Sitemap - 2026 - Neil’s Substack
⚾ 2026 MLB Elo Power Ratings, Playoff Odds & Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rankings 📈
🏀 2026 WNBA Elo Team Power Rankings and Player Rankings 📈
🏀 2025-26 NBA Elo Forecast and Player Ratings 📈
The Week That Was (May 25-29, 2026)
🏒 2025-26 NHL Team Elo Power Rankings & Goals Above Replacement Player Ratings 📉
Claude Lemieux Was a Good Player Who Turned Great For the Playoffs
Cam Schlittler Gives the Yankees Their Rarest Kind of Star: a Homegrown Ace
Baseball's 2026 Standings Are Acting Like 2025 Never Happened
The Avalanche Are About to Become the NHL’s Most Stunning Sweep Victim Since, Well, the Last One
🏁 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Driver Rankings 🚗
Why Bobby Witt Jr. Is Baseball's New Power-Speed Prototype
The Week That Was (May 18-22, 2026)
The End of White Jerseys at Home Goes Beyond Nike and the NBA
This Year's NHL Final Four Is a Tale of Two Mismatches
The National League Suddenly Owns Interleague Play
Final fours and fourth choices
The Spurs Are Still the Thunder's Biggest Problem
The Week That Was (May 11-15, 2026)
Carlos Delgado Wasn't a Hall of Famer — But He Looked Like One
The PGA Championship Is Golf's Democratic Major. It Just Doesn't Know It.
It's True: LeBron's Lakers Stint Was Indeed a Success
The Canadiens Are Canada's Last Hope
Bobby Cox Ran a Dynasty Greater Than Its Ring Count
The Week That Was (May 4-8, 2026)
Who Won the 2026 WNBA Offseason?
Maybe The New-Manager Bounce Is Real After All
The Minnesota Wild Took Down a Colorado Avalanche Dynasty Once Before
All Signs Point to the Knicks — Which Is the Problem
The Week That Was (April 27-May 1, 2026)
What to Watch For at the 2026 Kentucky Derby
The Reds Are Running Baseball's Ultimate Stars-and-Scrubs Experiment
When Dale Earnhardt Jr. Stepped Out of His Dad's Shadow in Texas
Rob Thomson Was the Phillies' Fixer — Until He Became Their Next Fix
Minnesota and Dallas Are Still Settling Their Hockey Divorce
The Nuggets Are Running Out of Time With Nikola Jokić
The Red Sox Cycle Comes for Alex Cora
The Week That Was (April 20-24, 2026)
The NL East Is Reverting to Historical Form
After Fernando Mendoza, Then What?
The Pistons Dominated One NBA. Now They Have to Survive the Other.
Don't Tell Buffalo and Montreal the NHL Playoffs Aren't Any Place For Young Teams
Garret Anderson Was the Angels' Constant
The Week That Was (April 13-17, 2026)
We Should Appreciate the Mike Trout Renaissance While We Can
Quarterback Drafts Are in Their "Feast or Famine" Era
Breaking barriers, breaking records
A Defense of the NBA Play-In Tournament
Rory Held Off the Old Ghosts on Sunday at Augusta
The Week That Was (April 6-10, 2026)
Goaltending Usually Drives the NHL Standings. Not This Year.
Green jackets and good jackets
Is Augusta National No Longer a Bomber's Paradise?
NASCAR Live: Neil Paine joins to preview Bristol
Home Again at The Trop, the Rays Are Back Where They Win
🏀2026 NCAA Tournament Forecast 📊
Michigan Was Too Much For UConn — and Everyone Else
The dominators and the dynasty
Michigan's Final Championship Task: To Out-UConn UConn
The Week That Was (March 30-April 3, 2026)
How MLB's Big Extension Bets Are Changing
Most of the NHL Playoff Bracket is Settled (Except For All the Parts That Aren't)
The Phillies' Win-Now Balancing Act Is Already Being Tested
Vegas' Coaching Change Was Certainly Late — But Was It Also Too Little, or Just Right?
This Final Four Has 3 Great Teams Stuck in Long Title Droughts — and 1 Good Team Who's Not
The Week That Was (March 23-27, 2026)
Overreactions, and regular reactions
Which Kentucky Derby Prep Races Best Predict the Triple Crown?
Live MLB Opening Day Neil-Cast!
Live MLB Opening Day Neil-Cast!
Rookie fights and rough nights
Ranking the Sweet 16 Games by Their "Butterfly Effect" Value
How Many Wins Will Get You Into the 2026 MLB Playoffs?
Who Has the Most to Prove This MLB Season?
No Glass Slippers Allowed at This Sweet 16 Party
The Week That Was (March 16-20, 2026)
Arkansas Is Rising. Duke Might Be Vulnerable.
The NCAA Tournament's Selection Committee is Surrendering to the Machines
The WBC Is Over. Soon, the Real Baseball Season Can Begin.
