Three Things That Shocked Me Today

1) Peter King insinuating (item 2 in "10 Things") that the Patriots wiretap the opponent's locker room at Gillette Stadium. How is this not a bigger deal?

 

2) Andrew Brandt (last line) suggesting that this weekend's matchup between Brett Favre and the Packers might not be the last of its kind. I really enjoy Brandt's work, but I hope he's wrong about this one.

 

3) The fact those in charge of tomorrow's football game at Wrigley Field didn't take the brick wall into consideration until a day before kickoff. Sure, this is the first game on these hallowed grounds since 1938, but how can you tell me no one considered this before today?

MLBTR Link

Thanks for the link in today's Baseball Blogs Weigh In, Mike.

NFL: Week 5 Picks

An untrained monkey could pick NFL games at a .500 clip. I need to make a move.

 

Rams +3 - I think the Rams are making the playoffs this year. I might be crazy.

 

Titans +7 - Let's see if Dallas is for real this week.

 

Falcons -3 - The Falcons are a top-7 team. The Browns are a bottom-7 team.

 

Best Bet: Texans -3 - Arian Foster should run wild.

 

Upset: Eagles +4 - Kevin Kolb, it's redemption time.

 

 

Record: 10-9-1 (Best Bet: 3-1; Upset 1-2-1)

Huge News (Potentially) for The Banter App

Looks like the iPhone could be coming to Verizon by year end.

 

Remember to download The Sports Banter app. For those that already have, keep the suggestions for improvement(s) coming.

Wednesday Links

-Randy Moss for a 3rd rounder? Seems like a steal for the Vikes. What am I missing?

 

-I always assume the worst in these cases putting LaceDarius Dunn on my sh!tlist. Hate these stories.

 

-Mailbags

  Deadspin Funbag

  Brandt [NFP]

 

-I can't think of a better way to sum up Omar Minaya's run as Mets' GM. [NYT]

 

-A few of my favorite slogans from years past:

 

Most Confusing - "SD Stands for San Diego" (Padres, 2010)

  Did anyone not know that?

 

Least Creative - "Take Me Out to the Ballgame (Braves, 2003)

  A five-year old could have come up with this.

 

Asking for Trouble - "Have You Seen Her" (WNBA, 2006)

  Too many punchlines to this rhetorical question.

 

Asking for Trouble (Part II) - "New Balls Please" (ATP, 2001)

 

Most Creative Ad Campaign That I Remember - "These Guys are Good" (PGA Tour)

  Simple, but very well done.

 

 

-Blast from the past: Tyrone Prothro, now a bank teller. [Lost Lettermen] 

 

 

 

BC 10/6/2010

Thursday Links

Bryan has been wrapped up in other things so you are stuck with me today.

-Mailbags:
-Deadspin's Funbag
-NFP's Brandt

-For any budding football coaches out there, learn from the best: Nick Saban. [Smart Football]

-Speaking of coaching, this guy is no ordinary Joe. [SI.com]


-Interception of the day from Gallaudet University, a school for the hearing impaired:






The NFL and College picks are scheduled to be released over the next two days. Then, 11 Things I Know I Know on Monday, and an NBA post on Tuesday.

Tuesday Links

-Interesting question: should the Packers have let the Bears score a touchdown last night to give them a better shot to win the game? Hindsight, of course, and Brian Burke would say yes. [Advanced Football Stats]

 

-Another conundrum: should the Jets have gone for the two-point conversion to put them up by nine points? Hindsight and Brian Burke say no while I personally would have said yes. [Advanced Football Stats]

 

-Blast from the past: Kevin Jones signs with the UFL. I remember when Jones announced on national television that he would be playing his college ball at Virginia Tech. I was sure he was going to be a superstar. [Lost Lettermen]

 

-As teams start to clinch postseason berths, here is what organizations have to look forward to. [Biz of Baseball]

 

-Can you really blame Evan Longoria for calling out the fans in Tampa? I can't. We've said it before, the fans in Tampa do not deserve a team as great as the Rays.[ESPN]

 

-Does MLB payroll matter less than it used to? [Sabermetric Research]

 

-Revenue Sharing in baseball

  -Why it's broken [Biz of Baseball]

