Who owns the rooftop seating near Wrigley Field?

Dear Sports Fan,

Who owns the rooftop seating near Wrigley Field? My partner and I were watching the playoffs last night and the television cameras were focusing on some bleachers set up on a building across the street from the stadium. We wondered if that was officially part of the stadium or not.

Thanks,
Matthew

Dear Matthew,

Those seats are cool, aren’t they? Wrigley Field is one of Major League Baseball’s last two great old historic baseball stadiums. It was built in 1914 for a baseball team called the (I kid you not) Chicago Whales, but the present tenants, the Chicago Cubs, have played there since 1916. As was true with many of the old stadiums, it’s built inside the city, instead of in a suburb with lots of room for parking like most modern stadiums. One result of this is that the stadium is surrounded by relatively normal city streets with buildings on them that are around the same height, at least on the two outfield sides. As you noticed last night, many of these neighboring houses now sport bleacher seating on their roofs, from which you can watch the game. You can actually see them on Google Maps:

The Wrigley Rooftops, as they are called, have their own Wikipedia page, which I leaned heavily on for this article. How they got there and who owns them is a surprisingly long and twisted story.

For most of Wrigley Field’s history, the neighboring rooftops were home to informal gatherings. Watching the games from them was a perk neighbors enjoyed, perhaps as a consolation for the literally hundreds of thousands of drunk people the stadium brought to their neighborhood every year. Sometime in the 1980s, some of the people who owned the buildings started bulking up their seating arrangements and charging admission. This escalated gradually to where we are today: most of the buildings are no longer residential. Their primary purpose is to support the bleachers on their roofs. Some of them even have bars and restaurants inside. They provide a stadium-like experience at stadium-like prices.

As you might suspect, the people who own the Chicago Cubs have not always been happy about the idea of others profiting off of their investment so directly and in such a similar way to how they are trying to make a profit. In 2002, the Cubs sued the owners of the Wrigley Rooftops for copyright infringement. I guess the idea was that rooftop viewers were engaged in an act analogous to pirating a TV feed. Most of the rooftop establishments eventually settled out of court and agreed to pay the Cubs 17% of their proceeds as a form of royalty. The Cubs agreed to officially endorse those roofs. That led to a detente which lasted almost a decade until the current owner of the Cubs, Thomas S. Ricketts, who had purchased the team in 2009 after the settlements, decided to renovate those sides of the stadium in ways which would obstruct the rooftop views. All hell broke loose. In a classic turn of legalistic fate, the owners of the rooftops sued the Cubs! Their argument was that the Cubs were now breaching the contract they entered into during the settlement of the last lawsuit.

Despite this antagonistic and adversarial relationship, (or maybe because of it), the era of the independent rooftop may soon be over. Frustrated with the lawsuit filed by the rooftop owners, the Cubs have decided that it would be easier and cheaper in the long-run to simply buy the neighboring buildings with their rooftop clubs. To date, Ricketts has purchased at least six of the buildings, a process made easier by the fact that some of them seemed to be in financial straits to begin with. How long the other rooftops will be able to hold out remains to be seen.

That’s the story of the unique Wrigley Rooftops. It’s a classic American story of lawsuit and counter-suit that fits America’s Pastime perfectly.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

How can I get better at making trades in fantasy football?

Dear Sports Fan,

I’ve been playing fantasy football for a few years now and I think I’m pretty good at it. One thing I can’t do though is get people to trade with me. Either they don’t want to trade or what they’re offering doesn’t seem like anything I would want to do. How can I get better at making trades in fantasy football?

Thanks,
Rosalie

Dear Rosalie,

There’s an art to trading in fantasy football. In this post, I’ll describe some of the basic principles and tactics I use to trade when I play fantasy football.

Both sides should “win” the trade

The driving principle of being a good trading partner is to want the person you’re trading with to succeed. This may seem silly in a zero sum game like fantasy football — after all, if your trading partner succeeds, won’t they threaten your team — but it’s actually the most important part of making a trade. A good trade should benefit both teams and you should want it to be that way. There are a few reasons why this is important. First, fantasy football is a long game. It’s played over the course of 13-17 weeks and in many leagues, over years or even decades. Most leagues have 10 or 12 teams, each run by a friend or colleague of yours. You want to make trades that are good for your trading partners so that they want to deal with you in the future. Even if you could trick someone into making an incredibly lopsided trade, you probably shouldn’t. They’ll never trade with you again and the rest of your league-mates will notice too.

Don’t just target the weak. The overflowing team is ripe for the picking too!

Conventional wisdom suggests that a team at the top of the standings will be difficult to trade with. That’s not always the case. Often, teams at the top have been successful because of surprisingly good performances from unexpected places. If a team’s fifth running back turned out to be one of the best in the league, this may mean that they find themselves with more good running backs than they are able to make use of on a week-to-week basis. If you can offer a team overflowing with high performing players in one position a slight improvement in another position, they might be willing to trade one of their many successes to you. One of the most agonizing parts of fantasy football is making start/sit decisions each week. Fantasy owners who have a surfeit of talented players at one position may want to trade a player away just so they don’t have to drive themselves crazy each weekend trying to guess who is going to be better between two or more good options. Lastly, success is not an antidote to anxiety in fantasy football. Some owners will interpret their own success as a harbinger of doom and want to “sell high” on high performing players because they are scared of a fall from grace.

