📝 The Week That Was (October 14-18, 2024)

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

In this space on Saturdays Sunday (this week), 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

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.

• 🏀 2024-25 NBA Forecast - This was a bit of a soft launch, but I rebooted the same NBA forecast system I used last season, which combines separate rolling power ratings for the regular season and playoffs with implied probabilities from the Vegas odds to create predictions for the season.

• 🏁 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Odds: Larson and the Lot - Updating my NASCAR playoff forecast (which simulates the rest of the season 10,000 times), I dug into the odds for the Round of 8 and looked at which drivers are under the most pressure — and when.

• 🏈 Football Bytes: The Cowboys Get Mauled by Lions - This week’s NFL column looked at whether Dallas’ loss to Detroit was the worst loss in franchise history, and examined which historical rookie QBs improved in-season at the same rate as Caleb Williams.

• ⚾ Baseball Bytes: Bronx Bombshell - With the Yankees closing in on the World Series at the time, I compared their playoff performance to previous pinstriped Fall Classic entries since the ‘90s. Then I pulled out an interesting AL-versus-NL stat that will be pertinent next week.

• 🏀 Pod of Fame: Deron Williams - I joined my friend

  Jim Miloch
  to chat about the Springfield bona fides of the former Jazz and Nets (and Mavs and Cavs) point guard, who was once on the same level as Chris Paul in the eyes of NBA fans.

• ⚾ Baseball Bytes: What I’ve Got My Eye On in the League Championship Series - My LCS preview broke down the matchups in each league, in addition to looking at the championship archetypes of the remaining teams. And I personally really thought this MLB “Final Four” logo was cool.

Some interesting things I read/watched this week

At the request of reader Ori, I’m going to be organizing these by sport from now on, with miscellaneous items at the bottom.

• 🏈 Who Killed College Football? Suspect Number 2: Conferences by

  Ryan Nanni
  and
  Steven Godfrey

• 🏈 When Hail Marys Aren't Enough: The Heartbreak of Scoring Miracles in Defeat by

  Peter Merrill

• 🏈 Trade-A-Palooza's Biggest Winners, and Losers After Davante Adams, Amari Cooper Blockbusters by

  Matt Lombardo

• 🏈 Why Does the Associated Press Hate Damar Hamlin? and Lions, Vikings, Ravens, Puppies, Kittens, Babies and Vibes by

  Mike Tanier

• 🏈 Conference shapes by

  Bless your chart

• 🏈 Josh McCown and the Biggest NFL Snub in Recent Memory and His Year: Chad Pennington 2002 by

  Robbie Marriage

• ⚾ Top 26 Most World Series Home Runs in MLB History by

  Matt Musico

• ⚾ Clearing up doubts // The Dodgers are ahead in the NLCS—Walker Buehler is back in charge. by

  Yirsandy Rodríguez

• ⚾ Why I've Been MIA by

  Andrew Steele

• 🏀 2024-25 Eastern Conference and Western Conference Preview Haikus by

  Mike Shearer

• 🏀 Ranking Every Head Coach in the NBA by

  Jack Zucker
  and
  Jacob Sutton

• 🏀 The NBA's Going Back to China by

  Michael Hendricks

• 🏀 Over and Underachievers by

  Justin Kubatko

• 🏒 PHYLLIS HOCKIN (a.k.a. 99's mom & Walter's missus) and MAX DOMI & FATHER / Fit to be untied by

  Gare Joyce

• 🏁 The Tale of Mike Brown vs Grant Langston by

  Robbie Marriage
  (Note: In case you can’t tell, I’ve become a big fan of Robbie’s historical deep dives. Everyone should check them out!)

• 🌴 The history and evolution of the “Beat LA” chant by

  Sue Shawn Says

• 🌆 Ranking The Country's 25 Best (And Worst) Sports Cities by

  Joe Pompliano
  and
  Tom Haberstroh

• 📚 Oh, you want weird books? I've got WEIRD books by Ana Wallace Johnson (Note: Ana is a YouTuber the algorithm newly blessed me with, and she is very fun and funny.)

• 🃏 The Wide World of Cardboard - Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game - Ep. 1: Nick vs. Anderson by Found Footage Fest

• 🎞️ Home Movies: The Spirit of Creation by EmpLemon

Old YouTube game of the week

2001 Steel City Motocross RD 12

Music to play us out

“Be mine!” by Maaya Sakamoto

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Filed under: Weekly Round-up

1. I’m at neil[dot]paine[at]gmail[dot]com.