100% agree. The unanimity debate distracts from what's actually fascinating - how Ichiro helped redefine offensive value in the power era. That's the HOF conversation worth having.

Interesting. Can't remember another season with such an imbalanced late-season bye structure.

Fascinating stat. What makes it even wilder is that both Favre and Rodgers followed a similar pattern to Love - struggling with consistency early before finding their rhythm. Wonder if it's something about the Packers' system.

The sky is literally falling in Dallas.

Looking back, the last team to pull that off was the 2000 Ravens, who won 2 straight on 9 field goals. Before that, you have to go back to the 1920s to find similar streaks - the Bears, Cardinals, & a few others managed a combined 10 FGs across 8 such wins in that era.

stathead.com/tiny/mTG2U

Especially interesting given the Packers' history with one-off QBs in the 80s before Favre arrived. Love breaking that Bears streak record that Favre started feels poetic.

5/5 Full deep dive with data for every NBA team since 1976: boxscorebrain.substack.com/p/nba-true-t...

4/5 Since 2014, good teams show their identity way faster (16 games) than bad ones (22+). Analytics are speeding up development... but only for winners.

3/5 Denver shows its identity fastest (16 games), New Orleans slowest (30 games). Market size doesn't matter at all - small markets develop just as fast as LA/NY.

2/5 Most teams reveal themselves by game 11-12. But some take 70+ games! Even stranger: teams that take longer often end up MORE successful.

1/5 Analyzed 1,300+ NBA seasons since 1976 to find out exactly when teams show their true identity. The results? Way weirder than expected.

Fun note from Cliff Christl on yesterday's broadcast. This picture FOX used to illustrate an old Staleys/Packers game? It's actually a 1917 high school football game between Marinette and Watertown.

Late-blooming 1B with elite defense age surprisingly well historically. A Carlos Pena comp could feel really spot-on here.

What makes Boldin's 614 catches wild: he did it in an era with ~1,300 fewer league pass attempts per year. Adjusted for today's passing volume, that's equivalent to 660 catches. Most impressive on the list. www.datawrapper.de/_/DieON/

Have NHL players maxed out the slap shot? Or can the speed ceiling be pushed even higher?

I dove into the physics behind velocity to find out. Let's nerd out:

My story: www.nytimes.com/athletic/592...

Nice one. The 1960s-90s saw similar peak velocities to today despite inferior equipment. Also makes me wonder if it's human biomechanics, not technology, that's the real limiting factor. Past ~105mph, accuracy drops dramatically.

So I analyzed every NFL QB jersey # since 1950 to find the most (& least) successful digits in history.

#12 absolutely dominates (thanks Brady), while #19 is the least successful despite Johnny Unitas.

Lots of weird patterns in between.

Full story here: boxscorebrain.substack.com/p/the-data-b...

Legal gambling definitely adds a new lens to how I view controversial calls. While most are probably still honest mistakes by refs making split-second decisions, the betting element naturally breeds skepticism. Hard to put that genie back in the bottle now that so much money rides on these games.

Recently spent way too much time analyzing 48 years of Bucks game logs to figure out when NBA teams show their true identity. Found some weird patterns - most losing teams reveal themselves early, winning teams are getting more unpredictable.

Full story: boxscorebrain.substack.com/p/true-bucks...