The quote was made famous in the 1960s in reference to the Free Speech movement on college campuses. College students resisting the demand to restrict expression of ideas that didn’t fit a particular political philosophy adopted the concept. The average age of an NFL rookie is a little over 23 years when he first takes […]

When evaluating quarterbacks, I often use the following statistics, and try and cover as much of a time period as possible, since players only have 16-17 games in a season and that means sample sizes are often uncomfortably low. A combination of yards per pass attempt, yards per completion and completion percentage. This gives me […]

With the sixth pick in the 2019 Draft, the New York Giants selected Daniel Jones, heir apparent to the most prolific quarterback in franchise history, ninth all-time in passing yardage and keeper of two Pete Rozelle trophies (as Super Bowl MVP), Eli Manning. Within three games, Jones was starting for the Giants and the media […]

Ian Book, New Orleans’ fourth-round pick in the 2021 draft, made his professional debut at quarterback in tonight’s Monday Night game against Miami. Not surprisingly, it didn’t go well. Book didn’t pass the Akili Line until a long catch-and-run late in the fourth quarter (56 yards to Lil’Jordan Humphrey). He ended up 12-20-135 with two […]

If Week 10 seemed a little devoid of drama to you, you’re not wrong. Of the 15 games, only one saw a lead change in the fourth quarter. That happened when Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell converted a field goal early in the fourth quarter to tie Detroit. The rest of that game belongs in the archives […]

From time to time, broadcasters talk about age in the NFL, especially as Tom Brady seeks to redefine it. I wanted to write an article discussing Brady’s accomplishments as he heads into the latter stages of his career. Briefly, your standard NFL trivia: George Blanda last played with the 1975 Oakland Raiders and threw a […]

This doesn’t happen in the NFL. On Sunday, two number-one overall picks from past drafts were traded… for each other. Both are quarterbacks playing under “you’re my franchise guy” contracts. Combined, $40 million in dead cap space was added to 2021 rosters in a season where the salary cap is expected to significantly drop. How […]

Over the years, I’ve focused a lot of my original statistical analysis on the quarterback position. The idea behind this is the more I understand about the most complex job in professional sports, the more I understand about sports. Most of this analysis isn’t ever part of a game. It’s more like a hobby. If […]

Continuing with my theme of wondering about the effects of playing in empty or reduced-crowd stadiums, I took a look at late-game comebacks in the NFL. The base, as I’m using for these studies, is games played from 2002-2019. That’s 18 seasons of data with the current eight-division format. There were 4806 games played, including […]

It’s a different NFL in 2020. I could fill a good-sized novel with all the obvious changes in the world. When we look back at 2020 decades from now… well, no one will forget this year. As we look at the empty stands, perhaps decorated with cardboard cutouts paid for by fans (I have to […]