The Week That Was (April 22-26, 2024)

A roundup of what I wrote, read, watched, etc. over the past week.

Apr 27, 2024

In this space on Saturdays, I do a weekly round-up of sorts: Sifting through what I wrote that you might have missed during the week, what I’ve been reading and watching myself, and some other fun things that have been going on. Let me know what you think about the format in the comments (or email me!1), and if there are running sections you’d like to see on a regular basis.

What I did this week

Stealing a bit from Will Leitch’s newsletter format, here are the things I wrote or podcasted about during the previous week, sorted in descending order by quality, popularity and/or current relevance.

🏈 NFL Teams Still Can't Beat the Draft - A decade after I wrote that no NFL team could consistently get better-than-expected returns in the draft, I updated the research to include the past 10 years. Has anything changed? (Hint: No.)
🏈 Michael Penix Jr. Is Cursed! (Maybe.) - With 6 quarterbacks (!!) going within the first 12 picks of the NFL draft, I looked at the recent fates of the first, second, third (and fourth, and fifth…) QBs drafted, and how big of a drop-off there is between each QB in the order.
⚾ Are the Astros in Big Trouble? - We’re used to seeing the Houston Astros dominate the American League, but the cracks are starting to seriously show early this season. Can Houston overcome its uncharacteristically slow start?
🏀 The Knicks — and a trio of Main Line stars — are bringing their Villanova connection back to Philly - For the Philadelphia Inquirer, I wrote about how the Knicks are being carried in their series against the Sixers by a trio with big-time Philly roots.
⚾ This Texas-Sized Rookie Rivalry Isn’t Much of One... Yet - The rookie prospect battle between Texas Rangers OFs Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford has been relatively one-sided so far (in Carter’s favor), though the two have a lot in common — and could be one of the game’s scariest duos soon.
🏒 The L.A. Kings’ Potential Misery Has Some Company — But Not Much - With a very real chance that the Kings lose to the Edmonton Oilers in the first round again, they would join an exclusive club of teams who lost to the same opponent in the playoffs in three consecutive seasons.