The Week That Was (July 14-18, 2025)
A roundup of what I wrote/read/watched/etc. — plus a quick reader survey to help shape the future of Neil's Substack.
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.
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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.
🏀 If LeBron Wants to Pass Jordan, He Needs to Leave L.A. (and Win) – I argued that LeBron James’ best shot at surpassing MJ in the GOAT debate isn’t merely winning another title — it’s doing so in a place like New York City, where a long-awaited championship would carry a lot of extra historical weight.
⛳ Scottie Scheffler Is Still Hunting Tiger's Prime – With Strokes Gained numbers we haven’t seen from anyone not named Tiger Woods, plus a chance to join rare company at the majors in a single season, Scheffler’s 2025 campaign could become the most dominant since peak Tiger — if he wins this weekend’s British Open, that is.
🏒 How Canada’s Stanley Cup Drought Could’ve Been Stopped Before It Ever Started – I looked back at how the relocation of the Quebec Nordiques to Denver 30 years ago this summer turned a burgeoning Canadian contender into a U.S.-bound dynasty — and may have doomed Canada to its three-decades-long Cup drought.
⚾ Why We Might Need MLB's All-Star Game More Now Than Ever – In an era when everything else in sports feels optimized and monetized, I argued that baseball’s silly, nostalgic midsummer classic still holds value as a rare moment of “meaningless” joy and wonder — for kids and adults alike.
🏁 Why Dover is NASCAR’s greatest test of driver skill — with a catch - At NASCAR.com, I explained how Dover Motor Speedway rewards elite drivers more than nearly any other track, though it also punishes them with a high attrition rate and chaos, making it both a proving ground and a trap for the sport’s best.
🏁🎧 Return of the (Oval) Track - In this week’s episode of Podracing, Tyler and I talked about Shane van Gisbergen’s endless road-course mastery, whether Connor Zilisch is the SVG rival we need on the twisty tracks, and why Dover stands out as one of NASCAR’s most demanding — and punishing — tests for top drivers.
⚾ Are James Wood and Oneil Cruz Statcast’s Next HR Derby Chosen Ones? – Ahead of Monday’s Home Run Derby, I made a new Statcast-based metric called STANTON, showing how Cruz and Wood ranked among the most power-optimized Derby contestants of the modern era — with the raw tools to follow in Judge and Stanton’s footsteps. (Now, did that happen? Ehhhh… not quite. But it was a fun piece regardless!)
⚾ Which Home Run Derby participants are built to hit at Truist Park? – For The Athletic, I also analyzed Statcast’s park-adjusted HR projections to look at the HR Derby through another lens. Specifically, I searched for batters who were suited for Atlanta’s dimensions — and which ones were less optimized for Truist.
Programming Note: Check out my NASCAR driver ratings page for updating probabilities of each driver to advance through — and win — the inaugural In-Season Challenge:
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.
🏈 The Arch Manning Era Starts Now and Is This the Beginning of College Football's Quiet Quitting Era? by Tyler Schuster
🏈 Can A Simple Model Draft QBs Better Than the NFL? and Michael Thomas Should Make the Hall of Fame by Robbie Marriage
🏈 The Service Academy Trifecta and MAC Daddy Series 2025 (WRs) by VP
🏈 The schedule game // A look at the 2025 college football schedule by Chris
🏈 Visualizations About Advanced College Football Passing Stats by Ray Carpenter
🏈 Reviewing the “Most Aggressive” and “Softest” Defenses from 2024 NFL and Who are “Must-Read” NFL Handicapping Writers? by Jeff Fogle
🏈 An incomplete history of Phil Steele and Nebraska by Brandon Vogel
🏀 Ken Pomeroy and I still believe // No, really, expand the field by John Gasaway (Note: I obviously disagree, but it’s an interesting convo…)
🏀 Damian Lillard and the self-defeating pursuit of happiness by Mike Shearer
⚾ We’ve got disagreement!!! I think all baseball games should end this way by Rodger Sherman and A Homerun ‘Swing-off’ should not break 9 inning ties by Mark Kolier
⚾ All-Star Color Wars // A Return to When the Uniforms Didn’t Match—And That Was the Magic by Doug Glanville
⚾ Why Won’t Baseball Let Us Submit to Our Robot Overlords? by Jeff Maurer
⚾ Surging Red Sox Owe It To Everyone To Be All In by Andrew Steele
⚾ Predicting the 2030 AL All-Star Team and 2030 NL All-Star Team by Maxfield Lane and Owen Riley
🏒 CHERRY & MacLEAN etc / My hiatus at an end, withering criticism, mislabelling of my work & various flotsam & jetsam and DON CHERRY, RON MacLEAN & ME: Among other things, my dinner with at the Coach's Corner table by Gare Joyce
🏁▶️ The Era of Speed by DJB Works
⛳ Golf Isn't Everything, Says the World's Best Golfer by Michael Hendricks and Did a professional golfer just signal a vibe-shift? by Michael Weinreb
🎨 It’s a Numbers Game: The Case for Custom Fonts in Sports Branding by Tom O'Grady
📱 Has My Social Media Addiction Sadly Caused Me To Pathetically Overuse Adverbs? by Jesse Singal
👶 What Caused the 'Baby Boom’? What Would It Take to Have Another? by Derek Thompson
🎬 Why Did Hollywood Stop Making Comedies? A Statistical Analysis by Daniel Parris
🌍 Why Governments Are Betting Big on Sports by Stephen J. Dubner
🎮⚾▶️ Ranking All Sega Genesis Baseball Games – The Full 16-Bit Lineup! by Square Pegs and Triple Play 97 Baseball!- Big Hit or Strikeout?? - PS1 Deep Dive #15 by BIOSChemist
🎵▶️ It's gonna take a lot to breakdown this song for you by David Bennett
Neil’s Substack Throwback of the Week:
Music to Play Us Out
“McDukey Blues” by Christian McBride and George Duke
P.S. If you haven’t already, I’d really appreciate it if you took a minute to fill out this quick reader survey. It helps me make the Substack better for you.
Filed under: Weekly Round-up
Thanks for the shout out Neil. Your versatility is impressive!
Thanks for the shout out!