An ex-Marine turned analytics wonk is using biomechanical data to help teams find the NFL draft’s diamonds in the roughAs the NFL draft winds down on Saturday and the rookie free agent signing period kicks off, teams are on the clock to find the next Brock Purdy. San Francisco closed last year’s show after taking the 23-year-old quarterback with the 262nd and final pick on the board, a distinction that comes with the unfortunate nickname Mr Irrelevant. But when franchise QBs Jimmy Garoppolo and Trey Lance were both knocked out late last season, it fell to the Iowa State product to keep the 49ers’ playoff fortunes alive. All he did was win his first seven starts and lead San Francisco...
Mike Pence’s very presence in Pyeongchang is having a debilitating effect on everyone and everything enduring his contactIt is, perhaps, a question as old as athletic competition itself: who is sport’s worst spectator? Of all the absolute arses, watching all the sports in all the world, who is the most unspeakably irksome, the most antithetical to everything you thought you knew about the power and possibilities of physical contest? Whose name is Death, Destroyer of Sports? Who is Earth’s foremost sporticidal maniac?I could have sworn I sat next to him at Stamford Bridge once. Yet a friend insists the entity takes female form, and attends the same junior netball games as her every week, destroying not just her own kids’ confidence,...
The former 49er is still without a job after his protest - but many teams already have good quarterbacks. Then there are those whose stance makes no sense at allThe Buffalo Bills signed someone called Keith Wenning on Monday. If you know that name, you are either Keith Wenning’s parents – and you should be very proud of your son – or you are Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane, and you should be ashamed of what you’ve done. Wenning, a journeyman quarterback who has now joined his fourth team in the four seasons since he was drafted by Baltimore in the sixth round in 2014, has never actually journeyed far enough to make it on to the field in...
The 29-year-old can still be good, perhaps even great – but every day he goes unsigned is an embarrassment for the coaches and GMs desperate to play it safeIt’s hard to believe that Colin Kaepernick can no longer be a useful quarterback in the NFL. The league is filled with too many mediocre passers who possess little skill beyond an ability to parrot the jargon of a preferred system offense to deny a man who actually took a team to the brink of a Super Bowl victory. All you have to do is look at the lackluster play of the NFL’s low-end starters, ball-cap wearers and clipboard holders to know Kaepernick still has a lot to offer. He is 29,...
If Rex Ryan and Chip Kelly are fired before the start of the next season, faceless automatons will truly control the leagueGrowing concern that we’ll all eventually lose our jobs to titanium-plated humanoids soared last week when president-elect Donald Trump announced he will nominate restaurant executive Andy Puzder for labor secretary. Puzder, who would head the government agency that is supposed to protect American workers, is on record saying that he actually isn’t a big fan of American workers. In fact, he much prefers automaton laborers over real human beings: “They’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case.”He’s not wrong...