Successful Onside Kick Causes Errors in Drive Number, Drive Result, Posteam

[JoeMarino2021]

For the games

2020_01_SEA_ATL
2020_02_ATL_DAL
2020_07_GB_HOU
2020_20_BUF_KC

when an onside kick is successful, the fixed_drive_number is not incremented to show the recovering team has begun a new possession. The previous possession's fixed_drive_result, drive_inside20, and possibly other drive related information ends up being inherited from the subsequent drive's results. For example, Matt Ryan threw an INT on the possession gained from the onside recovery. Instead of a TD possession followed by a turnover possession, one merged "turnover possession" is listed.

Also, I believe it would be more helpful if the posteam for successful onside kicks would be listed as the kicking/recovering team, not the receiving team.

I feel like the successful onside kicks are marked with "RECOVERED" by the NFL in the play-by-play. That is how I located them. They seem to use the phrase "kicks onside" for onside kicks in general.

Take a look at the following snippet from the SEAvATL game. The D_RZD column is one I created for data processing purposes and is not important to you for diagnosis or discussion of this issue. Notice how the result is "TURNOVER" for the merged drive. The true result for the first constituent drive is TOUCHDOWN. I am sure Matty Ice would like credit for his TD, since he is getting credit for an INT on the subsequent possession. :-). Also, notice the part where the drive remains Drive #21. I would like to see the drive number incremented here to #22. Also, notice how SEA is listed as the posteam for the onside kick (Line #15). I feel like ATL should be listed as the posteam, since ATL recovered the onside kick.

Oooo, I just noticed that the red zone info here appears correct. Maybe it worked here, and not elsewhere, or I was confused by the RZ info from another case (KC-BUF, where both drives made it to the RZ, so it looked inherited).

A tibble: 18 x 7

posteam qtr desc fixed_drive fixed_drive_res~ drive_inside20 D_RZD

1 ATL 4 5-J.Myers kicks 65 yards from SEA 35 to end zone, Touc~ 21 Turnover 1 211
2 ATL 4 (3:45) (Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short left to 23-B.Hill~ 21 Turnover 1 211
3 ATL 4 (3:24) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass incomplete d~ 21 Turnover 1 211
4 ATL 4 (3:18) (Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short middle to 83-R.Ga~ 21 Turnover 1 211
5 ATL 4 (2:55) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short middle~ 21 Turnover 1 211
6 ATL 4 (2:37) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short right ~ 21 Turnover 1 211
7 ATL 4 (2:16) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short left t~ 21 Turnover 1 211
8 ATL 4 (2:00) (Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short right to 25-I.Smi~ 21 Turnover 1 211
9 ATL 4 (1:38) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short middle~ 21 Turnover 1 211
10 ATL 4 (1:17) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short middle~ 21 Turnover 1 211
11 ATL 4 (:58) (No Huddle, Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short left to~ 21 Turnover 1 211
12 NA 4 Timeout #2 by SEA at 00:43. 21 Turnover 1 211
13 ATL 4 (:43) (Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass incomplete short right t~ 21 Turnover 1 211
14 ATL 4 (:39) (Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass short right to 18-C.Ridl~ 21 Turnover 1 211
15 SEA 4 7-Y.Koo kicks onside 11 yards from ATL 35 to ATL 46. R~ 21 Turnover 0 210
16 ATL 4 (:33) (Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass deep left to 83-R.Gage r~ 21 Turnover 0 210
17 ATL 4 (:28) (Shotgun) 2-M.Ryan pass deep left INTERCEPTED by~ 21 Turnover 0 210
18 SEA 4 (:19) 3-R.Wilson kneels to SEA 19 for -1 yards. 22 End of half 0 220

Thank you so much for creating this wonderful tool. Thank you for reading this report and considering it for attention. If you need any other information, please let me know. If you could let me know whether this will be fixed or not, I will know whether I should begin now to write my own correction code or just wait patiently for the fix to come out.

Please have a great day!

ETA: I am trying to count possessions, red zone possessions, and successful red zone possessions in a game for each team. If this can be done in some other way, I would not mind some assistance on how to do that. Right now, my method relies on the accuracy of the data fields affected by this issue.

[JoeMarino2021]

Is the new flag own_kickoff_recovery going to remain 1 for onside kick recovery and not for muff recovery and fumble recovery? I currently only see 4 plays where that flag is set to 1, all of them are onside kick recoveries.

I just want to double check, since the name implies to me that it might refer to any recoveries. I don't want to code for its current use if you meant it to be 1 for all kickoff recoveries: onside, muff, and fumble.

Nice work on all the fixes! What a great data collection tool!