Things That Caught My Eye

Tom Brady is really great at being a football player, but his provenance as a nutritionist or health expert is suspect. In the spirit of “just because you’re a bird doesn’t mean you’re an ornithologist,” Christie Ashwanden took a serious look at the TB12 method, and the reality is that drinking lots of water isn’t the same as putting on sunscreen, drinking too much water is actually pretty dangerous, and “pliability” could have less to do with Tom Brady’s continued efficacy behind center than, say, a continually successful offensive line that’s been adept at protecting him from injury. On the other hand, as I’m currently on day four of The Gronk Cleanse, I am pretty hammered. [FiveThirtyEight]

The Buffalo Bills have snapped the longest active streak in the NFL and made the playoffs after 17 years of not doing that. The organization is in heaven right now. Still, making the playoffs can have a lot more to do with luck than skill, and this Bills group is pretty middle-of-the-road talent-wise when compared to those 17 other teams. While they finished 9-7, teams that got outscored by 57 points over the course of the year usually get fewer breaks in their direction and finish with six or seven wins. [FiveThirtyEight]

Of 1,690 men’s Division I college hockey players, 13 identified themselves as black. One is Jordan Greenway, a Boston University forward who became the first African-American hockey player to represent Team U.S.A. at the Winter Olympics. [The Undefeated]

The University of Central Florida is claiming that they’re the national champions of college football. Despite not making the college football playoff, UCF argues that, since they went undefeated and beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl, they get to be champs. This stunt could be a lot of things, but it’s not a half measure by any stretch: Athletic Director Danny White said that the coaching staff is getting their national title bonuses and all. [SB Nation]

Try out our interactive, Which World Cup Team Should You Root For?

Cleveland went 0-16 this season, joining the Detroit Lions as the only franchises to lose 16 regular season games. Thousands of Cleveland fans will reportedly gather this Saturday to watch a parade commemorating the season of “perfection.” [Cincinnati.com]

Off the top 100 most viewed telecasts in 2017, 81 of them ended up being sports events. Live sports continues to be one of the main attractions on the television. Put in a historical context, even the NFL is doing alright: While Fox telecasts of NFL games were down from 2016 and 2015, viewership is still up compared to 10, 15 and 20 years ago, according to Sports Business Daily. [Austin Karp]

Make sure to try your hand at our fun NFL game: Can you beat the FiveThirtyEight predictions?

Big Number

21 percent

Going into the NFL Wildcard weekend, New England is the overwhelming favorite to win the Super Bowl, with a 31 percent chance of doing so. Minnesota, Philly, and Pittsburgh have 19, 15 and 14 percent chances of doing so according to out Elo model, so we’d expect about a 79 percent chance one of those teams wins the championship. Now, you may recall none of those teams are playing football this weekend. Among the wild card teams, the ones with the best shots are New Orleans, Kansas City, and Atlanta, with a 5 percent, 4 percent and 4 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl. Still, there’s only a 21 percent chance one of the teams this weekend wins it all. [FiveThirtyEight]

Leaks from Slack:

cwick:

Rare D-I women’s quadruple-double recorded

quadruple double!

neil:

Whoa!

10 steals 👀

cwick:

@neil is it easier to get 10 steals or 10 blocks?

neil:

Way easier to get the blocks (at least in the NBA)

There are only 20 games of double digit steals in Basketball-Reference’s database

There are 143 double digit block games

Predictions

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