The Week That Was (July 6-10, 2026)
A roundup of what I wrote, read, watched, etc. over the past week.
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.
📝 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.
📌⚽ 2026 World Cup Odds Tracker 📈 - Check out this tracker that aggregates the Polymarket World Cup futures for each team, normalizing them to adjust for market fluctuations and ensure the probabilities correctly total 100 percent for the champion.
⚽ More Talent — and One Big FIFA Reversal — Still Bought the USMNT the Same Old Result - Despite record-high excitement as the World Cup co-host — and some blatant rule-bending that let Flo Balogun play in spite of his (undeserved) red card the game prior — the U.S.’s run unraveled at the same exact stage of the tournament as it always does.
⚽ World Cup Soccer Is a Lot Less Random Than You Think - It might be tempting to see soccer’s chaotic nature and abundance of one-score games, and assume randomness rules. Not so fast! Soccer is actually far more deterministic than just about any other sport.
⚽ The World Cup’s Party-Crashers Make Their Last Stand - Ahead of the World Cup quarterfinals, I wrote about this year’s potential for the greatest (on-paper) Final Four in tournament history… and what might stand in its way.
🥊 How Conor McGregor has left his mark on UFC, in six charts - Ahead of McGregor’s first UFC fight in 5 years, ESPN asked me to dig into the paradox of his career — as the sport’s biggest star, despite having a sparse resume relative to other champions.
⚾ The Worst Players in Baseball Might Be Pretty Good (Or They Used to Be, At Least) - Speaking of paradoxes, if you scan the list of baseball’s least valuable players in this (or any other) season, you find a surprising number of big names. Turns out, there’s a reason for that.
⚾ The Past Month Has Broken the 2026 MLB Season - Does this MLB season feel especially scrambled? It did to me — and one reason why is that the past month, moreso than almost any other historical season, had zero in common with the rest of the season that preceded it.
🏁 Blaney aside, Team Penske is in unfamiliar spot: On Chase bubble - At NASCAR, I dug into the uncommon struggles of perennial playoff Penske drivers Joey Logano and Austin Cindric this season — and why this week at Atlanta is oddly make-or-break for their Chase chances.
🏁🎙️ Podracing: Attack of the Killer B’s - In this week’s Podracing, Tyler Lauletta and I broke down an entertaining Chicagoland return swarming with our favorite “Killer B” drivers (Briscoe, Bell, Byron, Bubba, Bowman, Blaney… you get the idea). Then we talked In-Season Challenge, Penske problems, and what to expect this week in Atlanta:
🚨 Special announcement: Tyler was unfortunately among the recent Sports Illustrated layoffs, so he is a free agent if you want somebody to do a great job blogging and writing newsletters for you!!
⚽ Wharton Moneyball: Rethinking How We Measure Soccer Performance - I was in attendance and made a brief appearance on this live-in-the-classroom show at Penn, because I was speaking with students for my friend Prof. Adi Wyner’s class… But mainly listen for the research done by the brilliant Jonathan “J.P.” Pipping on how to improve Expected Goals:
📊 Chart(s) of the week:
Here were my favorite items of the week from Scoreboard, my daily newsletter for Sherwood News…
🏀 On whose WNBA All-Star votes correlate best with the data…
🎾 On Novak Djokovic’s marathon victory over Felix Auger-Aliassime…
⚾ On the top MLB draft prospects’ odds of going among the Top 5…
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👀 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 or endorse what’s linked here… but that’s also sort of the point.
⚽ What's Next for the USMNT? A golden generation's early exit, and the four-year sprint to 2030 by Austin Cornilles
⚽ Who Gets to Own the World Cup? Richard Nixon, red cards, and the oldest trick in the political playbook. by Michael Weinreb
⚽ Why Not US? - Because US Wasn't Good Enough. by Ralph Strangis
⚽ So, Americans Really Like Betting On The World Cup by Dustin Gouker
⚽ The Trump Balogun Controversy Exposed Two Different Sports Cultures by Ethan Strauss
🎾 Coco Gauff and What Could Have Been and At Wimbledon, Finding That Missing Centre Piece by Ben Rothenberg
⚾ Pitchers who got better after the Year of the Pitcher by ritmica
⚾ The Biggest Questions for the Second Half of the Season in the National League by Jett Hatch
⚾ Case #001: Ryan Braun / A brand new series, The Docket presents a re-examination of the Ryan Braun saga by Ben
⚾ No Turning the Paige: Reflecting the day after Satchel Paige’s 120th birthday by Jeff Kallman
⚾ Death by BABIP: Is the end near for Manny Machado? by Sean
⚾ Did you know about MLB's dinger quota? by Bradford William Davis
🏀 We Asked Award-Winning Screenwriters to Script LeBron’s Last Act by Jacob Feldman
🏀 My favorite (and least favorite) moves from a wild week by Mike Shearer
🏈 Predicting the 2026 NFL Season's Fastest Offenses by Ray Carpenter
🏈 NFL Front Families: Run-Fit Efficiency Guide by Cody Alexander
🏈 Missed Connections / Four power conferences and the shrinking cross-conference schedule. by Chris Gallo
🏈 # HENDO 4 HEISMAN 2026 by VP
🏁 Plausible Deniability: A few words left unuttered over the radio may have spared Shane van Gisbergen and Zane Smith from penalties by Aaron Bearden
🏁 Norris Says McLaren Must Improve After Silverstone by Formula Reports
🌍 The Week in International Sport: The women's T20I World Cup, India's overseas record and Mario Hezonja by Ben Wylie
▶️ Old YouTube Game(s) of the Week
Novak Djokovic vs Rafael Nadal | All the Winners from their Wimbledon 2018 Semi-Final
🎵 Music to Play Us Out
Amber Mark - “Mixer”
Filed under: Weekly Round-up
I really enjoy these weekly round ups that you do, Neil. And of course, always appreciate when an article of mine can be featured! Cheers.