Identify unlucky players

Touchdowns are worth much more than yards in most fantasy football leagues. The most standard scoring system makes touchdowns worth 6 times more than ten yard gained for running backs, receivers, and tight ends, and 15 times more for quarterbacks. Fantasy points, the clearest and most meaningful measure of a player’s worth to a fantasy team, are therefore highly dependent on touchdowns. In reality though, touchdowns are much more random than yards. The average NFL team scored between two and three touchdowns a game. That’s a much smaller sample size, even over the course of several games, than the 50 or so yard-gaining plays that happen each game. Although there are some players whose style or abilities make them less likely to score touchdowns than others, there are more out there whose lack of touchdowns are simply bad luck. Find these players by sorting a list of players by yards gained as opposed to fantasy points and target them for a trade. Their owner may be fed up with their inability to score touchdowns and therefore generate fantasy points.

Help people heal their bye week blues

Every NFL team takes a single week off during the NFL season. On most weeks during the middle of the season, four teams will not be playing. Less common is the two-team or six-team bye weeks, but they do happen too. Most of the time, fantasy teams will have enough players on their bench to fill a starting lineup without any problem. There’s usually one team per week whose players happen to have byes that line up in an unfortunate way for that owner. Maybe they have five wide receivers on their roster but four of them have Week Seven bye weeks. They won’t want to drop the players, because they might not be able to get them back, but they also won’t want to go a week without enough players in that position to field a starting lineup. If you can offer roster flexibility in a trade, they may be willing to make a trade that even they think would otherwise be slightly (just slightly, don’t get crazy) slanted in your favor.

Deep? Get shallow. Shallow? Get deep.

There’s a kind of platonic ideal for fantasy football teams: a few star players, very good players at every other position in the starting lineup, lower-performing players with high potential on the bench. In reality, few teams match that ideal exactly. Most teams are either deeper, meaning they have more good players but perhaps not any true stars, or shallower, meaning they have a few stars but then there’s a steep drop-off in terms of talent on the rest of their roster. Owners generally want to shift their teams toward the ideal. If you have a shallow team, find a deep team and see if you can construct a trade to help both of your teams get closer to the ideal. In this example, that would mean trading one of your stars for two or three very good players. These types of two or three for one trades are a common gambit in fantasy football. The trick is to suggest them strategically. A shallow team won’t want to trade you two or three players for another star. A deep team won’t trade you their star player for two or three of your very good players. Find a team whose shape you can improve.

Work at it

My last suggestion is that you do your due diligence every week. Open up each team’s page once a week and look to see what their situation is. Examine their teams for the trade openings we’ve described here. Are they too deep? Too shallow? Are they suffering with the bye week blues? Are they overwhelmingly strong at one position, perhaps to their own detriment? Do they have agonizing start/sit decisions each week? When you’re done doing that, run through a sorted list of each position by fantasy points AND yards gained. Look for unlucky players who you think are likely to play better in the coming weeks. See who their owners are and if there’s potential to make a trade. Send a few offers out every week. You’ll be surprised at what your fellow fantasy players are interested in doing. Don’t send anything patently unfair though – lopsided offers give you a bad reputation and depress counter-offers and negotiation.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

What is a back shoulder pass in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a back shoulder pass in football? Whose shoulder does the phrase refer to?

Thanks,
Darrell

Dear Darrell,

A back shoulder pass in football is a type of throw where the quarterback aims the ball to intersect with the path of a receiver just behind him as he runs down the field. It is an offensive tactic that takes advantage of a fundamental defensive rule by breaking a fundamental offensive rule.

The second thing you’re taught when you’re taught to pass a football (the first is: look where you want the ball to go, not at the ball! Thanks Dad…) is to lead the person catching the ball. If the receiver is running from your left to your right, you should throw the ball to a spot farther right. This way, assuming the receiver keeps running at a constant speed, by the time the ball gets to them, it will be right in front of their path, in a spot that’s easy for them to catch while they continue running.

The first thing you’re taught when you’re taught to play defense in football is to keep your body between the player you’re covering and your end zone. That way, even if they catch the ball, you should be able to tackle them (or two-hand touch them or grab their flag) before they can run into the end zone and score a touchdown.

These two fundamental principles are not in conflict when a player runs horizontally on the field to catch a pass from their quarterback or if they run down the field, turn around, and come back toward the quarterback. In those scenarios, the quarterback’s attempt to lead their receiver will not risk putting the ball closer to where the defender is (between the receiver and the end zone) than where the receiver is. But, when a receiver runs down the field, away from their quarterback, then leading him inevitably leaves the ball on the side of the receiver where the defender ought to be. Sometimes, a wide receiver is fast enough to negate this issue by running past their defender. This puts them between a well lead pass and the defender and often results in a long gain or touchdown. Most of the time though, the defender is savvy, fast, and physical enough to prevent this approach. So, a clever team will deploy the back shoulder pass. Here’s how it works:

As a receiver runs down the field, with their defender between them and the end zone, the quarterback leads them but not as much as they normally would. Instead of aiming to have the ball land right in front of the receiver, the quarterback aims just behind where the receiver will be when the ball reaches them. If the receiver did nothing to adjust to the flight of the ball, it would hit him in the butt or land just behind his feet. That’s not what happens — instead, the receiver knows what’s about to happen, so she turns her upper body as the ball flies toward her. Now facing sideways, usually toward the middle of the field, the receiver is perfectly positioned to catch the ball as it lands… right at the receiver’s back-most shoulder. That will be the right shoulder if the receiver is running on the left side of the field and has turned in to the right; the left shoulder on the right side of the field with the receiver turned in to the left.

