FOOTBALL BLOGS

http://schefterblogz.blogspot.com

http://www.bigben7.com/blog.aspx

http://www.nflplayers.com/players/player.aspx?id=22548§ion=journal

http://www.nflplayers.com/players/player.aspx?id=35693§ion=journal

yeah the answer to this question is uh all the football blogs are right here

you really don't want to read the other kinds of NFL fan blogs that exist

sub-ESPN "this game sucks" self-hating fanboy tripe

HI THERE FOOTBALL FANS. THERE IS NO OFFSEASON IN FOOTBALL. WE TRY TO REST BUT WE STILL ARE WORKING ON SOMETHING. WELL I AM WORKING ON A CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL HERE IN TAMPA, FLA. ALONG WITH THE DEBARTALO FAMILY. PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR PROJECT.

^^^ this is not what coach meant when he said there was no offseason in football y/n

i was gonna start a thread along these lines, S/D FOOTBALL WRITING but i already know that there is no football writing out there worth reading, outside of dr. z and mike tanier. actually there is this:

http://theboysblog.com/

i dont check it regularly and it IS a cowboys blog but the dudes appear to know their shit - i remember really liking this piece http://theboysblog.com/2007/05/13/repost-whats-a-phillips-34/

I been reading the posts on footballoutsiders.com a lot lately.

yeah i've been following FO for a while tho i dont like to advertise it. tanier is their best writer by a country mile - knows his x's and o's better than the rest of them, and is generally more concise and engaging to boot. barnwell is pretty funny too.

it's a frustrating enterprise overall, bringing metrics to football, because it's harder to distinguish individual contributions in football than it is with any other team sport. which is why i am irritated by the lunkheadedness FO displays in emphasizing the importance of some of their stats. they glom onto things like, say, chris chambers is the worst WR in the league according to their WR metrics, and they loooove reiterating this as if they are daring iconoclasts taking down some beloved icon, but they never actually provide any accompanying analysis of what chris chambers does wrong that makes him suck. they have a lot of little trivial examples like this that they glom onto as talking points for the projection system and basically it all comes off like they just want to be contrarian. they're so in love with being OUTSIDERS challenging conventional wisdom etc blah blah. the team-based metrics (defensive efficiency, offense, special teams) are all really fascinating to me tho.

their charting system and stats are all based on TV broadcasts though so you gotta give them a bit of leeway vis a vis anything that happens away from the line of scrimmage. unless it's shown in slow-mo or in a highlight you rarely get a good look at anything happening in the secondary!

the write-ups on Eli's problem with zone blitzing and the in-depth breakdown of Ugoh's blocking were awesome

oh yeah totally, and i know a lot of stuff they just take from the official play-by-plays - it's the best they can get. i'm making it sound like they suck, but they're doing the best anyone could. the thing is it's just such a losing enterprise to begin with - for instance they break down team defensive efficiency against different kinds of receivers - WR1, WR2, other WR, TE and passes to RBs - and rank them accordingly. which is interesting. but then they will extrapolate stuff from it like "well team x is bad against WR1 so their number one corner must suck" which is a gigantic fucking leap. with quarterbacks it's a pretty good system but for evaluating individual efforts of any other player i am not a fan.

yeah, that eli thing was by tanier! read any of his TDZ columns, they are all instructive as hell. also, this dude Pat who posts hell of comments on FO always has some interesting shit to say. this one is pretty great: http://footballoutsiders.com/index.php?p=4146

gregg easterbrook used to be good but appears to have run out of material - still deserves props for his contribution tho

yeah i have been assured that TMB was at one point actually worth reading, but i've never been able to stomach an entire installment

I would listen to all of this myron cope podcasts

Ha - I should've said schefterblog was a given! (I'm just looking for links to fill the blogroll on the right-now 2-man football blog2.0 product I contribute to.) Right now, we got schefter, FO, and CSTB (because they linked us, and I love Stephen Malkmus).

I'd say more re: FO (which cankles is right-on about, tho I'm more forgiving of some of their writers) & TMQ (smart guys talking about cheerleaders & Star Trek & punting = cool the first 20 times, now SHUT UP), but I just got sushi.

wait what is this product you speak of

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