More division wins than non-division wins

April 5, 2013 Checkdowns

The Rams finished with the best division record in the NFC West last year at 4-1-1, but St. Louis went only 3-7 in games against non-NFC West opponents. The Jaguars were 0-10 in non-division games last season, but beat both the Colts and Titans to finish 2-4 against the AFC South. Since the merger, three [...]

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Losing in the title game: the Harbaugh 49ers and the Lombardi Packers

February 4, 2013 Coaches

Congratulations to Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Joe Flacco, and the Baltimore Ravens on winning Super Bowl XLVII. The Ravens and 49ers treated us to an exciting Super Bowl, and the Hall of Fame chances of Terrell Suggs, Haloti Ngata, Matt Birk, Anquan Boldin, and yes, Joe Flacco, are a lot better today than they were [...]

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Super Bowl XLVII Preview

February 3, 2013 Current Events

Before we get to my preview, I feel the need to point you to some excellent Super Bowl previews I saw this week: Bill Barnwell at Grantland with his excellent Super Bowl preview Chris Brown on the Ravens defense against the 49ers offense and the Ravens offense against the 49ers defense, both also at Grantland [...]

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Checkdowns: How the Ravens and 49ers compare to previous Super Bowl teams

January 31, 2013 Checkdowns

Ever wondered which Super Bowl teams were the oldest or youngest? I went and calculated the AV-adjusted age of every team to appear in the Super Bowl. (AV stands for Pro-Football-Reference’s Approximate Value system, which assigns an approximate value to each player in each season; you can read more about it here.) You can probably [...]

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Is good luck driving the low interception rates of Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick?

January 28, 2013 History

In September, I started a post by asking you to make this assumption: Assume that it is within a quarterback’s control as to whether or not he throws a completed pass on any given pass attempt. However, if he throws an incomplete pass, then he has no control over whether or not that pass is [...]

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Super Bowl History

January 21, 2013 History

Now that the Super Bowl matchup is set, I thought I’d start the two-week period with some Super Bow history. The table below lists some information from each of the first 46 Super Bowls. With Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick facing off, that ends five-year streak where at least one of the two quarterbacks in [...]

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Previewing the NFC Championship Game: San Francisco at Atlanta

January 17, 2013 Current Events

A couple of interesting notes, courtesy of Mike Sando on ESPN.com. The first is a good bit of trivia: Jim Harbaugh joins George Seifert, Barry Switzer and Rex Ryan as the only head coaches to reach the AFC or NFC Championship Game in each of their first two seasons as an NFL head coach. The [...]

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Checkdowns: Jerry McDonald’s interview about the Pistol and Kaepernick with Chris Ault

January 15, 2013 Checkdowns

I have not done a good job fulfilling my pledge to point you in the direction of good football articles. But here’s a great interview by Jerry McDonald of the San Jose Mercury News with former Nevada head coach Chris Ault. Ault is the pioneer of the Pistol Offense, and his prized pupil was last [...]

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Previewing the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs – Saturday

January 12, 2013 Current Events

I was on vacation last week, so I provided just a bare bones set of NFL playoff predictions. Technically, my picks went 4-0 on Wildcard Weekend, but that doesn’t count for much when you pick the favorite in every game. With a little more time on my hands, here’s an in-depth preview of Saturday’s games. [...]

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Season in review: AFC and NFC West

January 9, 2013 Review

AFC East and NFC East Season in review AFC North and NFC North Season in review AFC North and NFC South Season in review In the case of the AFC West, a picture can say a thousand words. Denver Broncos Pre-season Projection: 8.5 wins Maximum wins: 13 (after weeks 10 through 16) Minimum wins: 9 [...]

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