September 2012

Five weeks in, there’s no stopping the Crimson Tide

September 30, 2012 College

Like everyone else, the SRS now has Alabama atop its standings. Here are the full SRS ratings after five weeks1 Tweet Note that I called the Oregon-Washington State game when Oregon was up 51-19 late in the 4th quarter. [↩]

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The Hall of Fame announces the 127 nominees for the Class of 2013

September 29, 2012 HOF

The Pro Football Hall of Fame has announced the nominees for the Class of 2013: John Lynch, Michael Strahan, Steve McNair and Morten Andersen are among 13 first-year eligible players for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Safety Lynch, defensive end Strahan, quarterback McNair and kicker Andersen join offensive linemen Jonathan Ogden and Larry Allen, [...]

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Another thought experiment

September 29, 2012 Thought Experiments

In this post, I noted that the Steelers could have punted to the Raiders, leaving Oakland with the ball likely at their own 33-yard line in a tie game with just under 4 minutes remaining. You are the head coach of a team with a league average offense and league average defense. You are given [...]

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How the Steelers traded Roy Jefferson and won four Super Bowls

September 28, 2012 History

Roy Jefferson isn’t well-remembered today, but he was one of the top receivers at the start of the Super Bowl era. Jefferson was a second round pick of both the Steelers and Chargers in 1965, back when the leagues held separate drafts. Jefferson chose to sign with Pittsburgh, and in his second season, he led [...]

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Week 3 Power Rankings

September 27, 2012 Power Rankings

Some additions to the weekly power rankings table. After the team name, I have listed each team’s record in column two and the number of wins I’m projecting each team to finish the season with in column 3 (i.e., the power rankings and the metric by which the table is sorted). The fourth column – [...]

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NYT Fifth Down: Post-week 3

September 26, 2012 NYT

This week’s Fifth Down post looks at the surprising 3-0 Cardinals. Did you know that Arizona has been an underdog in each game this season? Since 1978, Arizona is just the 7th team to start 3-0 despite being given points by Vegas each week: 2010 Kansas City Chiefs: The 2009 Chiefs were 4-12, and 2010 [...]

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Checkdowns: Beating both Super Bowl participants

September 26, 2012 Checkdowns

Over at the PFR Blog, we used to post Checkdowns from time to time, shorter posts that were often just data dumps. Every once in awhile a random question would come to mind and we usually had the database power to answer the question. So after spending a few minutes get our results, but there [...]

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Mike Tomlin makes aggressive, unconventional call, converts, no one cares

September 25, 2012 Strategy

[Note: I'm scheduled to appear on The Bobby Curran Show on ESPN 1420 at just after 12:30 today. If you're interested, you can listen here.] If you weren’t watching the Steelers-Raiders game, you probably didn’t hear about Mike Tomlin’s gutsy call late in the 4th quarter. That’s because it worked. On 3rd-and-1 with 4:34 remaining [...]

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Interceptions per Incompletion (or POPIP)

September 24, 2012 Passing

I leave the baseball analysis to my brothers at baseball-reference.com, but I know enough to be dangerous. There’s a stat called BABIP, which stands for Batting Average on Balls In Play. A “ball in play” is simply any at bat that doesn’t end in a home run or a strikeout. The thinking goes that luck [...]

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Titans-Lions get some really long touchdowns but don’t break record

September 23, 2012 History

The Tennessee-Detroit game was an instant classic today, with one of the wildest fourth quarters anyone will ever see. The 46 points scored were the second most in NFL history, trailing another recent game involving the Lions. The scoring was crazy. Tommie Campbell had a 65-yard punt return at the end of the first quarter; [...]

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