Player attribution in American football

Determine a rigorous and interpretable methodology for attributing individual player contributions in American football that accounts for the simultaneous interactions of all twenty-two players on the field, using information from high-resolution player tracking data.

Background

The paper introduces a framework for evaluating defender positioning using tracking data but notes that fully attributing credit to individual players in American football is fundamentally difficult because every play involves complex, simultaneous interactions among twenty-two players.

The availability of NFL Next Gen Stats tracking data offers detailed spatiotemporal information that could enable principled attribution, but a general, accepted solution for attributing value to individual players across positions and situations has not yet been established.