass coverage types. Our work makes possible several potential avenues of future NFL research into defensive backs and pass coverage strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Dutta Rishav & Yurko Ronald & Ventura Samuel L., 2020. "Unsupervised methods for identifying pass coverage among defensive backs with NFL player tracking data," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 143-161, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:16:y:2020:i:2:p:143-161:n:6
    DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2020-0017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/jqas-2020-0017
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/jqas-2020-0017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raftery, Adrian E. & Dean, Nema, 2006. "Variable Selection for Model-Based Clustering," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 101, pages 168-178, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scrucca, Luca, 2016. "Identifying connected components in Gaussian finite mixture models for clustering," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 5-17.
    2. Jerzy Korzeniewski, 2016. "New Method Of Variable Selection For Binary Data Cluster Analysis," Statistics in Transition new series, Główny Urząd Statystyczny (Polska), vol. 17(2), pages 295-304, June.
    3. Jerzy Korzeniewski, 2016. "New Method Of Variable Selection For Binary Data Cluster Analysis," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 17(2), pages 295-304, June.
    4. Michael Fop & Pierre-Alexandre Mattei & Charles Bouveyron & Thomas Brendan Murphy, 2022. "Unobserved classes and extra variables in high-dimensional discriminant analysis," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 16(1), pages 55-92, March.
    5. Jian Guo & Elizaveta Levina & George Michailidis & Ji Zhu, 2010. "Pairwise Variable Selection for High-Dimensional Model-Based Clustering," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 793-804, September.
    6. Maugis, C. & Celeux, G. & Martin-Magniette, M.-L., 2011. "Variable selection in model-based discriminant analysis," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(10), pages 1374-1387, November.
    7. Ahlquist, John S. & Breunig, Christian, 2009. "Country clustering in comparative political economy," MPIfG Discussion Paper 09/5, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    8. Cathy Maugis & Gilles Celeux & Marie-Laure Martin-Magniette, 2009. "Variable Selection for Clustering with Gaussian Mixture Models," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 701-709, September.
    9. Jeffrey Andrews & Paul McNicholas, 2014. "Variable Selection for Clustering and Classification," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 31(2), pages 136-153, July.
    10. Alessandro Casa & Andrea Cappozzo & Michael Fop, 2022. "Group-Wise Shrinkage Estimation in Penalized Model-Based Clustering," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 39(3), pages 648-674, November.
    11. Wang, Ketong & Porter, Michael D., 2018. "Optimal Bayesian clustering using non-negative matrix factorization," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 395-411.
    12. Gutiérrez, Luis & Gutiérrez-Peña, Eduardo & Mena, Ramsés H., 2014. "Bayesian nonparametric classification for spectroscopy data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 56-68.
    13. Gilles Celeux & Cathy Maugis-Rabusseau & Mohammed Sedki, 2019. "Variable selection in model-based clustering and discriminant analysis with a regularization approach," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 13(1), pages 259-278, March.
    14. Csereklyei, Zsuzsanna & Anantharama, Nandini & Kallies, Anne, 2021. "Electricity market transitions in Australia: Evidence using model-based clustering," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    15. repec:jss:jstsof:18:i06 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Sunil Kumar & Apurba Vishal Dabgotra, 2021. "A latent class analysis on the usage of mobile phones among management students," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 89-114, March.
    17. Paul D. McNicholas, 2016. "Model-Based Clustering," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 33(3), pages 331-373, October.
    18. Montanari, Angela & Viroli, Cinzia, 2011. "Maximum likelihood estimation of mixtures of factor analyzers," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(9), pages 2712-2723, September.
    19. Benhuai Xie & Wei Pan & Xiaotong Shen, 2008. "Variable Selection in Penalized Model‐Based Clustering Via Regularization on Grouped Parameters," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 64(3), pages 921-930, September.
    20. Arias-Castro, Ery & Pu, Xiao, 2017. "A simple approach to sparse clustering," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 217-228.
    21. Zhang, Q. & Ip, E.H., 2014. "Variable assessment in latent class models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 146-156.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:16:y:2020:i:2:p:143-161:n:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.