"Football Freakonomics": When Good Stats Go Bad
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. What do Dan Marino, Jerry Rice, and MarTay Jenkins have in common? Yes, wise guy,…
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. What do Dan Marino, Jerry Rice, and MarTay Jenkins have in common? Yes, wise guy,…
Last week, we told you about our new project with the NFL Network called “Football Freakonomics.” We’ll be posting segments here as they air throughout the season. “Football Freakonomics” will…
Former Kansas City Chiefs head coach Todd Haley, who was fired earlier this month. (Photo: The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project….
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. It doesn’t take a genius to argue that injuries can have a massive effect on…
(Photo: macwagen) The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics project. Well, it’s January. And even though my team stumbled into inglorious, injury-plagued defeat,…
(Photo: Brittany Randolph) The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics project. There are a lot of things that need to go right for…
Four Vince Lombardi trophies belonging to the Dallas Cowboys. (Photo: Brandi Korte) The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. Today’s question on…
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. Do home teams really have an advantage? Absolutely. In their book Scorecasting, Toby Moskowitz and…
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. Is momentum a myth? That’s the question we ask in our latest installment of Football…
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. Economics is all about tradeoffs. If you want to buy a top-tier performance car, it’ll…
…called “Football Freakonomics.” We did a short program together for the NFL Draft, called “The Quarterback Quandary,” and now we’re partnering up for an ongoing set of segments. The first…
(Photo: Nicholas La) The following is a cross-post from our Football Freakonomics project at NFL.com. Check out the interactive graphic and, at the end of this post, the video. In…
In the first segment of “Football Freakonomics” on the NFL Network, Dubner examines the phenomenon of momentum and whether we can actually prove its existence in football games. Here’s a…
In the second segment of “Football Freakonomics,” Dubner examines the strategy of “icing the kicker,” a fairly recent trend in the NFL where an opposing coach will call a timeout…
In this segment of “Football Freakonomics,” Dubner looks at how players perform after returning from controversial suspensions and jail-time. Last time on “Football Freakonomics,” how impressive stats sometimes indicate bad…
We launched the Football Freakonomics series in the spring with an episode called “The Quarterback Quandary.” It examined the difficulty of drafting QB’s since they tend to be a) vital…
(Photo: tyle_r) The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. The preliminaries are finally over. As we head into the first weekend of…
The following is a cross-post from our Football Freakonomics project at NFL.com. Check out the interactive graphic and, at the end of this post, the video. Aaron Rodgers. (Photo: Elvis…
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. Icing the kicker: Even casual football fans have come to expect that when a game…
(Photo: Joint Base Lewis McChord) The following is a cross-post from our Football Freakonomics project at NFL.com. Check out the interactive graphic and, at the end of this post, the…
I had a blast working with the NFL Network/NFL.com on our Football Freakonomics series this season, and now we’ve been nominated for a Sports Emmy in “Outstanding New Approaches, Sports…
In the third segment of “Football Freakonomics,” Dubner examines how impressive stats in the NFL are often indicative of bad results. For example, we all want a quarterback who throws…
…schedule, you might also want to take a look at the latest Football Freakonomics video we’ve done for the NFL Network. It considers the “body clock” factor on teams’ schedules:…
The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project. This segment aired before last Sunday’s Patriots-Broncos game. Tebow at a game in Denver on…
On Tuesday, we shot the latest batch of our “Football Freakonomics” videos for the NFL Network. This project has been a blast. There are a lot of people involved on…
In the New Republic, Nate Cohn explores the small but growing role of advanced statistics in football. Projects like Football Freakonomics notwithstanding, the NFL isn’t usually thought of as a…
(Photo: Alex Murphy) The following is a cross-post from our Football Freakonomics project at NFL.com. The Super Bowl has by now become such an institution – it’s practically a second…
…show where the reality doesn’t quite match the myth. (You can find more of this stuff at our Football Freakonomics project at NFL.com.) Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal is already a…
…to predict an unlikely hero of the upcoming the Super Bowl, who would you pick? Last week, we shot our final round of this season’s Football Freakonomics segments in the…
In a recent Football Freakonomics video about Tim Tebow, I made a connection between his faith and performance: Tebow is hardly the first NFL quarterback to be demonstrative about his…