There can be only one.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ. If it isn’t Scottish, it’s crap!
Archive for the ‘NFL’ Category
TMQ Watch: October 30, 2018.
Wednesday, October 31st, 2018Ah, Cleveland.
Monday, October 29th, 2018Well. Well well well. Well.
The Cleveland Browns just fired head coach Hue Jackson.
(waits for the deafening cries of “What took them so long?” to subside)
Really, what took them so long? The man was 3-36-1 over two and a half seasons.
Also shown the door: offensive coordinator Todd Haley.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)
TMQ Watch: October 23, 2018.
Wednesday, October 24th, 2018Oddly enough, the subject of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies came up at dinner Saturday night. We have a couple of folks who are big fans of those movies – though it seems like they are fans in sort of a post-ironic hipster kind of way, if we may say so.
Anyway, after the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Your loser update: October 23, 2018.
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2018NBA teams that still have a shot at going 0-82:
Chicago
Cleveland
Lakers
Oklahoma City
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I wanted to do some analytics on the NFL losers. Specifically, I wanted to get an idea (and perhaps express it in graphical form) of how many losers there were at various points in the season. Week 1 isn’t very interesting: there’s generally 16 losers out of 32 teams1. But week 2 and the weeks following are the ones where things become more interesting.
This is an HTML file containing the loser data from 2009-2018. Year’s on the left, week is across the top. So for example, in week 1 of 2018, there were 15 teams that had a chance to go 0-16.
I tried graphing this in Excel, but wasn’t totally happy with the results I was getting. Perhaps someone with more experience in data visualization can do something better.
1 I say “generally” because there are exceptions. There was a tie in week 1 of 2018, which knocked two teams out of loser contention. In week 1 of 2017, one of the games was postponed due to a hurricane, which left those two teams at 0-0 and with the potential to go 0-16 that week, for a total of 17 possible losers.
Noted without (much) comment.
Monday, October 22nd, 2018TMQ Watch: October 16, 2018.
Thursday, October 18th, 2018Apropos of nothing in particular, a musical interlude:
There. Feel better?
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Obit watch: October 15, 2018.
Monday, October 15th, 2018Catching up:
William Coors is dead at 102.
…
Along with his younger brother, Joseph, a Coors executive who supported Ronald Reagan’s rise to the presidency, William Coors, although not as overtly political, championed bootstrap success and free enterprise, and was widely admired by conservatives.
But he alienated unionists, blacks, Hispanics, women and gays with views and policies that critics called racist, sexist and homophobic, and members of those groups joined informal boycotts of Coors beer in increasing numbers in the 1970s.
Jim Taylor, one of the great Green Bay Packers:
NYT.
Cindy Lobel, food historian. I actually wasn’t familiar with her work, but I generally admire people who write about food and food history: I’m adding her book to my list. Plus: 48 is too damn young to die.
Betty Grissom, Gus Grissom’s widow. Thing I didn’t know: she ticked off a lot of people by suing North American Rockwell (the primary contractor for the Apollo program).
Her action brought Ms. Grissom considerable grief, with strangers accusing her of being unpatriotic and the close-knit space community shunning her.
The experience embittered the family, said Mark Grissom, who was 13 when his father died.
“We got the dark side of NASA,” he said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “People who were my friends were no longer my friends. A lot of people turned their back on us, and Mom got a lot of hate mail. They were like, ‘How dare you sue NASA?’ We were no longer part of the NASA family.”
…
She told an interviewer that her husband’s sacrifice had helped pave the way for future missions in which other astronauts made it to the moon.
Still, she said, “I’m pretty sure he got to the moon before they did.”
“Of course he didn’t make it,” she added, “but in spirit I think he was already there.”
TMQ Watch: October 9, 2018.
Wednesday, October 10th, 2018Geezers on geezers on geezers. Wheel in the sky keep on turning.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Your loser update: week 5, 2018.
Monday, October 8th, 2018The Browns actually won a second game this season. The New York Football Giants are 1-4. And the worthless San Francisco 49ers lost, which is good: but to Arizona, which is bad.
Also: Mike Stoops out as Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
None.
The loser update will return at the start of the NFL season next year. There may possibly be special updates between now and then, but it will definitely be back in 2019 (assuming we all live that long).
Your loser update: week 4, 2018.
Monday, October 1st, 2018Four weeks into the season, and one team left standing. By comparison, at this time in 2017, there were four 0-4 teams. On the other hand, Cleveland was the only winless team at this point in 2016, and Detroit was the only one left in week four of 2015. So I don’t know, Bob.
Also: TMQ is either going to ignore this story, or be his usual insufferable self this week.
And this amuses me:
I doubt Ryan Fitzpatrick was the problem, and I doubt Jameis Winston is the fix. Then again, I didn’t watch a minute of the game.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Arizona
And it looks like the MLB regular season is (more or less) over, and B’more finished 47-115. By my count, that’s 15th on the all-time list.
TMQ Watch: September 25, 2018.
Thursday, September 27th, 2018Just not feeling the snark this week. So after the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Your loser update: week 3, 2018.
Monday, September 24th, 2018The Browns won for the first time since Donald Trump took office. The worthless Buffalo Bills actually beat Minnesota in what ESPN calls “the biggest NFL upset in 23 years”. The New York Football Giants beat hapless the Houston Texans. New England is 1-2. And we’re down to three teams standing. But at least we didn’t have another tied game.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Houston
Oakland
Arizona
In non-NFL news, the NYT ran an interesting article on the Baltimore Orioles.
I admit I haven’t been paying much attention, because:
1) Baseball.
II) FiveThirtyEight, as of today, is predicting that Baltimore will finish 47-115, or a .290 winning percentage. That’s 15th place on Wikipedia’s list. Historically bad? Maybe. That’s certainly a worse record than the bad Astros teams of recent memory, but it’s still better than the 2003 Detroit Tigers.
I report, you decide.
TMQ Watch: September 18, 2018.
Wednesday, September 19th, 2018Someone who isn’t us asked why we didn’t mention Vonte Davis in the loser update this week.
The truth is, we just didn’t have anything to bring to the table on that subject. We do have one thought, but we’re not comfortable sharing that in public: it would be irresponsible speculation on our part. We do (sincerely) hope for the best for Mr. Davis.
Apparently, Gregg Easterbrook has almost nothing to say on the subject either. But he does have things to say on other subjects, including the Clay Mathews penalty.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ and why his commentary is problematic…
Your loser update: week 2, 2018.
Tuesday, September 18th, 2018Not a whole lot to say this week.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Buffalo
Houston
Oakland
New York Football Giants
Detroit
Seattle
Arizona
TMQ Watch: September 11, 2018.
Wednesday, September 12th, 2018Ah, the first week of football season. There’s a wonderful scent of mold in the air (due to all the recent rain), friends are trying to provoke us into doomed bets on the Texans, and Gregg Easterbrook finally has something to write about.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…