I see where you're going

by LaFortune Teller , South Bend, Thursday, March 05, 2009, 08:14 (6291 days ago) @ Jay

But flip it around: on 1st-and-5, is a 0-yard gain that nets you 2nd-and-5 "success"?

I can't help you with any nitty-gritty details of DVOA (I don't know them), but I think any definition of "success" has to take into account expectations -- that's how I approach drive success, certainly. There may be different definitions of "success" itself -- philosophically, is "success" something that teams achieve 50% of the time? 33%? 20%?

Treating 3rd-and-2 and 3rd-and-10 with the same success measuring stick (100%) doesn't really work for a sliding scale of expectations, but it makes sense for moving the ball down the field. That said, I would guess teams don't approach 1st-and-10 and 1st-and-20 the same way -- they're not both trying to get to 2nd-and-5, are they? Strategically, 1st-down and x-distance probably produces a number of different perspectives on success.