The Week That Was (Feb. 5-9, 2024)

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

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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!), 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.

• 🏈 How the Chiefs and Niners Made It (Back) to the Super Bowl - I took a look at the four-year long story about how we ended up with a Super Bowl rematch that is equal parts familiar and different from the original.

• 🏈 Brock Purdy Is Only *Sort Of* a "System Quarterback" - Purdy is one of the most polarizing QBs I can remember in a while, with supporters who point to his success and stats, and detractors who think he is propped up by his situation. So I tried to quantify exactly how much he is helped by his coach and supporting cast.

• 🏀 Who Added (Or Subtracted) the Most at the NBA Trade Deadline? - Looking at all trades between Dec. 30 and this past Thursday’s deadline, I calculated which teams added or subtracted the most net Wins Above Replacement through their moves. (Relatedly, I also applied my findings in

  Royce Webb
  ‘s 14 Quick Takes on the NBA Trade Deadline roundtable convo, which was awesome to participate in.)

• 🏈 Expecting Patrick Mahomes’ Career to Match Tom Brady’s Is Unrealistic - We’ve been hearing a lot of GOAT talk about Mahomes these past few weeks, and I understand why. But have you really thought about what it would take for Mahomes to unseat Brady as the greatest ever?

• 🏀 NBA Offenses Got More Efficient by Giving Fewer Shots to the Most Efficient Players. (I’ll Explain.) - Paradoxically, NBA teams have spent decades allocating fewer of their touches to super-efficient players, and it made their offenses better. Huh?

• 🏒 My 🔥 Burning Questions 🔥 for the Second Half of the NHL Season - Coming out of the All-Star break, I broke down five huge questions that will be answered in the regular season’s stretch run.

• 🏈Bucky’s Bowls🦜 Returns: My Pet Parrot Picks the Super Bowl Winner - Continuing his series of picking football games, Bucky’s pick for Niners versus Chiefs is officially in.

• 🏁 We're So Back - In S02E01 of

  Podracing
  , our NASCAR podcast,
  Tyler Lauletta
  and I talked some offseason stuff and our goals for 2024, then got excited for last Sunday’s Clash at The Coliseum.

Some interesting things I read/watched this week

• 🏀 So your favorite title contender sat out the deadline? Good. by

  Tom Haberstroh

• ⚾ What Makes A Launch Angle Good? by

  Drew Haugen

• 🏈 The Huddle: Moving Conferences Will Hurt Your Team by ThrowBackFrog

• 🏀 He won't win it. But should Victor Wembanyama be Defensive Player of the Year? by

  Mike Shearer

• 🏀 New York Forever. by

  grace

• ⚾️ Can Yoshinobu Yamamoto defy gravity in Major League Baseball? by

  Ben Wylie

• 🏀 Does Age Matter For Championship-Chasing? by

  Jacob Sutton

• 🏀 Different dude Rod Benson by

  TrueHoop

• 🏈 All Hail the Homer and Are the Chiefs Really Underdogs? by

  Ethan Strauss

• 🏀 A glow-in-the-dark universe by

  Mike Richman

• 🏈 Welcome to the Too Deep Zone by

  Mike Tanier

• ✍️ I've Been Writing This Essay My Whole Life by

  Caroline Cala Donofrio

• 💵 Economic losses for our allies are not wins for the U.S. by

  Noah Smith

Top 15 stories you might not have read because they were originally published at The Messenger, my ill-fated former employer

With The Messenger nuking its archive, I’ve imported most of my stories for them over here on Substack. Here are some of the best ones from my short Messenger tenure:

• 🏈 Forget Travis Kelce: If Taylor Swift Were an NFL Player, She’d Be Tom Brady (Sept. 28, 2023)

• 🏀 Where Have All the NBA’s Little Guys Gone? (Nov. 20, 2023)

• ⚾️ José Bautista Was Baseball’s Greatest Late Bloomer (Aug. 21, 2023)

• ⛳ Michelle Wie West Didn’t Become Golf’s Biggest Star. That Doesn’t Make Her A Bust. (July 12, 2023)

• 🏀 Where Did Michael Jordan’s Hornets Tenure Go Wrong? (July 27, 2023)

• 🏀 The Oklahoma City Thunder Are Rolling — But Are They Playoff-Ready? (Jan. 3, 2024)

• 🏀 Kawhi Leonard Isn’t Managing the Load — He’s Shouldering It (Jan. 10, 2024)

• ⚾️ How MLB’s New Rules Changed the Game in 2023 (Sept. 28, 2023)

• 🏀 It’s OK to Be Excited about the Knicks (Dec. 5, 2023)

• ⚾️ The Pull of Juan Soto Was Irresistible for the New York Yankees. Too Bad He’s Not Really a Pull Hitter. (Dec. 13, 2023)

• 🏀 When Will Caitlin Clark Break The All-Time Scoring Record? (Updating)

• ⚾️ 2023 Is The Year Of The Worst Baseball Teams That Money Can Buy (Sept. 13, 2023)

• 🏈 Why the Running Back Market Went From a Gradual Decline to a Total Collapse (July 18, 2023)

• ⚾️ Ronald Acuña Jr. Is Mr. Baseball For 2023 (Sept. 6, 2023)

• ⚾️ The Baltimore Orioles Are Built to Win the World Series — Just Not This Season (Oct. 10, 2023)

Updating tracker of week

📉 2023-24 NHL Team Elo Ratings & Goals Above Replacement Player Ratings 🏒

A game I’m excited about: ⚾️ Bat Flip Dynasty ⚾️

Disclaimer: I have not played this yet! But I have played the original, and it’s very fun. (I also met the creator at PAX East in Philly a few years ago.) The sequel, which lets you try to build a dynasty over multiple seasons, is now able to be play-tested on Tabletop Simulator.

Old YouTube game of the week

Super Bowl XXXII: Elway's 1st Super Bowl Win

Music to play us out

“Lawyers, Guns and Money” by Warren Zevon

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Filed under: Weekly Round-up