Sample NFL play-by-play data with a specified blend of rushing and passing

This function will return a sample play from the nflscrapR play-by-play data for a given down, distance, yards from the team's goal, using a given pass/rush play strategy. The user may choose a value for the proportion of passing plays to be sampled. Thus one can test strategies in which the team always passes, always runs, or some distribution of the two. This strategy is only intended for downs 1 - 3, and uses an empirical strategy for fourth downs. This should be primarily used within the `NFLSimulatoR::sample_play()` function.

sample_passes_rushes_strategy(
  what_down,
  yards_to_go,
  yards_from_own_goal,
  window_yards_from_own_goal = 1,
  play_by_play_data,
  prop_passes = 0.5
)

Arguments

what_down

The current down (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th down)

yards_to_go

Number of yards to go until a first down or TD

yards_from_own_goal

The number of yards from the possession team's own goal

window_yards_from_own_goal

Precision parameter for "yards_from_own_goal" (a value of 1 means the sampling will occur within plus or minus 1 of the "yards_from_own_goal" value)

play_by_play_data

A data file from nflscrapR prepped using the prep_pbp_data.R function

prop_passes

Proportion of plays that should be pass plays, between 0 and 1, inclusive

Value

A tibble containing lots of info

Examples

if (FALSE) {
sample_passes_rushes_strategy(what_down = 3,
                              yards_to_go = 2,
                              yards_from_own_goal = 45,
                              window_yards_from_own_goal = 2,
                              play_by_play_data = reg_pbp_2018,
                              prop_passes = 0.5)
}