regressing Page 30 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Josh Smith And The Deeply Constipated Offense Of The Detroit Pistons
Coming into this season, the Detroit Pistons were flagged by a lot of advanced metrics as a likely candidates for a sneaky good year. Instead, Detroit, and especially its offense, has been among the most comically misshapen teams in recent history. ...
NFL Betting Lines, Visualized: Week 15 (Early Edition)
Here is your early betting info for Week 15 NFL; we'll update on Thursday with money lines and spread movements for these these games, and add info for Bears-Browns and Packers-Cowboys, which haven't opened yet....
Chart: The Voting Trajectory Of Every Hall Of Fame Candidate Ever
To aid in your Deadspin HOF ballot decisions, Kenny Shirley and Carlos Scheidegger of AT&T Labs have created a great interactive graph for exploring the voting trajectories of all 1,000-plus players/managers ever to be candidates for the Hall. The screencap above might make it look a little dense, b...
Is Kobe Blood Doping? What Those Trips To Germany Are Really About
Kobe Bryant is just back from a ruptured Achilles tendon, but that doesn't mean the rest of him is magically fixed. He's still got to deal with all the damage that 18 years of professional basketball inflicts on the human body. In recent years, that's meant a trip to Germany and a promising, somewha...
Nate Silver's Model Gives The USMNT A 39.4 Percent Chance To Advance
When the U.S. drew Germany, Portugal, and Ghana for its 2014 World Cup group, the immediate consensus was that we were totally boned. But is it possible, after rigorous quantitative analysis, that we are less than boned?...
How Matt Prater's Record-Setting 64-Yard Field Goal Happened
Originally published on Slate....
ESPN Says The Ravens (Who Won) Had A Sub-Zero Chance Of Winning
The graph above, tweeted out by ESPN Stats & Info last night, shows the win probability for the Ravens and Vikings over the fourth quarter of their ridiculous Sunday game, which saw five lead changes in the final two minutes....
Reminder: Tough Calls Favor Home Teams
New England just got a huge break at the end of its game with Cleveland, but after it got jobbed against Carolina last month, Michael Lopez took a look at why home teams seem to benefit from tough, controversial calls. ...
Infographics: Where Does Your NFL Team's Offense Come From? (Week 14)
There are just four more weeks in the NFL season, so let's take a look in on how the offenses in the league are doing, and which positions have been most productive for them. ...
Non-QB Passing Plays Are Awesome, But Are They Actually Effective?
Jaguars receiver Ace Sanders threw a 21-yard strike in last night's win over the Texans, just one week after MoJo Drew threw an eight-yard touchdown in a win over the Browns. These variations on a play that, for lack of a better term, we'll call "someone who isn't the QB throws the ball" are always ...
"Death Star" Lotulelei Might Be The NFL's Next Great Defensive Lineman
Last season, Carolina drafted Luke Kuechly, who's currently one of the best inside linebackers in the league. This year it was defensive tackle Star Lotulelei. While he isn't even the full-time starter yet, every indication says he's going to be an absolute world-breaker, if he isn't already. ...
NFL Betting Lines, Visualized: Week 14 (Late Edition)
Below is updated betting information for the Week 14 NFL games (you can see the early-week edition here). Spread movement and money lines are now included; major books have not yet opened for Browns-Patriots or Falcons-Packers, as they're presumably holding off until starting QBs are announced for C...
Chart: Peyton Manning Marches Towards The NFL Touchdown Record
Peyton Manning had 33 touchdowns through Week 9 this season, putting him on pace to throw 59 and crush Tom Brady's single-season mark. He slacked off with back-to-back "disappointing" performances against the Pats and Chiefs (in which he led the Broncos to six touchdowns but threw just three), but w...
Advanced NFL Stats has made some significant tweaks to its win probability model, which now incorporates team strength and the value of second half kickoffs while adjusting the likelihood that trailing teams will attempt fourth-down and 2-point conversions late in the game. It's good stuff. [Advance...
Did The NCAA Screw Up Another Player Health Decision?
As a near universal rule, the NCAA makes bad decisions. So when I heard that the NCAA had recently made a controversial decision pertaining to student-athlete health, a decision that incited the ire of the American Society of Hematology, I reflexively assumed the NCAA had once again screwed up. Now ...
Home Stretch: How Does Your NFL Team Stack Up On Offense And Defense?
With four weeks to go in the NFL season—and just one playoff spot clinched—it's time to take a fresh look at which teams have established themselves as the best (and worst) offensive and defensive units in the league....
West Coast NFL Teams Have A Huge Advantage In Night Games
You know one side of this by heart: Teams on Pacific time get slaughtered when they travel across the country to play an early game, and not only that, they are losers against the spread too. But there's a corollary that might be just as compelling: It seems that west coast teams annihilate east coa...
NFL Betting Lines, Visualized: Week 14 (Early Edition)
Here is your early betting info for Week 14 NFL; we'll update on Thursday with money lines and spread movements for these these games, and add info for Browns-Patriots, Falcons-Packers, Seahawks-49ers, and Cowboys-Bears, whose lines are yet to open at several books....
Charts: Just How Wimpy Are NFL Coaches On Fourth Down Calls?
Over at The New York Times, Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats and Kevin Quealy of NYT Graphics have joined forces to create the excellent NYT 4th Down Bot. ...
The NBA's Atlantic Division Is (So Far) The Worst Division Of All Time
The Raptors, 76ers, and Knicks lost on Sunday, which means that, through 86 games, the Atlantic Division had a winning percentage of .314. You can't blame Philadelphia, whose 6-12 record has put them on track to crush its preseason over/under of 16.5 wins. Boston and Toronto were expected to be medi...