📝 The Week That Was (February 17-21, 2025)

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

Feb 22, 2025

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.

🏒 My 🔥 Burning Questions 🔥 for the Second Half of the NHL Season - Looking ahead to the NHL’s return from the 4 Nations Face-Off, I engaged in my yearly All-Star break interrogation of the biggest questions still to be answered this season.
🏀🏈 Atlanta Is Where Opponents Forget How to Miss - In one of the weirdest city-based trends I can remember, the Falcons and Hawks are powerless to stop opponents from making everything, especially in their own building.
🏒 Once a Mismatch, the U.S. and Canada Finally Meet as Hockey Equals - Ahead of the 4 Nations title game, I dug into the dramatically evolving history of the Canadian-American rivalry on ice.
🏁 William Byron Has Mastered the Art of the Opportunistic Win - With Byron becoming just the fifth driver to ever win back-to-back Daytona 500s, I wrote about his signature habit of “vulturing” late wins.
🏁 Is William Byron NASCAR’s best closer? - Along similar lines, I looked at which other drivers win the most with late passes and other clutch moves.
- 🏁🎧 Vulture Culture - This week on
  Podracing
  ,
  Tyler
  and I talked about Byron’s win at Daytona, my story on NASCAR vultures, and we looked ahead to the favorites and underrated picks at Atlanta.
🏀 Programming Note: Be sure to check out ESPN’s Bubble Watch to find my ongoing analysis of teams vying to make the NCAA tournament, and consult the NCAA Tournament Meta-Forecast 📊 for the big picture across a bunch of different models.

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. I don’t always 100% agree with what’s linked here… but that’s also sort of the point.