SimonOnSports

Which ACC schools are leading the way in NFL player development... The ACC leader in NFL player development should surprise no one. Miami leads the way by a large margin. The teams of the early 2000s were littered with NFL talent. The surprising thing to some would be where Virginia Tech sits. The Hokies have less alumni in the NFL than Maryland, Georgia Tech, Maryland, and Virginia (tied with BC). The position distribution which with the ACC provides the NFL Penn State may be called Linebacker U, but its the ACC that churns out Linebacker after Linebacker. The ACC leads the way as the conference with the most Linebackers in the NFL and it isn't that close. The ACC has provided the NFL 50 linebackers. The Big Ten is second with 41. Team by Team NFL Distribution... Oddly enough the AFC and NFC West have the least amount of ACC players on their rosters. West Coast bias? Perhaps the reason their divisions suck? School by School, Position by Position... Here's ...

The below chart shows the correlation between NFL Yardage production and a teams win percentage. The X axis (left/right) shows how many yards above or below the league average a team gives up on defense. The Y axis (top/bottom) shows how many yards above or below the league average a team gains on offense. The size of the circle equates to the teams win percentage. So a black dot is someone who is 0-5 while a large circle is 4-1 or 3-1. So what is this telling you? First it's telling you that clearly moving the ball isn't everything. The San Diego Chargers sit on their own island when it comes to yardage. The Chargers rank 2nd in the NFL in defensive yards per game and 1st in the NFL, by a wide margin, in offensive yards per game, yet, even with these stats, the Chargers are just 2-3. Meanwhile teams like New England and Tampa Bay are winning in spite of their yardage totals. The Pats are being outgained by an average of 40 yards per game. The Bucs are currently b...

Today in fun charts we look at David Wrights seasonal progression of Hits and Strikeouts. Good ole David is currently leading Major League Baseball in Strikeouts so why not take a look at the rapid pace with which it grows and how it's easily eclipsed his hit total. David has had more strikeouts than hits ever since mid April. Since mid-April he has gone from a 0 balance to a grand total of 18 more strikeouts than hits. When you strike out in over 38% of your at bats it makes it a little bit difficult to hit anywhere near .300 and as a result Wright is currently having far an away his worst season for batting average (his previous worse was .293 in his rookie year, he's currently hitting .265). But if he's on your fantasy team there is a consolation prize, Wright already has 8 homers and 8 steals which puts him on pace for a 30/30 season.

Many people do walks for charity, I'm thinking maybe I'll donate 25 bucks to whatever I can deem as Nick Johnson's favorite charity for each mile he "Walks" this season. Currently through 1+ months of the season Nick Johnson has walked 22 times and at a rate of 90 feet per walk he's reached the equivalent of 0.375 miles. Nicky J needs no bat!

And just for fun lets look at where Robinson Cano will end up if he managed to keep up the pace he currently is on... Cano would finish with 243 hits, 60 HRs, 155 Runs, 141 RBI, and 13 steals. Quite obviously he needs to pick up his speed game because he's slacking.

Thanks to NBA.com's new and nifty +/- stat tracking site , we can now get Brian Scalabrine's season +/- without adding it up ourselves. Quite obviously Scalabrine has the lowest +/- of anyone on the roster, coming in at -27 through 33 games played. GO SCALS!

Want a simple look at why the Colts and the Saints are in the Super Bowl and why others are on the golf course? Well here it is, a simple look at each playoff games winner and loser and how many turnovers and missed field goals happened for each respective team. In the ten games only the Jets vs. Colts did the teams have an equal number of turnovers but in that game the Jets threw in two missed field goals. In every other game the team with more turnovers was defeated. Then you throw in all the missed field goals from the losers and you have a sure fire recipe for failure. Meanwhile the Colts and Saints have a combined 3 turnovers and zero missed field goals in 4 games. This is why they are in the Super Bowl and the Vikings, Jets, etc. are headed to South Florida for the Pro Bowl.

Only 4 teams remain in the chase for the Lombardi trophy. let us see how their 4 yardage rankings stack up against each other. New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts For a team that was 14-0 the Colts do not look that impressive in the NFL Yardage Rankings. They have the leagues worst rush offense. Their defense is below average in the rush game and about average against the passing attack. The team is built on Peyton Manning and their 2nd in the league passing attack. The Jets on the other hand should have no problem containing the run and little problem rushing the ball themselves. The issue comes with can their nearly bottom passing attack provide more offense than it did last week (100 yards isn't going to cut in two weeks in a row) and can their league best passing defense combat the Colts passing attack? Last weekend against the Chargers the Jets gave up a decent chunk of yardage. They will need to be better if they are to stay in this game and they will need to prote...

The below chart plots a teams Wins-Losses and correlates it to their turnover margin. You'll notice pretty quickly that a positive turnover margin is pretty essential for the success of an NFL team. Of the 12 teams that made the playoffs only the Cardinals had a negative turnover margin. The Bengals were dead even on turnover margin and also made the playoffs. The Chiefs and the Bills were the two teams that finished with a positive turnover margin and were still absolutely dreadful.

