Sports Signal-to-Noise Ratio

I was all ready (after 22-ish miles on the mountain bike) to go into a deep discussion of philosophy, but because it's Sunday, a circuit breaker tripped on that train of thought and the following resulted.

Being an American male of the species, I have an interest in the sports teams from the geographic region in which I was raised. (Note: I didn't say 'grew up,' because that process is often optional, and doesn't necessarily occur in the same location as one ages the first 18 or so years. But I digress....) Being an engineer, and of a certain intellect, I tire at times of the often-spewing-forth discussion regarding the success or failure of teams in the major sports, often based more on emotion than anything else. (In the engineering trade, emotion is to be subjugated to the facts as often as possible, with logic (as backed and guided by ready and reference information) providing the path to results. That doesn't mean that you don't end up out over your skis on occasion, guided by gut instinct and past experience, but the management of that risk (based on logic and facts) is what provides success or failure. Digression ^2 ....)

In contrast to that, as we approach the college and National Football League seasons (with the NFL Films' "The Power and the Glory: The Original Music and Voices of NFL Films" in my car CD player, my annual reading of David Maraniss' "When Pride Still Mattered" Lombardi biography underway, and the fantasy football draft I partake of each year less than two weeks off), I present a site. I came across Football Outsiders a couple years ago; it's written from the perspective of taking an analytical view of football, with a statistical view that's off the beaten path, but providing sound data.

Sidebar 3: Signal-to-Noise Ratio is a term from communications, capturing in a number the quality of a link between transmitter and receiver. Higher is better, by definition (more signal, less noise), and below some value, the link won't work anymore.

Along with FO, for information on the game of the duoconical spheroid, I also regularly read Tuesday Morning Quarterback, previously referred to, and columns on college and pro football from the usual national suspects, ESPN, CBS Sportsline, and NFL.com, of course.

My daily consumption of sports (outside of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Chicago Tribune for daily doings of teams in my previous home and my expatriate surroundings, respectively, listening to 620 WTMJ when I'm in listening range, and to ESPN Radio in whichever city) includes ESPN's Daily Quickie, a page-sized digest of the morning's sports news published about 8:30 Central each morning written by Dan Shanoff.