Friday 5: 2012 NFL Draft

It’s after midnight so it’s technically Friday, so I’m calling this a Friday 5. It’s going to be the same as we’ve done in years past. The five best picks of the first round, the five worst picks of the first round, and the five best remaining players after the first round.

Check it out after the jump, and be sure to vote in the poll at the bottom.

The Route to The Championship Game

This is part two of three in my look at the road teams have had to travel to get to the final weekend of college basketball. A few days ago I looked at the Road to the Final Four, and examined what each of the Final Four teams (including this year) from this millennium had to do to get to the Final Four.

Simon says, "indicate the coach that will win the Championship."

This post, however, is to examine what teams actually had to do to make it to the Championship Game. I took it one step further this time though because instead of looking at just the teams from this millennium, I’ve taken the data from every team to every make it to the Championship Game since they expanded the field to 64 teams in 1985.

Road to the Final Four

A few weeks ago I started wondering about what teams/schools have had the easiest route to the final four. As soon as the bracket is announced every year people start talking about which top seeds have the “easiest” bracket and who will have the best chance of making it to the Final Four.

Whenever these conversations take place, I immediately think “doesn’t it have more to do with which region has the most upsets, rather than what the other top seeds are in the region?”

For example, this year you would have likely looked at Xavier (a 10-seed) and thought they wouldn’t even survive the first weekend, because even if they managed to upset 7-seed Notre Dame, they would then have to face 2-seed Duke in their second game. Well, Duke got upset by 15-seed Lehigh, and next thing you know Xavier is a favorite in their second game and went on to make it to the Sweet 16.

Baylor didn’t even have to play a single-digit seed until they lost to Kentucky in the Elite Eight. They played 14-seed South Dakota State in the round of 64, 11-seed Colorado in the round of 32, and then 10-seed Xavier in the Sweet 16.

The amazing thing is that I came up with those two examples by only looking at one half of one region in one year’s bracket. Imagine what we could find if we looked at all four regions from every tournament from this millennium.

That’s exactly what I did. Check it out after the jump.

Chasing Brett Favre and Dan Marino

Peyton Manning ranks third all-time in passes completed, passing touchdowns, and passing yards, with Brett Favre ranking first in all three, and Dan Marino second. Favre and Marino also rank first and second, respectively, in passes attempted, with John Elway third and Manning fourth.

I’m going to take a look at each of these four statistical categories and see what exactly it will take for Manning to catch Favre and Marino. I’m going to ignore Elway’s passing attempts, because he’s only 40 ahead of Manning, which could easily be accomplished in the first game of the 2012 season, and would be surprising if it didn’t happen during the second game.

Reviewing My Field of 68 Prediction

Alright, I’m an idiot because I forgot that the Great West tourney winner doesn’t get an automatic bid, but other than that I did pretty well with these predictions, missing only three. I got three of the four #1 seeds right, with North Carolina taking one of them instead of Missouri.

After the jump I’ve listed my prediction again, with the teams I got correct in green and the teams that I was wrong about in red and a strikethrough with the actual team next to it in black.

My Predicted Field of 68 for 2012

The Big Ten Tournament just ended with an close win by Michigan State over Ohio State and the selection show for this year’s NCAA tourney starts in about half an hour, so I’m putting up my predicted field of 68 just for kicks. I did this in 2009 and 2010 and only missed two or three (I believe) both years, so let’s see if I can find similar success this time around.

I’m simply listing my predicted 68 teams in alphabetical order because I don’t have time to predict the seedings right now.

Either way, the list is after the jump.

Fifteen Years Later, It’s Still Impressive

Fifteen years ago yesterday Cal Ripken Jr. suited up and took the field for the 2,131st consecutive time.  From May 2nd, 1982 until September 6th, 1995 he ran out to shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles in every single game they played and in doing so he broke the Iron Horse Lou Gehrig‘s “unbreakable record.”

I was nine when Ripken broke the record and I watched the entire game in my parents’ bedroom.  I remember certain parts really well, like Ripken’s 4th inning homerun off the immortal Shawn Boskie, his 22 minute lap around Camden Yards, and unveiling the numbers on the warehouse across the street.  Other things I don’t remember quite as well, like the final score (4-2 Orioles over the Angels), and anything else that happened.

Weller’s New Gig

For those of you that don’t already know, I recently got hired by ColtsChronicle.com as their Lead Writer. I just put up my first post and thought I would link you all to it.

Click here to read my self-introduction post.

Fair Warning

We’ve clearly been slacking on the posts around here and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.  As you may remember, I’m engaged.  Luckily, Jen hasn’t kicked me to the curb yet so we’re getting married on Saturday.

Weller has already started his journey across the country to deliver a best-man speech and he wasn’t posting anyway so don’t expect anything out of him any time soon.  I’ll be headed to Barbados after that for a week and I come home in the middle of a Cardinals home stand, so I’ll be out of commission for a bit.  Hopefully they’ll announce the Home Run Derby participants before I leave on Friday morning and I can do the Home Run Derby facts, but if not, I’ll be back after a tropical vacation.

Happy Birthday to WaB

We are officially two years old today! It’s fitting that it falls one day before the NFL Draft starts.

There’s another picture after the jump and it’s definitely worth looking at…