  -Why the Yankees are willing to give up so much [Sabermetric Research]

 

-Is hockey the next sport to realize a statistical revolution? [Ottawa Citizen]

 

 

 

BC 9/28/2010

Friday Links

-Weird is the day that I actually agree with Mike Francesa. Today is a weird day. [PFT]

-The Sports Banter sits comfortably in the top-10. We need the Angels to get hot to climb up as high as third. [Vegas Watch]

-Friday Blast from the Past: Chad Hutchinson [Lost Lettermen]

-Last week, Baseball America's Connor Glassey posted an interesting stat: Ichiro has more career intentional walks (155) than ARod, Chase Utley and Derek Jeter combined (149). We are all now wiser.

-Statistical proof that the 3-4 defense is better than the 4-3? You decide. [Advanced Football Stats]

-A study on how travel affects NBA teams. [Sabermetric Research]



BC 9/24/2010

Wednesday Links

-Mailbags:

 -Brandt [NFP]

 -Deadspin

 

-Buster Olney blog. [ESPN Insider; password required]

 

-Lombardi. [NFL.com]

 

 

Note: The daily links will transition to a three-times-a-week format in the near future.

 

 

 

BC 9/22/2010

 

Friday's "Finally Here" Links

-Buster Olney blog. [ESPN Insider; password required]

 

-Forget Prisoners. We have a Linebackers' Dilemma. [Advanced Football Stats]

 

-ESPN's Tom Habestroh names the five worst players in the history of each NBA team. My favorite part: Trenton Hassell comes in at #1 for two different teams. [Insider; password required]

 

-Real-life Jaws. [Fox]

 

 

 

 

BC 9/17/2010

 

 

Wednesday's "Halfway to Another Football Weekend" Links

-Tampa doesn't deserve the Rays. What a pathetic turnout.[Biz of Baseball]

 

-Solid day out of Deadspin yesterday:

   -Mailbag

   -Eric Bledsoe transcript fun (I especially like that he took Algebra 3 before Algebra 2)

 

-Buster Olney blog. [ESPN Insider; password required] 

 

 

BC 9/15/2010

Tuesday Links

-Peter King's MMQB. [SI.com]

-Florida Gators football = Jail Blazers * Bengals.

-Andrew Brandt breaks down the contracts of Charles Woodson and Tom Brady and then details the threat of NFLPA decertification. [NFP]

-JI Hassell wonders if the Darrelle Revis deal sets a poor precedent. [Inside the Cap]

-Pat White takes advice from the Banter and gives up football (at least for the time being). [Pro Football Talk]

-Really, you can't wait two seconds until celebrating? [Wiz of Odds]

-Buzzkill Central: On the heels of the university's most defining athletic moment, Northern Iowa could abolish their D1 sports. [Des Moines Register]

-Further to our point that Felix Hernandez should win this year's Cy Young [SB Nation by way of Rob Neyer]



-Dave Pinto still scheming about a massive tie scenario. [Baseball Musings]

-Mike passed this along because he claimed to have "called this" while it happened and before Elias confirmed it.

-One of the boldest marketing strategies I have ever seen. [ESPN]





BC 9/14/10

Friday Links

-Buster Olney blog. [ESPN Insider; password required]

-It drives me crazy when teams winning a title in the US (MLB, NBA, NFL) call themelves "world champs." This would help and be extremely entertaining. [Fangraphs]

-Kendall Rogers sums up the Big East offseason. [Yahoo]

-Top 50 Dunks of All Time [Baketball Reference]
If you dont have time for all 50, check out these eight:
-45: Deron Washington jumps off a trampoline to throw this down
-44: Renaldo Balkman dunks at MSG with Isiah Thomas in attendance prompting Thomas to waste a first round pick on Balkman
-43: Darrelle Porter - very underrated dunk. Could have been top-10 worthy
-39: The last time Travis Leslie and DeMarcus Cousins will ever appear in the same sentence. A great dunk nonetheless
-23: Jason Maxiell kicks Otis George (at least) three times in the head
-20: Chris Porter with one of the five best putbacks of all time
-14: Vinsanity
-12: My vote for #1



Enjoy the weekend.

