Clutch Hits - Football and Bill James (December 20, 2003)
I made a comment here on Football and Bill James:
I think the 5-yd line / 10-yd line thing is very interesting.
If you watch CFL, where they have a 20yd endzone, you will see a much different way of football being played (besides the 3/4 down thing).
I wouldn't be surprised that say the 5yd line was the least optimal, given only a 10yd endzone. That maybe what you want is to be on the 1st,2nd,3rd,9th,8th,4th,7th,5th,10th,11th,6th, 12th,13th,14th,15th etc, whatever.
That's for 1st down. If it's 3rd down, then you want something else, etc.
As for "Bill James" of football, Bill James is a genius baseball writer. No one can possibly compare to him. Still today, I can remember all of his great research, most of his good, and alot of his run-of-the-mill stuff. And just yesterday, I was looking over some of my own stuff, and I had completely forgotten something pretty cool that I did. It was something that I was about to do, and by luck, I saw that I already did it.
James is an extremely gifted writer.
--posted by TangoTiger at 12:17 PM EDT