Go Big Blue
With the big game on the way, I thought I’d share some great NFL or Super Bowl posts I’ve read recently.
Every Christian should attend a Super Bowl party.
Barnabas Piper has one request
For one day a year, and one day only, be a football fan.
Be a fan for one day for a single purpose: People. Football draws people like moths to a porch light, and through football you can connect with people. There isn’t another social or entertainment event during the year that draws people like the Super Bowl. So take advantage of it!
For one evening take off the earbuds, turn off the Xbox, close the book, and go to a Super Bowl party. Or host one. Or crash one. Just be a part of what people are doing! It doesn’t matter that you don’t like football, don’t care about football, or don’t know about football. Share the food, enjoy the commercials, cringe at the halftime show, and give a football fan the opportunity to show off his knowledge of the game.
I couldn’t agree more. I also could not disagree more with some of the comments. Some people, just don’t get it. I even think it’s okay to skip church for the game – imagine that!
Along the same lines, shares some of the human stories for those who are not football fans. I’m not sure I buy all the hype about Tom Brady (a quarterback for whom the league keeps changing the rules), but it’s very interesting reading.
Freakonomics.com consistently publishes excellent content, but I especially enjoy the Football Freakonomics section. I made note of a couple good posts over the last few weeks. (NOTE: FiveThirtyEight also does some great stuff with sports stats, but last year they did not post anything about the Super Bowl until the day of the game.)
Does defense really win championships?
Posted before the conference championship games …
It’s a clear offensive vs. defensive matchup in both conference championships. If you believe the hype, it’ll be a matchup of the defensive-minded Harbaugh brothers in the Super Bowl. If you follow the numbers, it’ll likely be only one Harbaugh who makes it, but we couldn’t tell you which.
Certainly didn’t work out that way for those two games, did it. Of course, season long stats are meaningless in predicting games anyway – so maybe this is nothing more than an excuse to talk about football.
Who’s Peaking
In this post, they examine something called “Passer Rating Differential” (PRD), promoted by coldhardfootballfacts.com as the best indicator of which team is peaking. I didn’t bother to track the PRD of the remaining teams after this post, but using the PRDs at the end of the regular season as the only measure, I paid attention to how teams fared in each matchup. In AFC matchups, the team with the higher (better) PRD won five of the five matchups. In the NFC, only one out of five.