BC 9/10/2010

Thursday "Are You Ready For Some Football" Links

-According to Banter-favorite Andrew Brandt, teams that win in March rearely win in January. [NFP] 

 

-Matt Bowen takes us inside the  playbook in a micro-preview of tonight's Saints-Vikings matchup. [NFP]

 

-Lombardi. I find a little humorous that seven of the most eight intriguing people in the NFL are quarterbacks and the eighth is a head coach. [NFL.com]

 

-In a recent article, Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats critiques some of Football Outsiders' "theories":

• Standard team rankings based on total yardage are inherently flawed. -- Ok
• Running on third-and-short is more likely to convert than passing on third-and-short. -- Concur
• If their overall yards per carry are equal, a running back who consistently gains yardage on every play is more valuable than a boom-and-bust running back who is frequently stuffed at the line but occasionally breaks a long highlight-worthy run. -- Not always. If you're the underdog or significantly behind in the game, you want the boom/bust guy.
• A running back with 370 or more carries during the regular season will usually suffer either a major injury or a loss of effectiveness the following year, unless he is named Eric Dickerson. -- False. As one of my commenters put it, this notion "is a violent assault on good logic and reason."
• Teams with more offensive penalties generally lose more games, but there is no correlation between defensive penalties and losses. -- Probably false. It's possible they've fallen for the same trap I fell into years ago. The NFL calls penalty yards by an opponent "defensive penalties." But if true, it's interesting. The real question would be why don't defensive penalties matter?
• Field-goal percentage is almost entirely random from season to season, while kickoff distance is one of the most consistent statistics in football. -- True.
• Field position is fluid. -- Huh? I think this is just supposed to mean that defenses affect their offenses' field position and vice-versa.
• Injuries regress to the mean on the seasonal level, and teams that avoid injuries in a given season tend to win more games. -- Ok. Did we need a study for this?
• A team will score more when playing a bad defense, and will give up more points when playing a good offense. -- And all this time I thought it was the other way around!
• The future NFL success of quarterbacks chosen in the first two rounds of the draft can be projected with a high degree of accuracy by using just two statistics from college: games started and completion percentage. -- Intriguing, but I'd like to see how this system has performed since it was published. As I recall, it's been off the mark.
• Championship teams are generally defined by their ability to dominate inferior opponents, not their ability to win close games. -- Interesting.

-Two of Deadspin's nerdier recent posts:

   -Real-time Sales Analytics

   -Breaking down the "greatest kick ever" with physics

 

-When Harold Miner surfaces, we link. [Lost Lettermen]

 

-Well, that was easy:

 

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YemlRf4lYwc?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YemlRf4lYwc?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

Wednesday Links

-Rich Lederer of The Baseball Analysts looks at strikeouts per pitch.  

 

-Someone much smarter than me calculates playoff probabilities in a back-of-the-envelop, exact kind of way. [Walk Like a Sabr]

 

-Feel good story alert. Rocco Baldelli homers in his first Major League swing of the season, and he has no plans to return to coaching. [NYT]

 

-As stadiums vanish, their debt lives on. [BYT]

 

-Jay Payton still plays baseball!? [Rotoworld]

 

-Kendall Rogers with a Pac-10 baseball summer update. [Yahoo]

 

-Most fans root for a particular team. Dave Pinto at BaseballMusings.com prefers to root for ties.

 

-SI.com's Tom Verducci explains how to "fix" baseball's playoffs. Truthfully, I had no idea the system was broken.

 

-The four guys that most impressed me this weekend in college football were RB Ed Wesley (TCU) and Boise State's three-headed running back trio - Doug Martin, DJ Harper and Jeremey Avery. These guys would start at almost every BCS school.

 

-Andrew Brandt breaks down the Revis deal. [NFP]

 

-"The Amazon Freak" might play this season afterall. [Baltimore Sun]

 

-In case you haven't gotten enough Boise State news this week, Chris Brown of Smart Football dissects their schemes from a coaching perspective.

 

-Deadspin Mailbag.

 

-Today's ultra-depressing Beiber stat. [Business Insider]

 

 

 

 

BC 9/8/2010

Tuesday Links

BC gets an extended weekend so you have to put up with me until tomorrow.