One disadvantage of a back shoulder pass is that it’s harder to catch. I tried to trap a pass in a pickup soccer game that was a little behind me the other day and I basically just fell directly into a pile of mud. It’s hard to swivel your upper body while running full speed and successfully catch a ball. In order to do it, a wide receiver will often have to slow down or even dive backwards, both of which make it harder for them to gain yardage after the catch, another disadvantage. The advantage is that it is safer than leading a wide receiver running down the field. Although back shoulder passes require great anticipation from the quarterback and coordination between him and his receivers to work, when they go wrong, they don’t tend to go very, very wrong. No matter what, the intended receiver’s body should still be between the ball and the defender, making it harder for them to intercept the ball or knock it down.

By breaking the fundamental rule we all learn when we first throw a football, the back shoulder pass exploits another fundamental rule – that a defender should keep his body between the receiver he’s guarding and the end zone.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

One line to fool them all – 10.19.15

Sports talk is frequently used as a common language but it’s far from universal. If you’re someone who doesn’t follow or even understand sports, you can find yourself at a disadvantage in common small-talk situations like in an elevator, waiting for a bus, sitting at a bar, or around the proverbial water cooler at work. Even if you are a sports fan, it’s impossible to watch everything and know everything. To help in these situations, we provide lines to use when engaged in a conversation about all of the high profile sporting events of the day, plus explanations of what they mean.

NFL Football

Sunday, October 18, 2015 1 p.m. ET

Cincinnati Bengals 34, at Buffalo Bills 21

Line: It just doesn’t look like anyone can stop the Bengals.

What it means: The Bengals have won all six of their games so far this year and they’ve scored lots of points in every one of them. In order, they’ve scored 33, 24, 28, 36, 27, and now 34 points. Although offense and defense are almost completely separate teams in football, there’s an interesting symbiosis at work. If a defense knows it can count on its offense, it plays better, and vice-versa. Right now, the Bengals are operating as a very virtuous cycle.

Denver Broncos 26, at Cleveland Browns 23

Line: At some point it stops being a fluke that Denver is winning despite Peyton Manning instead of because of him.

What it means: The story on the Broncos so far this year has been that their undefeated record is untrustworthy; that they are not as good as their record would suggest because their once great quarterback, Peyton Manning, has played so poorly. After six straight wins though, perhaps it’s time to admit that even with an average quarterback, the rest of the Broncos is good enough to win consistently. They’re unlikely to end the season without losing, but they’ll win a lot of games.

Chicago Bears 34 at Detroit Lions 37

Line: Who wrote that line about lots of noise, “signifying nothing?” Probably Shakespeare, right? Anyway — whoever it was must have watched this game.

What it means: This game had everything you’d want out of an NFL game. It was an exciting, high scoring game, with lots of drama, that went into overtime… but because neither of these teams is going to amount to anything this year, (the Bears are 2-4, the Lions 1-5), it feels meaningless.

Houston Texans 31, at Jacksonville Jaguars 20

Line: I wonder if the Texans can make a run at the Colts now that they seem to have settled on a quarterback?

What it means: The Indianapolis Colts are the favorites to win the AFC South division, with the Texans, Jaguars, and Titans trailing behind them. There are a few signs though that the Texans may be able to give them a run for their money in the standings this year. The Texans started the year with some uncertainty at quarterback, where they had two players, Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer, competing for the starting job. After two straight good performances, it seems clear that Hoyer has won the job. That should settle the team down on offense and on defense, it’s hard to believe they could play any worse than they have. In fact, they’re likely to get better — they have so many talented players on defense.

Kansas City Chiefs 10 at Minnesota Vikings 16

 

Line: The Vikings aren’t flashy, but is there a winning team that’s flying more under the radar than them this year? I don’t think so.

What it means: The Vikings don’t get covered as much as other teams, and other than problematic running back, Adrian Peterson, they don’t have any big name stars. Perhaps because of that, or perhaps because they were on the wrong side of a fluky week one loss to the San Francisco 49ers, no one seems to be mentioning them as a playoff contender. With four games against teams the Vikings should probably beat coming up, (Lions, Bears, Rams, Raiders), you can sound savvy and prescient by talking about the Vikings now.

Miami Dolphins 38, at Tennessee Titans 10

Line: I guess that’s why you fire your coach.

What it means: The Miami Dolphins fired their coach two weeks ago, before the team’s bye week (when they don’t play a game.) Even two weeks isn’t enough time to make real tactical changes to an NFL team. So, teams that fire a coach in the middle of a season generally do it because they want to make an emotional or attitudinal change to a team that’s lost its will or understanding of how to play hard. From the result of this game, it certainly looks like that goal was met.

Washington Redskins 20, at New York Jets 34

Line: I know it’s virtually impossible to win in the NFL without a great quarterback, but if any team could do it, it might be the Jets.

What it means:  Quarterback is the most important position in modern professional football, by such a large margin, that it seems impossible to win without a great quarterback. In order to win despite having an average quarterback, like the Jets have, you have to be nearly perfect in every other area. The Jets have excellent wide receivers, a trio of strong running backs, a decent offensive line, and an intimidating defense. So far, they’ve won four games and lost only one — giving hope to every quarterback-wanting team in the league.

Arizona Cardinals 13, at Pittsburgh Steelers 25

Line: If I were the Steelers, I’d keep Roethlisberger out for another couple weeks. The way they’re playing, there’s no reason to be aggressive and risk re-injury.

