Won't Be Outsiders Forever

Great Sports Illustrated profile by Albert Chen of some of the brightest stats minds (and good guys) in the NFL. Check it out:

In recent years NFL teams started to get smarter. M.B.A. graduates from elite universities began infiltrating football front offices as they had baseball's in the mid-2000s, but the brain power was devoted to salary-cap management and personnel decisions. There was one area in which teams remained stuck in flat-earth thinking: game strategy.Burke believed this would change—that in an information age in which advanced stats had the power to predict a presidential election to the decimal point, new math would be impossible for the Football Men to ignore. He believed the revolution would reach the field, that the game was "reaching a tipping point where one coach would buy into the analytics approach. And if that coach were successful, there would be an avalanche."

Vick Describes Transformation in Sports Illustrated Cover Story

In the cover story, Vick recounted to writer S.L. Price how his mother wanted to “disown” him after the shooting at his 30th birthday party over the summer. According to Vick, she said, “You went to prison for 19 months, and you come out and you still ain’t listening.”

“Right then and there,” Vick said, “I told myself, I am changing my life. I’m going to do everything they ask me to do. I’m getting myself away from this madness.” Why this revelation didn’t occur over a year after he left prison and was reinstated into the NFL is unclear.

Additionally, Vick described that he was “ashamed” to call NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and face the consequences for this actions. He didn’t talk to Goodell for three weeks after the incident…

False: The McNabb Deal Can Be Judged in 2010

I generally like Don Banks and the other NFL guys at SI, but this is just wrong:

It’s going to be fairly easy to determine the success or failure of the move because the standings will tell us. If the Redskins make the playoffs and the Eagles don’t, it’s a big swing-and-miss for Reid and revenge for McNabb. If the Eagles make the postseason with Kevin Kolb and the Redskins don’t with McNabb, Reid gets the check mark and a sense of satisfaction.

Yes, this trade, which affects the short and long-term futures of two franchise quarterbacks, two well-regarded coaches, and two rival franchises is incredibly simple. If the Redskins make the playoffs, they win. If the Eagles make it, they win. So easy.

It’s not like there could be many years of ramifications based on the play of each quarterback. And of course the two high draft picks the Eagles received in the trade don’t factor into any long-term equation.

Everyone’s going to be closely watching the Eagles and Redskins this year, and this probably won’t be the first time a writer makes this case. In fact, I would bet good money that if Mike Shanahan and Donovan come into town the first week of October and win, local and national guys alike will go crazy for that story. It could in fact begin even earlier than that, if Kolb starts out slow or McNabb looks great from the start.

Enough. There’s plenty to discuss and debate about this deal for years to come. No reason to rush to judgement, even after a full season. Let’s just wait and see.