 

 

-Buster Olney blog: Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. [ESPN Insider; password required]

 

-Peter King's MMQB. [SI.com]

 

-Dan Pompei's Sunday Blitz. [NFP]

 

-Lombardi. [NFL.com]

 

-NFL salary cap analysis from JI Halsell here and here. [Inside the Cap]

 

-This doesn't rank as high as Winona Ryder's shout out to Syosset in Mr. Deeds, but I'll gladly accept a Syosset mention/retweet from Chris Mortensen. [Twitter]

 

-Exciting stuff happening in the Field/fx world. [Rob Neyer]

 

-Giggling evilly. [Deadspin]  

Friday Links

-Buster Olney blog. [ESPN Insider; password required]

 

-Pat Andriola at it again with WAR jumps and falls. [Fangraphs]

 

-Self-absorbed, yes, but at least he does nice things for people. [NFP]

 

-Another day, another recognizable name cut from the UFL: Andre Woodson. [Lost Lettermen]

 

-Andrew Brandt's Friday News and Notes. [NFP]

 

-For the first time in a while, an entertaining Bill Simmons article. I really liked the Cutler blurb although it's a recycled bit of his. [ESPN]

 

-Dave Berri at it again: 2009-10's most underrated scorers. [Wages of Wins]

 

-Two entertaining Deadspin links: Jimmy Connors '91 US Open and Kelly Johnson getting Punk'd.

 

-A link to more links. [AG.com]

 

 

Enjoy the three-day weekend.

 

 

BC 9/3/2010

Thursday (Bitter) Links

BC is out today so I have today's links. Enjoy:

-Weird. Jon Heyman thinks a Scott Boras client needs more attention. [Twitter]

-Is Bill Simmons ever going to stop with the six-for-24 tweets? Kobe averaged 28-8-4-2 during the NBA Finals, and he won a ring. Joke isn't funny anymore. May never have been funny. [Twitter]

-Speaking of tweets that aren't funny and border on annoying, Ken Davidoff's "predicted records for NY teams" tweets should stop. We get it. You predicted their records. Enough. Note: I do have to give him credit for at least responding to my tweet although I do not know what it means. [Twitter]



-As if the job of an announcer wasn't hard enough, now we can easily (dis)prove their stories. [Baseball Analysts]

-Kendall Rogers provides offseason grades to the Big 12 and SEC baseball teams. [Yahoo]

-Congrats to Jeremy Jeffress on making his Major League debut last night. His career stats: 1 IP, 1 H, 3 marijuana suspensions.

-Best of Deadspin: Intern Horrors and DWOTW: Owen Hart.

-Women With Dumb Tattoos: Volumes 5,487 and 5,488 - This morning on the subway, I saw these two:

"i called, you answered" written in plain block letters with a lowercase "i" on a woman's upper back. Looked like a third grade artist did it.

"Hysterically Useless" written in script on a woman's inner bicep.



Coming up in the next few days: college and NFL previews, weekend predictions, fantasy top 100 and more.

Thanks for reading / following.

Wednesday Links

-Something the fans in Pittsburgh have waited decades for: Pirates have a five-game lead. [MLBTR]

 

-Buster Olney blog. [ESPN Insider; password required]

 

-Pat Andriola follows up his biggest WAR fallers with the risers. [Fangraphs]

 

-From first round pick to out of football in six short years, the Chris Perry story. [Lost Lettermen]

 

-Bruce Feldman of ESPN previews September's top college football games.

 

-Deadspin mailbag.

 

-Dave Berri tries to quantify the NBA's most overrated player in 2009-10. [Wages of Wins]

 

 

 

 

BC 9/1/2010

Tuesday Links

-More Loria bashing. [Hardball Times]

-Matthew Carruth studies things like this so we don't have to. [Fangraphs]

-Pat Andriola quantifies how much Chone Figgins has sucked this year. [Fangraphs]

-These are Paul Winterling/Wash College type numbers. [Rotoworld & Mike]

-Mike Fast of HBT puts together a nice pitching primer.

-Stewart Mandel predicts how the first-year coaches will do in college football. My initial thoughts: too bullish on Notre Dame and too bearish on Kansas. [SI.com]

-Decent article. Great headline. [Rumors and Rants]

-Courtesy of Deadspin:



video: Icelandic goal celebration

BC 8/31/2010