The Hidden Game of Football
 | |
| Author | Bob Carroll, John Thorn, and Pete Palmer |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Hidden Game of Football: A Revolutionary Approach to the Game and Its Statistics |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Grand Central Publishing, Total Sports Publishing |
Publication date | January 1, 1988 |
| Pages | 415 |
| ISBN | 0446514144 |
The Hidden Game of Football: A Revolutionary Approach to the Game and Its Statistics is a book on American football statistics published in 1988 and written by Bob Carroll, John Thorn, and Pete Palmer. It was the first systematic statistical approach to analyzing American football in a book.[1]
Original publication[edit]
The original was published in 1988.[2] The purpose of the book is to look at the statistics of football and how they change the game based on coaching decision and player selection.
Updated edition[edit]
In 1998, a new version title The Hidden Game Of Football: The Next Edition was published by the authors. The new version is updated and includes more commentary on past statistics. A 2023 edition, with a foreword by Aaron Schatz, is being published by University of Chicago Press.[3]
Reception[edit]
The book received mixed reviews at the time of its original publication, but has been assessed more positively by retrospective reviews. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, in a 1988 review for The New York Times, found the application of statistics to football "cumbersome."[4] By contrast, Shane Richmond of Pigskin Books wrote that "it’s likely that the book changed the way teams themselves think about the game; it certainly changed how the smarter sportswriters and analysts looked at it."[1] Rustin Dodd, in a retrospective article in The Athletic, described the book as "a seminal work of football analytics" in 2022.[5]
The book inspired Aaron Schatz to found Football Outsiders, and develop the Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) statistic.[5][6]
See also[edit]
- Advanced statistics in basketball, statistical analysis of basketball.
- Analytics (ice hockey), statistical analysis of ice hockey.
- Advanced Football Analytics, website dedicated to the statistical analysis of the NFL.
- Ernie Adams, a Phillips Academy classmate of Bill Belichick whose role with the New England Patriots is compared to Bill James's role with the Boston Red Sox.
- Football Outsiders, a website dedicated to the statistical analysis of football based on some of the concepts from The Hidden Game of Football.
- Sabermetrics, statistical analysis of baseball.
- Sean Lahman, creator of the Pro Football Prospectus series, author of The Pro Football Historical Abstract, and editor of ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia.
- Sports rating system
- Win probability
References[edit]
- ^ a b Richmond, Shane (2019-02-14). "Review: The Hidden Game of Football by Bob Carroll, Pete Palmer & John Thorn". PIGSKIN BOOKS. Retrieved 2022-11-30.
- ^ "Pigskin Pythagoras". Boston.com. Retrieved 2022-11-30.
- ^ The Hidden Game of Football. University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (October 6, 1988). "Books of The Times; Football as Show Business, Football as Statistics". The New York Times.
- ^ a b Dodd, Rustin. "'Hidden Game': How a cult book from the 1980s foretold the future of football and the fourth down debate". The Athletic. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
- ^ Carlton, Stuart (11 December 2010). "An Interview with Football Outsiders' Aaron Schatz". Canalstreetchronicles.com.