Welcome to the latest episode of Hot Takedown, FiveThirtyEight’s sports podcast. On this week’s show (Sept. 6, 2016), we take a look at some of the storylines surrounding quarterbacks in the run-up to this year’s NFL season. Sharon Katz also joins the show to break down a wacky first weekend of college football and whether Houston is destined for the playoffs after a big win in Week 1. Finally, Blythe Terrell, an editor at FiveThirtyEight, returns to the show to find out which NFL team should be her new favorite, according to the numbers. Plus, a significant digit on how baseball teams’ fortunes would change if they never traded their original players.
Hot Takedown also has a spin-off podcast about the U.S. Open happening right now. It’s called Baseline, and it can be found here. The latest episode features 18-time major champion, Chris Evert.
Links to what we discuss:
- Sharon Katz breaks down the college football conference power rankings.
- Heather Dinich writes that Houston’s win over Oklahoma says a lot about its playoff chances this year.
- Neil Paine says Teddy Bridgewater’s injury puts the Minnesota Vikings in big trouble.
- The Denver Broncos’ starting quarterback, Trevor Siemian, may be someone who’s never thrown a pass in an NFL game, but at least he’s not Peyton Manning.
- You can find FiveThirtyEight’s Elo predictions for the NFL season on the site later this week.
- In the meantime, here are the latest Super Bowl odds according to Vegas.
- Significant Digit: 15. That’s how many fewer wins the Washington Nationals would have this season if they only played players they originally drafted. Five of those new wins come from Daniel Murphy’s contributions. Murphy was signed as a free agent last offseason.