As the analytics movement spreads throughout football, new stats are popping up in droves. There’s DVOA, ANY/A, CPOE, EPA, QBR, and many more. Some starts are good. Some are useful. Some are sad. Some are pointless.
This is about one of the pointless ones.
Well, not pointless, per se. There are eight points involved in this stat. That’s why it’s called the octopus.
Invented by Sports Illustrated’s Mitch Goldich last year, an octopus occurs when a player scores a touchdown and also converts a two-point conversion on the same drive, resulting in eight points.