Is he really going? Rob Gronkowski’s career lasted only nine years, but he seems to have been with us forever. He cut across the NFL like a hard-partying red-white-and-blue comet; a Pat Patriot come to life, leaving a trail of flattened defenders in his wake.

This week’s Tom Brady update got me wondering about about how some of his contemporaries are doing. I generally don’t want to post active players’ stats; when I started doing this 10 years ago, I tracked a few guys who were still playing, but there were some wild swings in value as their careers wound down, and I decided it was better to wait until they were finished.

After a big bump in 2017, Tom Brady inched up a tenth of a point in 2018. Following the 2019 Super Bowl, he sits at 30.32, still 0.67 behind Peyton Manning. Has he plateaued? There was just a hint of regression this year, and it may be that after 309 games, time is catching up …

Continue reading Tom Brady watch

Doing a project like this, you run into a lot of what-if scenarios; players whose careers were cut short or derailed by circumstances beyond their control. Usually, that means injuries. Bobby Orr is one guy I singled out, as is Gale Sayers, but at least they established their greatness. Bo Jackson never got going. Don …

Continue reading Notes on Steve Young: The most intriguing what-if career

It was, for my grandfather’s generation, the defining basketball argument. Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain? Talent or intensity? The guy with the numbers or the guy with the rings? Though they both retired before I was born, I felt the reverberations of their rivalry even in my time. After all, Russell was the first coach …

Continue reading Notes: Russ vs. Wilt as the line of demarcation

Did Joe Jackson inspire the Bambino, or did he just make a really good first impression?

He scores the highest in the Apples & Oranges system. So what does that mean?