regressing Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Carolina Won And Then Lost The Game On Two Huge 4th Quarter Plays
Late in the fourth quarter against the Falcons, Cam Newton and the Panthers were driving, down two, when Newton hit his rookie wideout Kelvin Benjamin for a 17-yard gain, taking Carolina down to the Atlanta 32, within field goal range. It represented the biggest gain in WPA for the week—28 percentag...
LeBron And The $500M Lie: How Sports Economic-Impact Studies Trick You
Not long after LeBron James announced his return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the business pages lit up with breathless announcements about what LeBron would mean for the local economy:...
Clayton Kershaw Is Great. But Pedro Martinez Was More Dominant.
When Clayton Kershaw is inducted into the Hall of Fame some day, we may well look back on this year as his best. For most batters, their only hope of hitting him this season was to swing at the first pitch hoping for a fastball. As ridiculous as his numbers are, though—a 21-3 record with a 1.77 ER...
The Foosball Champ Who Almost Won The World Series Of Poker
Billy Pappas, the last true amateur of the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event and one of the best foosball players in the world, was eliminated early this morning in fifth place, taking home $2,143,794. It's a damn shame, because Billy was living the dream. ...
Auburn's Fumbles Were As Costly As 204 Yards And Three TDs
Last week, Auburn forced a few turnovers late in the game to escape with a win over Ole Miss. This week Auburn had a few turnovers in critical situations in what resulted in two of the most detrimental plays of the week, according to data from fantasy sports app Pivit....
Drew Brees's Fumble Was The Most Disastrous Play Of Week 10
Drew Brees made several big plays to will the Saints into overtime and give his team a chance at beating the 49ers. But in overtime Brees was sacked and fumbled, which led to San Francisco's game-winning field goal. The fumble was the detrimental play of the week according to data from Brian Burke...
Yeah, Everyone Likes The Hornets More Than The Bobcats
This chart from the Wall Street Journal shows Cleveland, predictably, getting the biggest bump in Facebook likes this offseason after bringing LeBron home. But Charlotte was the only other team to have their likes increase by more than 10 percent, and that's because the Hornets are great, and the Bo...
Ole Miss's Fumbles Were The Most Damaging Plays This Week
After last week's tough loss to LSU, Ole Miss once again trailed a ranked division opponent in the fourth quarter. Ole Miss put together some promising drives, but two fumbles prevented the Rebels from retaking the lead and resulted in two of the costliest plays of the week, according to data fr...
Colin Kaepernick's Fumble Was The Most Devastating Play Of Week 9
Week 10 starts in a few hours, so while we can, let's finish cleaning house on Week 9. Down by three with ten seconds remaining, the 49ers were one yard away from the St. Louis end zone and appeared on the verge of victory. But Colin Kaepernick fumbled in what was not only the most detrimental pla...
How Man-Child Tight End Rob Gronkowski Revived The Patriots' Offense
Rob Gronkowski—whose skull houses one 14-oz. official NFL "The Duke" football, and whose circulatory system is chiefly responsible for the delivery of Natural Light—has been incredible for the last few weeks. Tom Brady's missed his best receiver at full speed, and they're making up for lost time. ...
The Chiefs' Travis Kelce Might Be The Next Revolutionary Tight End
The best NFL offenses are lousy with new-breed tight ends—guys like Rob Gronkowski, Julius Thomas, and Jimmy Graham, the dudes who bust up defenses with an unfair blend of size, speed, and pass-catching ability. And while you can't really tell from the raw numbers, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is...
No, Andrew Luck Is Not On Pace For The Best Season In NFL History
There's been a lot written lately about Andrew Luck being on pace to break the single-season passing-yards record. While Luck is having a solid year, to what degree can we attribute these gaudy statistics to his dominance? And how much do his numbers merely reflect the era in which he's playing? ...
Two Unrecognized Hall Of Fame Shortstops
This article is dedicated to the memory of the late Clem Comly, who did more than anyone to put together the Retrosheet.org public database of baseball statistics that made this article and all Internet baseball encyclopedias possible....
Chart: All Of Peyton Manning's Pick-Sixes, By Defender And Distance
Hey, remember that cool chart from last week, visualizing all of Peyton Manning's regular season touchdowns? Well, it missed a few. In belated honor of Peyton's record-setting career throwing touchdowns, here are all the touchdowns he's thrown to the other team. ...
Do Baseball Salaries Have "Precious Little" To Do With Ability?
This post originally ran on Phil Birnbaum's sabermetric blog. It is reprinted here with permission....
Which Candies Have Have The Most Sugar?
Ostensibly, this chart from WaPo's Wonkblog is about ranking candy by its sugar content so you can consume the maximum amount of sugar, and it does a fine job of that. But looking at it, all I can think about is how everything north of Gummy Bears coming in at a full 70 percent sugar is so much more...
The SEC Really Does Benefit From Media Bias In Polls
This past week, four of the top five teams in the Associated Press College Football Poll hailed from the SEC West Division. Nebraska coach Bo Pelini, among others, wondered aloud whether ESPN's ownership of the brand-new SEC network, which launched this year, might be responsible for such a coinci...
Yes, Sliding Into First Can Be Faster; No, You Still Shouldn't Do It
Last night's Game 7 saw the first replay reversal in the World Series, at the tail end of Joe Panik's ridiculous double play. It was a huge play by Panik—the difference between first and third with no outs and bases empty two outs in a one-run game—made possible by replay. It was also made possibl...
DeSean Jackson Will Catch Deep Balls No Matter Who Throws To Him
Washington has started three quarterbacks this season in an effort to find one that works. It's been terrible. Despite the shuffling, one offensive player hasn't been affected much at all: DeSean Jackson, the big-play receiver with the busted quarterbacks, has kept busting up defenses. ...
Tampa Bay's Overtime Fumble Was The Most Costly Fuckup In Week 8
After receiving the ball to start overtime, Tampa Bay could have ended the game with a touchdown drive. But Tampa tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins fumbled on the first scrimmage play of overtime, and Minnesota linebacker Anthony Barr returned the fumble for a touchdown, which ended the game and...