regressing Page 31 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Do Nice Players Make Their Teammates Worse?
Dick Allen was known for being an unpleasant teammate who warred with teammates and divided clubhouses. In "The Politics of Glory," Bill James called him "a manipulator of extraordinary skill," and wrote,...
Thanksgambling: A Betting Guide To Thanksgiving Day Football
Thanksgiving Day is upon us, which can only mean one thing (for the purpose of this exercise, we're ignoring things such as binge eating, awkward interactions with family, reckless alcohol consumption, and stabbing strangers for discounted electronics): three times as many NFL games this Thursday! W...
NFL Betting Lines, Visualized: Week 13
Here is your betting info for Week 13 NFL; we'll just be doing this one post this Thanksgiving week, but feel free to check our source sites if you're looking for a Friday or Saturday update....
Reminder: The Lions Weren't Always Terrible On Thanksgiving
It's a new American tradition; everyone gathers as a family to watch the Lions get thrashed on Thanksgiving, because the Lions, recent improvements notwithstanding, have had a rough stretch as a professional football team. How long has Detroit been a Turkey Day laughingstock?...
How Mike Glennon And The Tampa Bay Bucs (Sort Of) Stopped Sucking
Remember when the dysfunctional Buccaneers were an 0-8 dumpster fire fueled by MRSA and ineptitude? Greg Schiano and his Men have somehow won three straight, with some legitimate play from both sides of the ball—especially rookie quarterback/intrepid middle schooler Mike Glennon. Which leaves us wit...
Chart: LeBron James Is Outdoing Himself
Kevin Durant is your NBA scoring leader through one month of basketball, averaging 28.6 points per game. You need a lot of opportunities on the floor to put up that many points, and the more you use possessions, the harder it is to be efficient. So is Durant the most efficient high-usage, high-scori...
Rudy Gay, Who Hates Stats (Which Hate Him Right Back), Bans Statsheets
There's a longstanding and for the most part right-headed beef between NBA statheads and Rudy Gay, and it may have just gone a little far. Gay has banned the team from having scoresheets in the locker room because—actually, what the hell is going on up there? ...
Chart: How Does Weight Affect The Lifespans Of Pro Football Players?
Over on the Reddit sub r/dataisbeautiful, users have been playing around with an interesting dataset (pulled from Pro Football Reference) that looks at the lifespan of pro players from the late 19th-century to present. The chart above, by user "zipcitytrucker" breaks down the age of death by playing...
Chart: A Week In The Insane Life Of An NFL Head Coach
Over on ESPN, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was kind enough to provide a schedule of his work week leading up to Baltimore's game at Chicago on Nov. 17 (the story will appear in the Dec. 9 edition of ESPN The Magazine). It's not an easy job—Harbaugh spends about 69 hours a week in meetings (or mee...
Charts: Who Are The Best Deep Passers In The NFL?
Deep passes are the most exciting play in televised football—the viewing audience can't see the situation downfield until the ball (and the camera) make it down there, so the play always feels, in that tiny moment before we catch up, like a sure touchdown or interception. It's well known that not ev...
The Science Of Hangovers: Causes, Cures, And Prevention
This is one of the first rivalry weekends of the college football season, and I'll be spending it in New Haven, Connecticut, for what is perhaps the nadir of intercollegiate gridiron competition: the Harvard/Yale game. Inside the stadium, the future business leaders of America will strap on the pads...
Chart: The Impact Of Home Field Advantage On Officiating, By Sport
It's a familiar complaint: Your team goes on the road for a big game, and gets totally jobbed by the refs. But do away teams really get fewer calls?...
Monta Ellis Is Great Now. What The Hell Happened?
If you haven't been paying close attention to the Dallas Mavericks this year, you may not have noticed that Monta Ellis, the guy who has spent most of his career acting as the poster boy for inefficiency in the NBA, is having the best season of his career. His PER and true shooting percentage are cu...
Stadiums That Look Like Vaginas, As Advancements In Architecture
From Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan:...
How Jimmy Graham Became The Most Productive Tight End In Football
Calling Jimmy Graham a tight end seems dishonest. Drew Brees's favorite target is a freak who's blowing the other competition at his position out of the water in 2013. Because "Jimmy Graham is good" isn't a very compelling statement, let's go a little further. Since Graham is essentially a wide rece...
Not all refs are created equal: On NFL Nation, Kevin Seifert looks at how often different ref crews call penalties. It's a wide gap: John Parry's crew leads the league with 17.9 per game, while Morelli's crew is averaging just 11.2. Clete Blakeman is close to last at 12.2—his Week 11 game was Patrio...
NFL Betting Lines, Visualized: Week 12 (Late Edition)
Below is updated betting information for the Week 12 NFL games (you can see the early-week edition here). Spread movement and money lines are now included for each game....
Why Baylor Is Porn For Football Nerds
In football, which operates on a tight cycle of coaching innovation and theft, it's rare to see enormous outliers. The college game is littered with coaches who found one legitimate schematic advantage, rode it for a year or two, watched it become the norm, and fell back to the pack once they could ...