Data scientist Kevin Cole put out his adjusted quarterback rankings yesterday on his substack. This is numbers driven, and not a ranking we'd see in the mainstream of sports analysis, where those folks seem to focus on prime time records or whatnot.
What's striking about this list is that quite frankly, in my view anyway, no one knows anything in this sport called football.
Before the season, or even in week three or four, if someone told you in three months:
- C.J. Stroud would be ranked below Bo Nix and Maye
- Daniel Jones would be ranked above Dak Prescott (who just signed a $60M/y deal), and be waived and picked up by the Vikings, not to be their starter but to be a practice squad player
- Patrick Mahomes doesn't seem to throw the ball past the sticks and is near tied with Russell Wilson, who was left for dead six months ago.
- Kirko Chains would be tied with Aaron Rodgers as achillies-brothers-in-arms and benched after being NFC Player of the week twice, and setting a franchise yardage record.
- Justin Herbert would be in an EPA battle with a benched Jameis Winston
- And sure fire, can't miss, generational talent #1 consensus pick Caleb Williams would be below bench warmer Bryce Young battling for David Carr's all-time sack record .....
Well, I'm pretty sure you'd think the person telling you this has six heads.
While NBA ratings tank and some sports are in a real bind for ratings, there's the NFL. It's more popular than it has ever been, and it has nothing to do with Taylor Swift (or that gal Josh Allen is going out with, who the NFL seems to think is the AFC East version of Taylor Swift).
I think the juggernaut we see with this league is that it's a reality show where you have no idea what the outcome may be. You have to watch the season unfold to see what's what, and what's what can be completely unexpected and confusing.
This should be nothing new to us in horse racing. We're not driving eyeballs (as much as the ABR and Stronach side of the sport wishes it so), but variance and unpredictability rules the roost when it comes to our betting dollars.
The wildness of the Derby drives money. The Breeders Cup, with horses coming from all over the world, opens our wallets. Big stakes days, especially on the turf with large fields and different pace scenarios makes us happy.
Harness racing, along with a lot of short field dirt racing, is plagued with the opposite. So Cal racing with 5 horse stakes race fields with three Baffert's certainly doesn't get the blood boiling. And neither does a lot of day to day racing in this sport.
As human beings I believe we're eminently interested in the unknown. We binge watch shows that are unpredictable. We read whodunnits because we don't know who did it. We watch sports like the NFL because Kevin Cole's adjusted EPA rankings can look like nothing we thought they'd look three months ago.
Unfortunately in horse racing we know whodunnit too often and we aren't surprised nearly enough. It makes it a harder and harder game to play. I believe unlocking the predictability door should be paramount for every race office or alphabet from sea to sea.
Have a nice Thursday everyone.