Performance Aging Curves: Modeling the Effects of Aging througha Rating System

摘要

Limited research has been conducted to determine changes in athletic performance due to aging for professionalathletes in the National Football League (NFL). Rating systems that evaluate an athlete's physical abilities areavailable throughout an athlete's career; however, the physical athletic performance measurements from the NFLCombine are only publicly available once during a professional's career. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are usedto translate the rating values into Combine values. To evaluate the change of athletic performance as players' age,performance-aging curves are derived from the ANN forecasts. Researching the effects of aging in NFL athletescould result in additional research that would aid NFL executives their decisions about players' financial contracts.