Parity in the NFL

One thing everyone likes about NFL football is the parity in the league and the fact that the playoffs are one-and-done (one loss and you can't win the championship).

Look at how things have played out recently in the AFC. In week 1 the Ravens beat the Jets and the Patriots beat the Bengals. Then the Bengals beat the Ravens and the Jets beat the Patriots. In other words, you'd we have Ravens > Jets and Patriots > Bengals, and Jets > Patriots and Bengals > Ravens thus Jets > Patriots > Bengals > Ravens = Jets > Ravens and so on. The fact that a team won in week 1 doesn't say much about who will win in week 2.

A lot is at stake on any given Sunday.

Best Patriots Team

I don't know think I posted this picture. It's been on my desktop since 7/5.

You have to win the Super Bowl to be the best--except when you don't.

The 2007 Patriots were one of the best teams of all-time, no doubt about it, and easily the best of the Pats teams. I watched every game hoping they'd lose and they just kept winning, until it all paid off with 35 seconds left in the 4th.

One last thought: I think part of the reason the Pats decimated teams at the start of the season, but that they are mere mortals in the later part of the season (Expected Win-Loss in first 8 games: 6.97, Expected Win-Loss in last 8 games: 6.03) was that coaches caught on to their spread offense. So maybe they weren't that great, they just benefited from change in strategy that it took time to adjust to. When you regress the Pats points-scored on the number of the game, there is a significant downward trend of about 1 pt per game (t = -2.600.

Quote of the Day

I heard if u hit a kardashian u win a championship.. Kim k holla me!!! I need ya for 17 min

- Ty Lawson

Here's the context.

I like how he specified exactly 17 minutes. Andrew Gelman had a good blog post recently about how rounded numbers communicate uncertainty. If he said 20 minutes we'd understand that as "about 20 minutes" but when someone says "I'll be there in 17 minutes" you expect it to be 17 minutes sharp.

No-hitter

I went to the game today and got my money's worth. How often does all of this happen in one game:

1. Leyland (the Tigers manager) went off on an umpire for about a minute, getting in his face and shoving so much that another ump had to break it up. Isn't that an automatic suspension?

2. They called catcher inference.

3. The Rays won with 3 hits, the fewest in a win in over 20 years.

4. Joyce hit a grand slam. And it was the 1st hit of the game. In the 6th inning.

and of course, the story of the night:

5. Garza threw a no-hitter.

I saved my 32 oz. souvenir cup from the game. I collect the cups from all the gratuitously large soda's I drink, but this one is now maybe my favorite.

Lebron James

Seth, quoted in Bill Simmon's column, with the quote of the month:

I think this is the first time in history one man managed to destroy an entire city by himself. Even the Enola Gay had a flight crew.

Second best comes from Steve L, who dubbed "the new big 3" the Nazgul because:

The Nazgul were the characters in "Lord of the Rings" that were former kings who turned into demons that were constantly chasing the ring. It completely consumed them and robbed them of their humanity. I think this sums up the situation in Miami.

Sport Demographics

I found this map on ESPN.com. It tells an interesting story about sports demographics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blue states considered Brazil's outser from the World Cup the bigger upset of the year while purple voted for Kentucky's quick defeat in the NCAA basketball tournament. (Ohio is green because it voted for Cleveland loss in the NBA playoffs and the D.C. metro states are red because of a similar loss in the NHL playoffs. Gray states had ties.)

So what separates the purple from the blue? Since the majority of states are purple I think it's easier to ask what sets the blue states apart?

Well, we'll start with a theory, based on the "ambiguity effect," that says people discard options where it's hard to assess the probability. That means I'm assuming basketball fans will vote for the NCAA upset while soccer fans will tend towards the World Cup upset, because it's easier to put in perspective.

Under this theory, blue states should be states with lots of soccer fans. And who likes soccer? Yuppies and Latin Americans. Indeed, it turns out that the Yuppie states (Northeast, but notably not Maine) and the states with large Hispanic populations (Florida, border states) voted for the World Cup upset.

But what's up with Georgia and Louisiana? They don't have large Hispanic populations. Perhaps they don't care much about NCAA basketball either.

History of Soccer

Two things everyone should know about soccer:

1. Soccer is the "original" name for the game. There were many kinds of "football" in the 19th century which is why FIFA is the international organization for "Associaton Football." British people added -er to everything back then, dropped the a, and ended up with "soccer."

2. Back in the day, what made a game a type of "football" was that you played on foot, not on horseback. It has nothing to do with whether you kick the ball with your feet. If you have quasi-Marxist sentiments like me this story should warm your heart.

More here.

Class Differences

I’ve always thought it was strange that basketball fans can do just about anything imaginable to distract an opposing player at the foul line, whereas you can’t make a squeak as a tennis player is about to serve. - Stephen Dubner

That is why I have no respect for tennis or golf.