We'll always have the URL.

I'm sure referees are often influenced by the crowd, but I'd also bet the effect is a lot more subtle than this article implies. We're probably talking a handful of calls over the course of a season—maybe enough to swing a game or two, depending on when they happen, but there's no way to separate the…

From the NFL Rulebook, Rule 8-5-3: "Acts that are permissible by a player include . . . (c) Contact that would normally be considered pass interference, but the pass is clearly uncatchable by the involved players . . ." (emphasis added)

I've always taken "uncatchable" to mean "impossible to catch due to the physical distance between the player and the ball" (e.g. the ball is way over his head, or several yards out of bounds), which isn't the same thing as "impossible to catch due to the fact that there's a defensive player in the way." Because that's…

The idea that perfect seasons trump all is precisely why BCS contenders play impossibly weak competition for several weeks every season

This is what I've been ranting about for years. If you're a fan of one of the perennial contenders, you get to watch, like, five competitive games a year. And if your team blows two of…

Wow, you're right, that is damn near impossible to find. I tried way too hard (and tolerated an unspeakable amount of Chris Berman puns), and this is the best I could do:

The problem is that it really, really seems like most coaches don't even put that much thought into in-game decisions. (It's certainly the case that most announcers don't, which I'm sure fuels the perception that coaches don't either.)

If I thought a coach's decision to kick an extra point came down to, "well, the…

Yeah, I'm all in favor of fun, but there really isn't a place for this sort of thing in such an inherently violent sport. Especially given the consequences for a defensive player who mis-diagnoses a fake and levels someone at the wrong time (definite penalty, possible ejection/suspension/etc.).

It is a fairly large field (when I was there they played intramural flag football on it, among other things—with enough room for several games at a time), and it's packed on game days, but it looks like the plane crashed in an area near one of the corners where there's an auditorium and some access roads and not a…

I vaguely remember somebody semi-reputable (Sport Science?) testing this and finding that diving <i>could</i> be slightly faster, depending on your diving technique. Still probably better to stay on your feet, since you're not likely to gain more than a few hundredths of a second and even the best divers won't have…

No auto-play for me.

We should have the best soccer players - and that's not "'Mericuh FUCK YEAH"-Speak - but we don't because our most athletic individuals don't play soccer.

The fundamental issue here is that in most parts of the US cable providers have local monopolies, because when cable was first becoming a thing all the companies scrambled to make deals with local governments for exclusive rights to build and license the infrastructure.

So, one provider per city = no competition = no…

Oh, about 120 pounds.

Maybe this issue has already been raised and dismissed, but I've been meaning to gripe about it for a while. On the Deadspin main page, the headline for this article looks like this:

NHL Will Announce Most Awards Friday Evening, Does Not Understand Ho...

The NHL doesn't understand what? Holographs? Holistic medicine? I…

I'd like to see them do away with the draft altogether. What are the arguments against that? The NFL already has a salary cap, so it's not like a handful of rich teams can overpay for all the best players. And it could be regulated (say, each team can only spend a certain amount of money on incoming rookies, or…

...it was revealed that Joe Flacco had seriously considered running onto the field

Yes, and this is why the NFL's three-year rule bothers me substantially more than the NBA's one-year rule. They're both terrible, but at least basketball players have options. Football players have the choice of either playing in college or not playing at all (the CFL and other pro leagues refuse to sign players too…

I don't think I've heard of the NBA All-Star Game story, but Dion Rich is the guy who snuck into a ton of things, including dozens of Super Bowls.