What it means: Steelers star quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, went down during the third game of the season with what initially looked like a major knee injury. After further examination, it was “only” a bone bruise and sprained MCL which he should be able to recover from in four to six weeks. After just two weeks out, Roethlisberger was already lobbying to be let back into the game this week. Despite his wishes, with the Steelers 2-1 in their three games without their starting quarterback, it’s probably better for the team and for Roethlisberger’s long-term health to hold him out another few weeks.

Sunday, October 18, 2015 4:05 or 4:25 p.m. ET

Carolina Panthers 27, at Seattle Seahawks 23

Line: I know it looks bad, but don’t count the Seahawks out yet, they’ve lost to three undefeated teams.

What it means: The Seattle Seahawks, who were good enough over the past two years to go to the Super Bowl twice, have lost four of their first six games. That’s not good and most people are probably close to concluding that the Seahawks just aren’t a very good team this year. Caution them not to jump to conclusions prematurely. The Seahawks four losses have come to a divisional rival, the Rams, who always play them closer than their relative skill would suggest likely, and three teams that are all undefeated – the Bengals, Packers, and Panthers.

Baltimore Ravens 20, at San Francisco 49ers 25

Line: Free Steve Smith.

What it means: Steve Smith is a pint-sized dynamo who plays wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens. This is his 15th and final season in the NFL. Even at 36, he plays football with more determination and bottled up fury than virtually anyone out there. He’s a giant crowd favorite, which is why it’s such an enormous shame that he’ll be stuck in his last year in the league, playing for a mediocre team with no chance at making a playoff run. The phrase, “Free [name of player]” has become common in sports circles over the past few years. It asks that a fun player be released from a not-so-fun situation, in this case, playing on a last place team. It’s unrealistic — trades in the NFL are not common — but it’s a nice sentiment.

San Diego Chargers 20, at Green Bay Packers 27

Line: Phillip Rivers in the game against the Packers was like the world’s best classical conductor playing with your high school marching band.

What it means: Phillip Rivers is the quarterback of the San Diego Chargers. In this game, he set franchise records for passing attempts, pass completions, and passing yards. He threw for over 500 yards (300 is generally thought of as the line between a good game and a great game) and came extremely close to tying the game in its final seconds. He accomplished all of this despite being surrounded by lackluster, inexperienced, undersized, or over-the-hill wide receivers, running backs, tight ends, and offensive linemen.

Sunday, October 18, 2015 8:30 p.m. ET

New England Patriots 34 at Indianapolis Colts 27

Line: If you put aside all the Deflategate stuff, that was just a great football game.

What it means: The lead-up to this game was all about how the Patriots wanted revenge for the Colts putting them through a season of controversy. It was the Colts who originally turned the Patriots in to the league for having improperly inflated the footballs they used on offense in a playoff game last spring against the Colts. Drama may have gotten us to watch the game with more focus than normal, but the high quality of the game was what kept us watching.

How to plan for the week of Oct 19 – 25, 2015

If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.

For detail on the all-popular, all-powerful NFL, which groups most of its games on Sunday afternoons, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: The Toronto Blue Jays try desperately to avoid going down 3-0 to the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series (the semifinals of Major League Baseball’s playoffs.) In the NFL, the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants try desperately not to lose to their arch-rivals. There’s a lot of desperation going around for a Monday night.

Tuesday: A playoff baseball double-header is nothing to mess with. Watch game four of the ALCS, which could be an elimination game followed by game three of the more lovable and therefore more heart wrenching NLCS between the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs. If you need a fix of soccer before the baseball starts, there’s a full afternoon of UEFA Champions League action. The only game on a channel you probably have is Arsenal vs. Bayern Munich.

Wednesday: Unless the Royals sweep the Blue Jays, we’ll get another juicy MLB playoff double-header today — likely the last of the season. In the evening, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team continues its victory tour with a friendly game against Brazil. In addition, we’ll be doing a Dear Sports Fan Meetup to watch the Boston Bruins play the Philadelphia Flyers. If you’re in the Boston area, join us!

Thursday: The highlight of the day is a pivotal Game Five in the NLCS between the Mets and Cubs. That should overshadow the Thursday Night Football game between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers but thanks to gambling, fantasy football, and sheer perversity, the NFL game will still be watched by way more people. Help even the scales. Watch baseball.

Friday: Date night! If the ALCS between the Royals and Blue Jays has been settled by now, you’re free to have a non-sports date. If they’re still going, you might find a romantic bar… with a TV to be a good spot for a cozy get-together.

Saturday: It’s an oddly weak slate of college football games. You can tell by the fact that I had room to sneak my alma mater, Rutgers, onto the featured games list, even though they’re likely to be beaten by 50 points. If both MLB playoff series are still going on, they will more than make up for it. This has the potential to be a legendary afternoon and evening of baseball!

Sunday: If you want, you could watch about 15 hours in a row of NFL football today or 15 hours of soccer. It’s an incredibly versatile day. If there’s a Game Seven in the NLCS between the Cubs and the Mets, that would be a bonus of the sort that dwarfs the salary it’s augmenting.

Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.

Pitch that game: NFL Week 6, 2015

Hello everyone and welcome to America’s favorite game show that… has never actually happened before and no one has heard of it… it’s Pitch That Game!

Here’s how it works. As your host, I have one minute to pitch a sporting event to someone who is not a sports fan. If, after my pitch, they’re interested in watching, I get a point! That’s it! Why would we play such a game? Well, it’s a good way to quickly learn about a set of games to see if you’re interested in following any of them. It’s also a great way for me to learn from you about what may or may not make a sport interesting to a layperson.

