📝 The Week That Was (December 2-6, 2024)

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

Dec 07, 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

Here are the things I wrote or podcasted about during the previous week, sorted in descending order by quality, popularity and/or current relevance.

🏀 The Analytics One... Feat. Neil Paine - I was excited to be on
Marc Campbell
’s podcast (produced by
Jacob Sutton
!) to talk about my forecast model and Estimated RAPTOR ratings, the philosophies of analytics and the eye test, what works in the playoffs versus the regular season and why the metrics are so bullish on certain players (cough, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander).
🏈 The 12-Team College Football Playoff Could Hardly Have Asked for a Better Debut Season - Breaking down the traditional tiers of team that this year’s college football contenders fit into, I found that there won’t be too much controversy around who makes the first-ever 12-team playoff field. (And maybe that will be the norm most years?)
🧊 Hockey Bytes: This Time Feels Different for the Maple Leafs — Will It Last? 🍁 - While skepticism about their playoff fate always remains warranted, I wrote about how the Leafs' season looks promising thanks to improved defense and goaltending. Plus, I looked at Connor Bedard and the Blackhawks’ disappointing start, which cost coach Luke Richardson his job.
🏈 Sterling Sharpe Belongs in Canton - Sharpe, one of my favorite receivers ever, is up as a Hall of Fame finalist, so I wrote about his underappreciated statistical legacy despite a career that ended far too soon.
🏒 Ranking NHL overachievers, underperformers in 2024-25 so far - For ESPN, I picked my early all-NHL teams of 2024-25… of players who have exceeded — or fallen short of — expectations, that is.
🏀 Is UConn Already In Trouble? - The Connecticut men are used to dominating college basketball the past few seasons, but they’ve had some un-UConn-like performances early this year. How worried should they be?

Some interesting things I read/watched this week

A collection of articles (with a heavy focus on my fellow Substackers), videos and other media that I enjoyed and/or found thought-provoking over the past week.