What are some good websites for intelligent discussion and analysis of the NFL?

January 18, 2008 8:41 AM

What are some good websites for intelligent discussion and analysis of the NFL?

ESPN excels at covering the celebrity gossip aspects of sports. Ron Jaworski's NFL Matchup is terrific, but it's only a half hour, and they hide it at like 8am on Sunday. So who's out there writing that type of nuts-and-bolts stuff, about, say, how the Patriots managed to run for so many yards against the Jaguars? Stuff along the lines of Football Outsiders? Anything out there that does what Fire Joe Morgan does, but for football?

posted by ibmcginty to sports, hobbies, & recreation (10 comments total)

Tuesday Morning Quarterback?
posted by chickaboo at 8:48 AM on January 18, 2008

Well, I would say that you would be best served by looking at various sports pages for newspapers throughout the country. I personally (I am biased this is my paper) am a big fan of most of the writers at the Washington Post, and just yesterday they did a piece about how rule changes in 2004 which were in reaction to the Patriots overly aggressive defensive backs in their first two Superbowl wins essentially enabled their current offensive juggernaut. There are many other terrific sports pages out there, and they are a fun thing to look through.
posted by BobbyDigital at 8:57 AM on January 18, 2008

Football Outsiders is a great site for analysis using non-traditional stats
posted by Jakey at 8:57 AM on January 18, 2008

Ooops, missed the last line of the question!
posted by Jakey at 8:58 AM on January 18, 2008

Not an answer, but it sounds like a great blog idea to aggregate and/or link to the best of NFL commentary along the lines of what you're describing.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:38 AM on January 18, 2008

I just recently discovered Hashmarks, an ESPN blog by Matt Moseley, and I've been enjoying it. His daily link roundups are especially useful. Also at ESPN, Len Pasquarelli is consistently good for analysis after big games. As a Patriots fan, I read a lot of Reiss's Pieces, a blog by a Boston Globe writer who often does the sort of nuts and bolts breakdowns you're looking for. Restricted to Pats and their opponents, though.
posted by otio at 9:57 AM on January 18, 2008

Pro Football Talk is a fugly site that often has a decent compendium of NFL news and gossip.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:16 AM on January 18, 2008

sportsbook.com. Sure, its a gambling site. But they offer pretty in depth reviews of upcoming games. Lots of somewhat inane but interesting facts too. (Stuff like record on turf in jan when temp below 32F). Look for the platinum sheet pdf download.
posted by ShootTheMoon at 2:05 PM on January 18, 2008

This link goes to the google hits of an acquaintance who is a professional NFL analyst on Canadian TV and a couple of blogs. I don't know anything about the NFL, so I can't vouch for how good his analyses are, but I do know that this person grew up with a sportswriter father, he is a rabid football fan, and he has thought about the NFL about 22 hours a day for at least the past 20 years. So worth checking out, I guess.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 3:21 PM on January 18, 2008

(oh, sorry, if you're trying that link, you should probably go to the bottom and ask google to include the omitted similar results- there'll be way more article titles to browse that way.)
posted by pseudostrabismus at 3:23 PM on January 18, 2008