In this episode, I pitch you, the listener, all 14 of the NFL games this weekend, on Sunday October 18 and Monday October 19. If you want to know which games will be available on your TV this weekend, check out 506 Sports NFL. If you need help figuring out how to make sense out of what you see there, use my explanation of how to use 506 Sports NFL here.

Enjoy the show!

Sunday, October 18, 2015 1 p.m. ET

Cincinnati Bengals at Buffalo Bills

We’re in the midst of a major league baseball playoffs that guarantee a World Series winner who hasn’t won since somewhere between 1993 and 1908. No matter which of the four remaining teams wins, it’s going to be a great story. In the NFL, it’s far too early to guarantee anything, but the Cincinnati Bengals, who have never won the Super Bowl in their 46 year history are undefeated so far and playing like a run-away-train on offense and a brick wall on defense. They take their 5-0 record into Buffalo to play against a Bills team whose promising start has been hampered by injuries. The Bills and their fans are always tough at home, especially when it’s cold and windy and maybe even snowy like it’s supposed to be on Sunday.

Denver Broncos at Cleveland Browns

While we’re on the subject of weather, let’s talk about the next game, the Denver Broncos at the Cleveland Browns. Weather is usually an overrated factor in football games. Rain and snow don’t seem to have much of an impact. The only thing that can effect the game in a major way is wind. Wind makes it harder for quarterbacks, especially those like the 38-year old, nerve-damaged Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, who don’t exactly have the strongest arms anymore. Every game Manning plays is like watching a real-life battle between mind and matter. This one will pit mind vs. matter and wind.

Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions

After three weeks, these two teams had a combined record of zero wins and six losses. From that moment, one team has continued its downward slide and the other has scrabbled up with all its might. The Chicago Bears have been rewarded for their determination with two close wins, one by two points over the Raiders and one by one point over the Chiefs. The Lions have just lost and lost. If the Bears can beat the Lions, a divisional rival, in this game, they’ll complete their climb back to .500 with three straight wins after three straight losses.

Houston Texans at Jacksonville Jaguars

The Texans and Jaguars are both in the AFC South division, which has been dominated by the Colts over the past fifteen years. The start of this year provided a glorious opportunity for the other teams in the division because the Colts have struggled with injuries and performance issues. Alas, none of the other teams could seize the day. The Texans and Jaguars are both 1-4 and looking for a win to salvage any hope of competing for the playoffs this year. I favor the Jaguars in this game. In watching the Jaguars, you can see some of the elements of a good team emerging from the muck.

Kansas City Chiefs at Minnesota Vikings

Unusual for today’s NFL, both of these teams intended to build their season around powerful rushing attacks led by two of the best running backs in the NFL, the Vikings Adrian Peterson and the Chiefs Jamaal Charles. As spectators, we’re robbed of an opportunity to see them go head-to-head this weekend because Charles tore his ACL last weekend. Instead, we’ll see two replacement running backs with great names, Knile Davis and Charcandrick West, try to step into Charles’ giant shoes. On the other side, the Vikings will continue to play the good, conservative football that’s led them to a 2-2 record so far this year.

Miami Dolphins at Tennessee Titans

The Dolphins have been the disappointment of the season. So much so, that two weeks ago they became the first team this year to fire their coach. It’s hard to replace a coach in the middle of the season because of football’s complexity. There isn’t enough time to meaningfully change what the team knows how to do. Instead, new coach and former tough-guy tight end Dan Campbell will look to make an attitudinal difference. The question on the other side is what the Titans actually have in rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota. Mariota came out of the blocks fast with a record setting performance in the Titans week one win but has been less successful since. We’re starting to hear whispers that Mariota may not be versatile enough in how he thinks and reacts during a game to win.

Washington Redskins at New York Jets

Normally when Washington travels to New Jersey to play football, they’re facing their divisional opponent and arch-enemy, the New York Giants. This week they play against the New York Jets, the team in the other conference that shares a stadium with the New York Giants. That’s a weird little tidbit that makes this game unusual. What makes it compelling is how much better both teams have played this year than they were expected to. Both teams won only four games last year. The Jets are only one win away from equalling their tally and the Redskins are already half-way there.

Arizona Cardinals at Pittsburgh Steelers

These two teams have been connected since 1944 when, due to player shortages during World War II, they merged to play a season as a single team. That joint venture went winless, leading critics to call them the “carpets” a play on Cardinals and Pittsburgh and also the household object you tread on. More recently, they played each other in the 2008 season’s Super Bowl, one of the most entertaining in recent memory. During that game, the offensive coordinator of the winning Pittsburgh team was none other than Bruce Arians, now the head coach of the Cardinals. All of this is to say that in addition to this being a matchup of two of the most talented teams in the league, and a potential preview of this year’s Super Bowl, it’s also a game with great recent and distant history.

Sunday, October 18, 2015 4:05 or 4:25 p.m. ET

Carolina Panthers at Seattle Seahawks

I don’t know if it’s been a conscious or unconscious thing on the part of the Panthers management, but it certainly seems like they’ve spent the last several years trying to model their team after the Seahawks. The Panthers are almost like the East Coast branch of the Seahawks. Built around magician quarterbacks who escape pressure to make plays, patient running games, and stifling, physical defenses, both teams try to win games in similar ways. What that means for this game, is that its winner will likely be the team who executes the plan the best, not the one with the best plan.

