Sports Staturday January 25, 2025
Happy Staturday. It's a sad dark day without football, but we have much to look forward to tomorrow with Championship Sunday. The next episode of the Bills/Chiefs rivalry. The rising phenom Jayden Daniels. Saquon Barkley. I can't wait. Except, well, I have to. And so do you. So let's kill some time and dive into stats from the past week in sports while we sip our morning coffee.
This is Sports Staturday.
NFC North Postmortem - Did the Bears 4D chess win the North?
Did the NFC just become the pro version of the SEC?
The best division in football this season by far just so happened to be the second best all-time by point differential. Zero total playoff wins. For some perspective, the 2013 NFC West won four playoff games and had two teams in the NFC Championship game. That's how this is supposed to go. And the 2013 group only had two teams in the playoffs. This year's NFC North had three.
Ran the code to tell me if any other division won more regular season games without winning a single playoff game. To no surprise, the answer is no. The NFC North stands alone at 45 with the 2008 NFC South (40 wins) the previous biggest divisional let down. So all in all, it's just a fact that the no team in the second best division since the merger won more playoff games than the Chicago Bears. A team that would immediately go on to replace one of the worst coaches in NFL history with the most sought after coaching phenom in the last two years.
Is this the biggest loser spin ever as a Bears fan? No comment.
Jayden Daniels wouldn't even be the first rookie quarterback from Washington to "win it all"
You might be aware than no starter has won a Super Bowl, but championships are a different story. Turns out, Jayden wouldn't even be the first rookie QB from Washington to "win it all" in the NFL. That'd be Sammy Baugh in 1937. Sammy came to play to going 18/33, 335 yards (3/1 TD/INT). He did take one sack for a 26-yard loss which is pretty funny and makes me wish there was old reel clip of that somewhere.
The Lions played 43 players on defense this season trailing only the Panthers' 46
I think we can agree the only reason Carolina had more players play on defense this season was because most of them were bad. Sure, there were injuries. But some of these guys were probably fans the team snuck in to give a few plays a go. Not the case in Detroit. And look at the other teams around them. Giants. Patriots. Browns. Then you have the Bucaneers and the Bills with 36. Both teams made the playoffs obviously and have had their lumps on the injury list, but that's still a front four and full set of linebackers less than Detroit.
This brings me to the point of this stat. "Injuries aren't an excuse" is a really dumb sports slogan. I think we all know this too. But everytime I hear it I roll my eyes. Why not just admit it? What's the big deal? Do you really think the backups don't know they're not as good as the starters?
By the way. Look at Philly down there. Healthy as can be. On defense anyway.
Rookie Texan wide receiver Jared Wayne got his first target of his career only to fall down making his out cut
This is the worst. An undrafted rookie trying to make his name after playing special teams the entire year. In the playoffs none the less. And he botches his out cut. He would get only one chance at redemption and Stroud ripped his soul out with this terrible pass:
I'm not sure we ever see Jared Wayne again. Maybe back on special teams. But he might be a new edition to my phantoms of the kickoff.
Let's see what's going on in hoop ball. There was a lot of heat in Miami regading the return of Jimmy Butler. Palpable heat as it turns out.
It's one thing to have palpable dread going into a game. Maybe you're about to play Michael Jordan in his prime. Or Draymond Green after he hasn't been suspended for a while. Or you have to deal with the court graphics during the in-season tournament. Whatever it is, it's usually not regarding a star player on your team. But that's Jimmy Butler. Heat counter culture.
Even so - it doesn't seem like Jimmy's been as detached on the court as was dreaded.
OK one last NFL thing to get you ready for Sunday.
The Chiefs are on the second luckiest four-year penatly stretch since the merger
From my Friday megablog where I absolutely went to data down investigating what the deal is with the Chiefs penalty luck. ESPN had a graphic mentioning the Chiefs were called for just 36 penalties since 2021 vs 66 of their opponents so I felt it only fair to run the numbers on every possible four-year stretch for every team since 1970. Turns out, only John Elway had a better run.
But the real interesting thing is the Patriots and Chiefs. Both dynasties somehow kept getting more and more on the right side of the yellow flag as their dynasties grew. Seems pretty clear to me there's some GOAT or dynasty bias going on impacting the way refs are subconsciously calling games. Not to mention the many other supporting stats from the blog. But that was a megablog. This is not. So I'll keep it to that.
That's all for this week. Can't wait to argue with Chiefs fans on Twitter tomorrow over every call/non call that fits our respective narratives. That's what sports is all about!
@Stathole