Now that 4 teams have been swiftly eliminated from the playoffs we can take a look at which conference is holding up as the #1. [Picture Taken Back When Braylon Edwards had hands] Conference Leaders The SEC took the biggest hit with the Bengals loss as they were a major contributor to the SEC's original playoff lead . The Big Ten currently holds a commanding lead of 8 over the ACC. 1. Big Ten - 72 2. ACC - 64 3. Big 12 - 60 4. SEC - 58 5. Pac 10 - 44 6. Big East 28 7. Mountain West - 26 8. MAC - 16 Non-FBS - 85 Team Leaders The Wolverines lead for the second time in a row even though they took a big hit from 20 down to 12. They are followed by LSU and Ohio State with 11 each and then a slew of squads with 10 each the most surprising being the Fighting Illini. 1. Michigan - 12 2. LSU, Ohio State - 11 3. FSU, Miami, USC, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Illinois - 10 Check out the spreadsheet with every conference broken down after the jump...

This will be the precursor to another "Which Conference Dominates the Playoffs" post. Here's a spreadsheet with all the players in the playoffs listed by the college they played for in the conference the school plays in.

Here's a quick chart which shows all of the NFL teams and where they rank both offensively and defensively in yardage totals in the NFL. The closer you get to point (1,1) the better and the closer you get to point (32,32) the worse. We've broken the chart into four quadrants. Quadrant A is where you want to be. It means you're in the top half both offensively and defensively. Quadrant B means you're in the top half defensively but bottom half offensively. Quadrant C means you're top half offense bottom half defense and Quadrant D means you suck. Of the 9 teams within Quadrant A only the Giants sit outside of the playoffs right now. The teams in Quadrant D are all essentially screwed except for perhaps the Jaguars. The Saints, Colts and to an extent the Cardinals give up a lot of yardage but more than make it up offensively. A cursory look at the chart shows that the Steelers and the Giants are the two biggest underachievers thus far this season with the Je...

After Monday's post looking at the results of Team Defensive leaders, I decided it was time to take a look at the historic results of the team rushing leaders, another stat the jets currently lead. (5 = SB win, 4=SB loss, 3=Conf. Loss, 2=Div. Loss, 1 = Wildcard Loss, 0 = No Playoff) The results are not as promising as the Defensive Results . In the 80s the rushing teams all had a solid run of success. The Bears led the NFL for much of the earlier part of the decade and won a Superbowl with the combo of best rushing attack and best defense. The 90s also had a decent amount of success with the Bills making two Superbowls and the majority of the others at least making the divisional round. Unfortunately for the Jets, the 2000s have been a drastically different story. Four teams in the 00s have led the NFL in rushing and failed to make the playoffs. No team in the 00s has led the league in rushing and made the Superbowl. Three of the past four rushing leaders have failed...

After this weekends series of games the New York Jets currently have the #1 Ranked Defense in the NFL for both points allowed and yardage allowed . So out of curiosity I decided to look back in time and see how the NFL Defensive leaders have fared in seasons past. Yardage Allowed When you look through the NFL Yardage allowed leaders you need to go back 11 years to find a team that did not make the playoffs and that team was quarterbacked by Ryan Leaf. The remainder of the teams have all made the playoffs with ranging results from two Super Bowl victories to several Wildcard round defeats.

Now that the month of November is over I thought it would be a good time to revisit the win total chart of the New York Franchises that I did a few weeks back . The Yankees finished with more wins in November than the Nets, Jets and Giants and just one less than the Knicks. The Rangers however managed to get to 5 wins more than doubling the Yankees total. Unfortunately for the Rangers they played many many more games in November than did the Yanks.

My buddy Tony was venting about how the Patriots currently have no pass rush and how the NFL Super Bowl winners recently seem like teams entirely built around flattening the quarterback. He then stated he would love to see how sack totals correlated to a Super Bowl Championship. I obliged and grabbed the totals and rank for each of the Super Bowl victors during my lifetime. What you'll notice is that with the exception of the Colts in 2006, when Dwight Freeney had his worst season, 6 of the past 7 Super Bowl Champions have been ranked in the top 6 in the NFL in total Sacks. It's not a terribly divergence from the past as 7 of the previous 19 Super Bowl winners also ranked in the top 6, but it is becoming more of a year after year trend. Only two of the past 26 Super Bowl Champs have led the league in sacks, the 2008 Steelers and the 1999 Rams. The average Super Bowl Champ has 44 sacks. The highest total is unsurpisingly the 86 Bears with 64, though they somehow ranked ...

The chart shows a tracking through November of the total wins by each New York team. The Yankees won on November 1st so on that date they are at 1. They then won on November 4th so on that date they are at 2. They have not played a game since so they have stayed at 2. What you will notice on the chart is that none of the major New York Teams (Knicks, Nets, Jets, Giants, Rangers, Yankees) have won more than 3 games in the month of November. The Yankees who shouldn't really be playing in November have picked up more wins this month than the Nets, Jets and Giants combined. The chart is a bit tough to see at this size but if you click on it to enlarge you should be able to find humor.

Here is a quick chart which shows the progression from week to week on who is garnering all of the #1 votes. The only team to garner a #1 vote outside of Texas, Bama and Florida was USC in week 2.

Here's a simple chart surrounding the ascensions up the AP poll for Cincy who started unranked, Boise St. who started #14 and TCU who started at #17. They now are ranked 4, 5 and 6 respectively.

I think sometimes I make charts to piss myself off. The below chart tracks the week by week yardage totals for the NFL's top 5 QBs. Three of these 5 QBs have played the Jets (Schaub, Brees and Brady). Of these QBs all but Brady had their lowest output of the season against the Jets, and Brady had just 1 yard more than his worst season output which came at Denver. All in all of the 5 worst yardage performances by the top 5 NFL QBs, 3 of them have come against the Jets, but they're still just 4-5.