I don't follow that because you essentially forced a turnover by getting the safety. You're double counting the effect of the actual play here. The new possession has nothing to do with the safety.


2 points is fair.

You are just painfully stupid:

1) You get two points for the safety

2) The average field position after a safety is around the 40 yard line. That translates to an average of 1.8 points per possession.

2+1.8=3.8 points.

A safety may score you two points initially, but it's really worth 3.8 points.

They can use a tee on the free kick if they so choose. Most don't due to the amount of hang time a punter gets vs a kicker, but they can.

Don't be stupid and irrational. They are independent. By your logic, a sack on 3rd down that forces the same punt from the same spot a safety does, should also be worth 1.8 points. And that's absurd.

No. They can use a tee in high school and college on a free kick, but not in the NFL.

My mistake, they can kick it rather than punt, but it must be held (like a FG) not on a tee. I guess a dropkick is legal as well, but I have never seen that.

It's not the spot from the punt, it's the starting average field position of the offense.

Teams that have a first down on the 40 score, on average, 1.8 points per possession.

If a team averages starting field possession on the 40, they will score, on average, 1.8 points on that possession. Sometimes they will score seven, sometimes they will score three, and often no points at all. But on average, they score that many points.

Thus, if you get the ball back on average at the 40 yard line, you can expect to score 1.8 points. Add that to the two points you've already scored, and you get 3.8 points.

You don't score 3.8 points with each safety, but on average, you will.

This might be nit-picking, but if an offense is doing so poorly that they allow a safety, then they were probably going to be punting soon anyway, and with a punt its probably about the same field position.

Not always, sometimes absent the safety they would have gotten the first down and continued down the field, but a lot of times it was going to be a punt. So, maybe shave a little off the expected 3.8 but I do agree that a safety is probably worth at least slightly more than 3 points on average.

I understand perfectly what you're saying. I just think there are limits to these type of Sabermetrics. A 3+Out that results in the possession from the same 40-yard line has the same 1.8 points of value then. So stopping the run on 1st down was worth what, 0.6 points? The incomplete pass another 0.6, the sack the final 0.6.


You can see how you can take the E(x) values here to mean far more than they really do.