Mathletic Prowess
Football Outsiders statistics guru Aaron Schatz previews the NFL playoffs with Tablet’s resident sports fanatic, Marc Tracy, and offers a strong outlook for pro football’s Jews
The NFL playoffs are upon us. Over the next three weekends, 12 teams will vie for the opportunity to represent their conference on February 6 at Cowboys Stadium, outside Dallas, in the Super Bowl. On Vox Tablet, staff writer (and indefatigable Redskins fan) Marc Tracy talks to Aaron Schatz, the founder and editor of the website Football Outsiders, which looks at the game through the prism of seemingly quirky but rigidly logical statistics. Tracy and Schatz discuss the method behind the stats—which have frequently proved better predictors of team success than the TV-sports pundits —as well as which teams the numbers favor this year, and they determine what stake Jewish fans have in the contests over the next month. (Fortunately, the stats and the Jews appear to be in alignment this year.) [Running time: 17:40.]
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