Stats & Sports

If you have some time on your hands, this article written by Michael Lewis ("Money Ball," "The Blind Side" [the book I recommended a couple months back]) for NY Times magazine is very interesting. Sports will never be completely predicted by stats, but the new statistics that are being applied to sports I care about (see www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods and their explanation of DVOA; to a lesser extent, basketball) are making the role of statistics in determining the "value" of players and the possible contributions they can make to a team absolutely fascinating (to me, at least).

I acknowledge that boiling sports down to pure numbers takes away from much of the human factors that make it great -- passion, drive, will, discipline, inspiration etc -- so I'm not saying stats are the end-all, say-all. But they provide some nice insight.

Anybody have thoughts on this? Are stats taking over too much of how sports / players are judged? Do they need to be more of a factor?

Keep Those Dispensers Well-Stocked

PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Jeff Reed is in trouble with the police over some towels, but not the Terrible kind waved by his fans. Pennsylvania state police say Reed threw a temper tantrum at a Sheetz convenience store in New Alexandria, a tiny borough about 35 miles east of Pittsburgh, because its restroom didn't have any towels.

Reed has been cited for disorderly conduct and criminal mischief, offenses similar to traffic tickets that carry a maximum fine of $300 and 90 days in jail each. Police said he broke the towel dispenser then used profane language to an employee and also outside the store.

"Reed caused damage to a towel dispenser as he was infuriated at the fact that there were no towels in it," according to a news release by Trooper Shawn Askins, who issued the citations. The incident occurred Saturday about 2:50 a.m.

A message left on an answering machine at Reed's home was not immediately returned.

Steelers spokesman Dave Lockett said the team wouldn't have any immediate comment.

"We're still gathering information right now," Lockett said Saturday.

Reed made 27 of 31 field goals and 36 of 37 PATs for 117 points in his seventh season with the Steelers, which was capped by Pittsburgh's 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl.

Reed has made nearly 83 percent of his field goals (162 of 196) and scored 733 points for the Steelers in his career.

Big Ben

Absolutely love this commercial.

As an up and coming fan of the NFL, wanted to see what everyone else thinks after Roethlisberger's performance in the playoffs/Super Bowl. Where does he rank among the modern era of quarterbacks? Brady? Manning? Brees? I understand the myriad of factors that you need to take into account with QBs, but the guy knows how to win.

Thoughts?

NFL Playoffs 10 Jan 2009

I would just like to point out a few things.

I called the Ravens winning by three points, as they did against the Titans today. This was a great game. Hard-nosed, physical football, fighting for field position. Ray Lewis laid a hit on a Titans' TE that knocked his helmet off. I'm pretty sure the ref checked inside it to see if the guy's head was still inside.

Second, I think I want to diagnose Jake Delhomme with MHS (Max Hall Syndrome) for his turnover-happy performance (6...read that SIX PICKS! That means that there were a lot of college frat boys out there who got super hammered because they agreed to play drinking games based on Delhomme's performance). The only problem with diagnosing MHS in this situation is that after the game Delhomme will probably take most of the blame for the way he played. That's definitely NOT part of the Syndrome.