Baltimore Ravens at San Francisco 49ers

It’s hard to believe that these two teams met in the Super Bowl only three seasons ago. This year, both teams are only a shell of what they were during that season. Both teams’ elite defensive units have been disassembled by free agency, retirement, and injuries. Both offenses have lost many of their supporting characters. San Francisco’s offensive line is missing in action and Baltimore’s starting wide receivers actually both play for San Francisco now. Both teams are 1-4 and facing the certainty of a lost season if they fall to 1-5. Realistically, both are likely to have a lost season no matter what — it’s not a coincidence that they’ve lost four games out of the first five — but another loss will really shut the door in their faces.

San Diego Chargers at Green Bay Packers

If the pinnacle of sports is about achievement in the face of challenges, this game fits the bill to a T. Both teams have wonderful quarterbacks who have difficult tasks. In the case of the Chargers quarterback, Phillip Rivers, he’ll be up against a solid Green Bay defense without a strong offensive line — the most essential support for any quarterback. Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, on the other hand, will be playing without his best receiver, Jordy Nelson, who is out for the year with a knee injury, and with his two next-best receivers hampered by shoulder and ankle injuries. I suspect both quarterbacks will be up to the challenge but only one can win.

Sunday, October 18, 2015 8:30 p.m. ET

New England Patriots at Indianapolis Colts

The Patriots have been waiting for this day ever since last Spring when the Colts started the giant shit-storm called Deflategate by reporting the Patriots to the league for having used improperly inflated footballs in the playoff game between these two teams. Although quarterback Tom Brady was eventually vindicated in court and escaped suspension, the Patriots want to beat the Colts more than Bernie Sanders wants to bring down Wall Street, more than Jeb Bush wants to be president… even more than Donald Trump wants you to pay attention to him. This game is the most highly anticipated passion play of the season. I hope it lives up to expectations.

Monday, October 19, 2015 8:30 p.m. ET

New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles

The NFC East, which is the division the Giants and Eagles are both in, is the biggest, most popular, most watched, and most talked about division in football. That’s true even in years when the division doesn’t have any truly great teams, like it appears not to this year. The Giants are in first place right now, with a record of three wins and two losses but the other three teams are all only a game behind with two wins and three losses. The chance for all four teams remaining relatively close to one another throughout the year seems to be good, which makes every game between teams even more important.

How does a wrist shot work in hockey?

Dear Sports Fan,

How does a wrist shot work in ice hockey? Can you describe how it works and when or why a player would choose to use it?

Thanks,
Greg

Dear Greg,

There are three main kinds of shots in ice hockey: the slap shot, the snap shot, and the wrist shot. Each shot has its own technique and is distinguishable when watching hockey on TV or in person. Each shot has advantages and disadvantages and is appropriate for different situations. In this post, we’ll describe the wrist shot. You’ll learn how to identify it when you see it, when and what it’s used for, and even how to do it if you find yourself with a hockey stick in your hands.

The wrist shot is the quiet killer in hockey. Although it’s no longer the most common shot in hockey, it still has a lot of advantages over its more bombastic cousins, the slap shot and snap shot. It’s easy to identify a wrist shot because it’s usually the one you don’t see! For a professional player, the transition between simply skating with the puck and taking a wrist shot is seamless to the point of invisibility. If you look closely, you may notice a player position the puck slightly farther out to the side or even slightly behind them right before they move into the wrist shot motion. From this position, the player flicks the puck forward in a single, smooth motion.

Most of the power of a wrist shot comes from a shift in weight from one leg to the other – the leg farthest from the goal to the one closest – that’s also neigh impossible to see. In the follow through after the shot, a player’s stick may come up to about waist-high. The puck moves fluidly throughout a wrist shot from being on the ice but not in touch with the stick, to touching the tip of the stick, to sliding backwards along the blade. The puck will slide back on the blade only to around the midpoint of the curve, at which point, the players movement begins to sling-shot the puck forward. It’s called a wrist shot because a player’s lower hand will turn over during the shot, using the wrist to flick the puck at toward the goal. Take a look at NHL player Alex Steen score on a wrist shot here:

The biggest advantage of the wrist shot is that goalies and defenders have as hard a time identifying one as we do in the audience. A wrist shot gets the puck moving towards the net with no fanfare. Although it’s the slowest of the three major shots in the air, the suddenness with which a hockey player can take a wrist shot often makes it the best option. It also requires very little commitment from the shooting player. If she sees a teammate in a better position to shoot, it’s relatively easy to change the wrist shot to a pass. If the shot is blocked or the puck stolen, a player who has chosen a wrist shot should be able to recover and play defense with less difficulty than a player who may be off-balance after a slap shot gone wrong. The wrist shot is also the easiest to aim for experts and, because the puck never looses contact with the stick, for beginners as well.

The wrist shot is the easiest shot to practice at home. Take a hockey stick and a tennis ball and find a wall with no windows nearby! Put the tennis ball about two feet to your forehand side (right if you’re right-handed, left if you’re a lefty) and about six inches behind your feet. In a single motion, slide the ball forward, allow it to settle on the middle of the curve of your stick, and then shoot it forward by lifting the stick while turning your bottom wrist quickly up. You should get a nice, fluid shot. If not, it may help to move the ball back and forward a bit while it’s at your side and start the motion at the end of a backwards roll. Once you’ve got it down with a tennis ball, try it with a puck. It will be much harder to lift off the ground that way, but it is possible.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

 

How does a slap shot work in ice hockey?

Dear Sports Fan,

How does a slap shot work in ice hockey? Can you describe how it works and when or why a player would choose to use it?