Forget the Usual 11-6 and 12-5 Upsets. Bank on Illinois and the Dangerous Middle Seeds.
This Year's Bracket Belongs to the Powerhouses
The Week That Was (March 9-13, 2026)
Bam Adebayo's 83-Point Game Lacked Mythology More Than Legitimacy
Geno Smith Had to Leave the Jets to Get Good. Can He Rewrite the Story Now?
The Women's Basketball Field Keeps Getting Better. So Does UConn.
The 2026 QB Market is Full of Chaos Agents
The Sabres' Playoff Drought Lasted Generations — But It's Almost Over
The Week That Was (March 2-6, 2026)
The tires, they are a-changin’
Lou Holtz Was College Football's Original Turnaround Artist
Why F1's 2026 Title Odds Look Nothing Like 2025's
Who Needs to Make a Move at the NHL Trade Deadline?
March Madness, (sort of) underway
Japan Is the WBC Standard — So Why Is the U.S. Favored?
Will the Raiders Ruin Fernando Mendoza?
The Week That Was (February 23-27, 2026)
Miami of Ohio Is Undefeated, Unprecedented... and Still Uncertain
The Strike Zone We (Think We) Want
My 🔥Burning Questions🔥 for the Stretch Run of the 2025-26 NHL Season
The Celtics Are Thriving Without Jayson Tatum. That’s Why His Return Could Get Complicated.
Team USA Finally Got Its Golden Breakthrough Against Canada
The Week That Was (February 16-20, 2026)
It Took Alysa Liu's Improbable Comeback to Put U.S. Women’s Figure Skating Back on Top
The U.S. Women Finally Have Their Olympic Curling Moment
Dale Earnhardt Owned the NASCAR Spotlight — and Still Does
The NBA Knows How to End Tanking — But It May Not Want To
Ilia Malinin and the Curse of the American Olympic Coronation
The Week That Was (February 9-13, 2026)
The North Dakota State FBS Experiment is Finally Here
Spring (training) is in the air
🏅 Who's Winning The 2026 Olympic Medal Race — And Who's Beating History?
Scoreboard Newsletter Archives
The NBA Trade Deadline Was Deeply Weird
The Seahawks' Next (and Harder) Task: Avoid Being a One-Off
📈2025 NFL Power Ratings and Projections🏈
Seattle’s "Dark Side" Defense Joined the Legion of Boom in Super Bowl Lore
The Week That Was (February 2-6, 2026)
🏈🎙️ Football Bytes: Super Bowl Prop-Fest '26
Patriots-Seahawks Could Have Been St. Louis vs. Anaheim
Which Countries Define the Winter Olympics?
Will the NHL Pick Up Where It Left Off After the Olympics?
Who Would Get the Most Out of a Trade-Deadline Upgrade?
The Paradox of Sports Video Gaming
The Seahawks Are Huge Super Bowl Favorites (*by current-day standards)
The Week That Was (January 26-30, 2026)
UConn Built Its Dynasty in Tennessee's Shadow. Now the Tables Are Turned.
A pair of Final Fours Down Under
The Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo Era Is Ending Not With a Bang, But a Whimper
How the Patriots and Seahawks Got Back To the Super Bowl
It’s the Patriots and Seahawks (again)
What to Watch for in Super Bowl LX
Can Arizona Finally Act Like the Best Team in the Country?
The Week That Was (January 19-23, 2026)
The Maple Leafs Can’t Escape the Bubble
🏈🎙️ Football Bytes: The Emergency Backup QB Has Entered the Chat
What Carlos Beltrán — and Especially Andruw Jones — Say About the Hall of Fame's Evolving Standards
The NFL's Championship Round is a Tale of Four Very Different Quarterbacks
Where Does Indiana Rank Among All-Time Champions?
What We Learned From the NFL's Divisional Round
The Week That Was (January 12-16, 2026)
Who Will Advance In the AFC Playoffs This Weekend? Flip a Coin — Literally.
🏈🎙️ Football Bytes: Who's the Chaos Quarterback Now?
College Hoops Is a Weird Scramble of Banners and Baggage This Season
Mike Tomlin Was the NFL's Ultimate Floor-Raiser
What We Learned From the NFL's Wild Card Round
College Football's Expanded Playoff Works. Its Rhythm Doesn't.
A wild (card) weekend in football
The Week That Was (January 5-9, 2026)
The Bills and Jaguars Are Too Good to Exit the Playoffs This Early
🏈🎙️ Football Bytes: We're Talking About Playoffs
After Decades of the Same Dudes, the Super Bowl Is Due for a New QB (or Two)
What Would a Championship Version of Trae Young Look Like?
Beyond the Streak: What — and Whom — is Standing Between the Sabres and the End of Their Drought?
The Week That Was (December 29, 2025-January 2, 2026)