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Wednesday, November 16, 2005

[Sport] Fun with Numbers

I said the other day that Dom had given me an idea, well here it is: Crazy Football Stats!

My favourite football columnist (and author of The Progress Paradox) Gregg Easterbrook (who writes as the Tuesday Morning Quarterback), does ten crazy stats each week. But there are so many that I thought I may as well put up some as well. First here are TMQ’s ten stats this week

So each week me and my trusty assistant Dom (though he doesn’t know yet) will scour the NFL’s stats pages for quirkiness. I will try to do this every Wednesday (which is Tuesday in the States). As an added bonus I will attempt to do crazy stats for the rugby after each test. This will be bloody hard as there is no official place to get those stats from (I may have to watch the game with a pencil and paper).

And now I’ll give it a go:

  1. This week Eli Manning threw for 291 yards and 1 touchdown for the Giants and 149 yards and 1 touchdown for the Vikings.
  2. Six of the top ten tacklers come from teams with a losing record.
  3. The worst division is the AFC East on a combined 14-22; the best divisions are the NFC East and NFC South on 21-15 each.
  4. Last season the AFC East was the best division on a combined 37-27; and the NFC East and NFC South were both on a combined 31-33.
  5. Buffalo, NY Jets, Arizona, Baltimore, Houston, and San Francisco have not won a road game so far this year.
  6. Seattle are 6-0 when Shaun Alexander gets over 100 yards rushing and 1-2 when he doesn’t.
  7. Six of the top 16 teams on defence and four of the top 16 teams on offence have losing records.
  8. In all regular season games since the start of the 2004 season, Houston are 5-3 when David Carr is sacked less then three times and 2-17 when he is sacked three times or more.
  9. LaDanian Tomlinson has still thrown for more touchdowns than any NY Jets Quarterback.
  10. Curtis Martin is averaging 67.5 yards per game. If he keeps this up he will get 1080 yards for the season and become the first person to rush for 1000 yards in 11 seasons since joining the NFL.
  11. Tampa’s decision to go for two points with 58 seconds left in the game and one point down was literally scored against the odds. Statistics Professor Dr Dr Harold Sackrowitz’ statistical paper Refining the Point(s)-After-Touchdown Decision (PDF) tells coaches to go for one in that situation.

More next week and more interesting ones I promise!

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