Thanks,
Marie

Dear Marie,

There are three main kinds of shots in ice hockey: the slap shot, the snap shot, and the wrist shot. Each shot has its own technique and is distinguishable when watching hockey on TV or in person. Each shot has advantages and disadvantages and is appropriate for different situations. In this post, we’ll describe hockey’s most iconic shot, the slap shot. You’ll learn how to identify it when you see it, when and what it’s used for, and even how to do it if you find yourself with a hockey stick in your hands.

The slap shot is perhaps the most iconic image people have of a hockey shot. A player winds up for it, bringing their stick up almost vertically behind them before using all their muscles to swing it down. Instead of hitting the puck directly, as you might expect, in a slap shot, the stick makes contact with the ice a few inches behind the puck. When this happens, the stick actually bends with the blade of the stick forced backwards by the impenetrability of the ice. As the stick’s forward motion continues, the blade releases from the ice, getting an extra bit of speed by springing forward just as it connects with the puck. The result is a powerful shot, the most powerful in hockey. As you can see in this .gif from a “hardest shot competition” in last year’s NHL All Star game, slap shots can travel over 100 miles per hour!

The clearest advantage of a slap shot is speed. Ironically, the disadvantage is also speed. Although the slap shot propels the puck faster than any other shot, it also takes the longest time to execute. In today’s NHL, it’s rare for a player to have enough time to wind up and release a slap shot before a defender has hit them, stolen the puck from them, or slid into a position to block the shot. Even if a player does have time to get a slap shot off, they aren’t particularly deceptive. If a goalie has time to set up in position to save a slap shot, they’ll probably be able to do so. The times when a slap shot are most effective are when a player can execute the process before the defense knows they’re going to be in a position to shoot. This usually means one of the shooter’s teammates has the puck and passes it to the shooter as he’s setting up to shoot. This type of slap shot, directly from a pass, is called a one-timer. It has an added element of difficulty because the shooter must time and position their shot to strike a moving puck but when it works it’s almost unstoppable.

If you want to work on taking a slap shot yourself, your best bet is to start on solid ground. With shoes on pavement, a slap shot is no harder than swinging a golf club. It’s on ice that things get tricky. You must be able to swing your stick and torque your body with great force without losing your balance. Practice it incrementally, starting with a small windup and working up to a full one. You’ll know you’ve gone too fast when you find yourself sitting on the ice without having moved the puck at all. Another note for beginners — unless you’re freakishly strong, don’t try to do the trick the pros do to get extra speed by hitting the ice first. You’re probably not stronger than your stick, so instead of it bending, your body will take the brunt of the ice’s impact. Ouch!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

 

How to plan for the week of Oct 12 – 18, 2015

If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Columbus Day may be of dubious value as a historic holiday but it’s of intense value as a sports holiday. Sit back and enjoy four playoff baseball games, a good European Championship qualifying soccer game, an interesting Monday Night Football game, and a handful of NHL games that couldn’t even break into our calendar.

Tuesday: The Netherlands are a proud soccer country with a long history of top-level competition but they’re struggling just to qualify for next year’s European Championships. They need a win in today’s game against the Czech Republic. Two more MLB playoff games and a modern-classic NHL matchup round out today’s sports.

Wednesday: The WNBA finals come to a conclusion today with a winner-take all fifth game between the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever. That might be enough to steer at least one of your eyes away from playoff baseball or early season hockey.

Thursday: The divisional round of the baseball playoffs will come to an end today, unless all the series are over by now… it’s impossible to know on Monday morning when I’m writing this. If they are still happening, they’ll be happening in an exciting crescendo. The normal Thursday Night NFL game is a good one this week and it’s joined by a north/south California rivalry college football game: UCLA vs. Stanford.

Friday: Date night! The American League Championship Series (semifinals to the World Series) begins today and may sway you from your appointed date. Other than that, although the calendar looks full, I don’t think high school football (even though it’s a historic rivalry in Washington DC!!) or boxing is going to be much of a problem for negotiating some couple’s time.

Saturday: Two classic college football rivalries: Michigan vs. Michigan State and Florida vs. LSU highlight today’s college football games. In baseball, the National League Championship series will begin and the AL one will move to its second game. In soccer, the British Premier League returns to action after a few weeks off for international soccer.

Sunday: The NFL eclipses everything else on most Sundays during the fall. That’s true today, especially at night when the New England Patriots try to exact Deflategate related revenge on the Indianapolis Colts. Wedged into the sports schedule are some other compelling events: women’s college soccer, MLS soccer, a NASCAR race, the second game of the NLCS, and the second weekend of the NWHL’s existence!

Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.

One line to fool them all – 10.12.15

Sports talk is frequently used as a common language but it’s far from universal. If you’re someone who doesn’t follow or even understand sports, you can find yourself at a disadvantage in common small-talk situations like in an elevator, waiting for a bus, sitting at a bar, or around the proverbial water cooler at work. Even if you are a sports fan, it’s impossible to watch everything and know everything. To help in these situations, we provide lines to use when engaged in a conversation about all of the high profile sporting events of the day, plus explanations of what they mean.

NFL Football

Sunday, October 11, 2015 1 p.m. ET

Buffalo Bills 14 at Tennessee Titans 13

Line: No Music City Miracle for the Titans in this one.

What it means: The Music City Miracle was a trick play the Titans used to eek out a win over the Buffalo Bills in a 2000 playoff game. These Titans didn’t have anything like that up their sleeves for this game. In fact, it was Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor who had all the tricks. He threw for a touchdown, ran for a touchdown, and even caught a pass!

Cleveland Browns 33 at Baltimore Ravens 30

Line: Who died and made Josh McCown Johnny Unitas?

