For decades, the battle to win football games has pivoted on the battle to win the passing game. The connection between winning and net passing yards per pass play — that is, outgaining your opponent on passing yards minus sack yards lost per pass play — has been well known in football circles since the […]
After four full weeks of play, the New England Patriots are one of only three undefeated teams left in the NFL, and their defense is getting much of the credit for their early success. The Patriots lead the league in point differential at +95 and, on the strength of defensive backs Jonathan Jones and Jason […]
Basketball, in some sense, is fundamentally a shooting game. Shooting isn’t the only important action that takes place on a basketball court, obviously. But if no one kept track of who was taking shots and making buckets, we’d have, at best, an extremely fuzzy impression of which players were actually any good, even if we […]