And you are here why?

The NY Times goes through the drafts since 1995 (screen-cap below, go to the site for the interactive version! ) and figures out what we already new, viz. With notable exceptions, the first overall pick has, on average, proved to be the most productive player in the class. Nearly two-thirds of the most productive players drafted since 1995 were selected in the first round Mind you, we're not talking Alan Greenspan here (" With notably rare exceptions, Germany remained largely at peace with its neighbors during the 20th century. ") - its just very, very unlikely...

From Decision Science News , comes this little bit of awesomeness regarding field-goals . They took all 10,705 of the field goals in the NFL from 2002 - 2012, and it basically came out to the following At D > 50 yards, you make the Field Goal with probability 0 At D < 50 yards, it is 0.951 + .0062*D - 0.005*D^2 Mind you, the other thing I found fascinating was that the coaches not only know this, they pretty much live by this too - with them basically not even bothering at  D > 50 Check out the original !

Which team that I am not interested in am I more interested in? I don't particularly follow the #NHL.   Given that, I really don't follow the Los Angeles Kings. The New Jersey Devils? meh city Which basically leaves me with a conundrum - when I'm in a business setting, and people are going on about The Great Game Last Night , WTF am I supposed to do? I guess I could just read the sports section of the paper, and pretend, but that still leaves me with the choice of a team.    I suspect the best solution is to emulate a buddy of mine and conflate the NHL and the NFL - say, did you see that great touchdown last night?

As y'all know, I took the year off of Football, and a merry time was had by me, with plenty of snarky comments, holier-than-thou-ness , and some serious free time on weekends that was appropriately used to not just spend quality time with the Fabulous Nicole, but also get some serious weekend traveling done.  All good stuff. And then along come Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier presenting " What Would the End of Football Look Like - An economic perspective on CTE and the concussion crisi s" .  Its a fairly compelling take on the future of football here - or the lack thereof - based on concussions and the concomitant concerns (hey, I can alliterate too!) As they put it The most plausible route to the death of football starts with liability suits. 1   Precollegiate football is already sustaining 90,000 or more concussions each year. If ex-players start winning judgments, insurance companies might cease to insure colleges and high schools against football-related laws...