What it means: Josh McCown is the Cleveland Browns starting quarterback. He’s had a mostly pedestrian career in the NFL, and at 36 years old, no one expected this to change. We were wrong. He threw 457 yards (which is an insane number, even for a game that went to overtime, like this one did) in this game and in doing so became the first Browns quarterback ever to throw three straight 300 yard games. Part of that is due to the league becoming more friendly to passing in general and part of it is due to luck but it’s still fun to compare him to all-time great quarterbacks like Johnny Unitas.

Chicago Bears 18 at Kansas City Chiefs 17

Line: Oh no, not again for Jamaal Charles.

What it means: Jamaal Charles is the star running back of the Kansas City Chiefs and one of the most dynamic players in football. When he’s at his best, he’s truly a joy to watch, dancing around defenders and galloping to long touchdown runs. He went down with an ugly knee injury today and people suspect that he tore his ACL… again. Charles already tore an ACL in 2011, and while the injury is no longer an automatic career ender, it’s still brutal to come back from.

Seattle Seahawks 24 at Cincinnati Bengals 27

Line: Dalton is no longer playing like Dalton. It’s very confusing.

What it means: After watching a player for several years in the NFL, football fans generally figure they know what that player is capable of. Then once in a while, a player like Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton comes back in his fifth season and seems to be playing consistently better than he ever has before. It’s confusing and unbelievable at first, but by now, especially after a come-from-behind win against a good team like today’s, it’s time to simply admit that he got better.

St. Louis Rams 10 at Green Bay Packers 24

Line: Aaron Rodgers finally threw a pick at home, but his defense got his back.

What it means: Before this game, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers had an incredible streak of having thrown over 550 passes in Green Bay without a single interception. He threw two in this game, but the Packers still won comfortably largely because their defense “picked off” or intercepted four of the Rams quarterback’s passes.

Jacksonville Jaguars 31 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 38

Line: If there’s a shootout in the forest but no one watches, does it matter?

What it means: Sometimes the most exciting games are played between teams, like these two, that aren’t likely to make the playoffs. As a result, only people at the game, and in the home television markets of the two teams, actually get a chance to see the game. More metaphysically, very few people care about the outcome of this game, even if it was one of the more entertaining ones of the day.

New Orleans Saints 17 at Philadelphia Eagles 39

Line: The Eagles are the most confusing team this year.

What it means: Estimates of how good the Eagles are have been consistently different from the way they’ve actually looked during games. Before the season, people thought they would be good, then their first few games were terrible. So, we all switched to thinking they were going to be bad this year. Then, they go out and win a game convincingly like this one. Who knows what to expect other than the unexpected?

Washington Redskins 19 at Atlanta Falcons 25

Line: How else could an overtime game with Kirk Cousins end other than a pick-six.

What it means: Kirk Cousins is Washington’s quarterback and he’s got a history and a habit of making fatal mistakes at just the wrong time. A pick-six is when a quarterback throws a pass someone on the defense catches it (that’s the pick or interception) and runs all the way to the other side of the field for a touchdown (that’s the six, for the six points a touchdown is worth). This game ended when Atlanta’s defense got a pick-six.

Sunday, October 11, 2015 4:05 or 4:25 p.m. ET

Arizona Cardinals 42 at Detroit Lions 17

Line: The Lions couldn’t go 0-16 again, could they? Could they?

What it means: The Detroit Lions are the only franchise in NFL history to ever go a 16 game season with out winning a single game. They achieved this ignominious feat in 2008. Other teams have gone entire seasons without winning a game but only when the season was shorter. At 0-5, these Lions are beginning to elicit unfortunate comparisons to that 2008 team. As bad as they are, they’re very unlikely to end the season winless.

New England Patriots 30 at Dallas Cowboys 6

Line: I’m actually surprised this game was so close, maybe Bellichick spent the bye week plotting ways to beat the Colts next Sunday night.

What it means: Although the Patriots won this game handily, they didn’t dominate the Cowboys the way some people (myself included) expected them to. Part of the reason why we expected them to dominate so thoroughly was because the Patriots had their bye week last week. Because the Patriots play the Colts next week and because the Colts are the team that tried to turn the Patriots in last season for having deflated balls, It’s funny and a tiny bit plausible for the Patriots to have spent the extra time during their week off thinking of ways to beat the Colts, not the Cowboys.

Denver Broncos 16 at Oakland Raiders 10

Line: After 16 seasons of “Peyton Manning carries his defense” there’s some symmetry to “defense carries Peyton Manning.”

What it means: Throughout most of his long career, Peyton Manning fans have wondered how many Super Bowls their hero could have won if he had been on teams with even a league average defense. He barely ever has. Most of the time, when his teams won, it was because he scored LOTS of points. This year, at the end of his career, when he is visibly reduced, he’s playing on a team (the Broncos) that has a great defense. The defense were responsible for winning this game, despite Manning and the offense struggling.

Sunday, October 4, 2015 8:30 p.m. ET

San Francisco 49ers 27 at New York Giants 30

Line: Could this be the rare comforting brutal loss for the 49ers?

What it means: The San Francisco 49ers lost in heartbreaking fashion when Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw a touchdown to tight end Larry Donnell with only 21 second left in the game. Nonetheless, this came may have been encouraging to 49ers fans who probably thought their team didn’t have the heart or the wherewithal to score as many points as they did or keep this game as close as they did. With a 1-4 record after five games, the 49ers will almost definitely not make the playoffs, but based on last night’s showing, all might not be lost for future seasons.