Post Potpurri

I'm excited for today's post - it is a combination of posts I've been writing for the past week.

Quarterbacks
Peter King wrote an article for SI.com today that mirrored other arguments I've heard on the radio - that this weekend's playoff games featured 3 of the top 6-10 QBs in football history (Peyton, Brady, and Favre). I agree that they are all great quarterbacks, but consider Bill Simmons' argument that the NFL is filled with tons of QB vacancies right now and that the overall level of QB talent right now is poor. You can't deny that there is a QB drought given the demand for Vinny Testaverde, Kerry and Todd Collins, etc. So my question is whether Peyton, Brady, and Favre really are top 10 all time QBs or if their peers' mediocrity boosts their value. And that is a question that I haven't heard posed on any of the talk shows. Favre's career numbers are the best - but given his health and tenure, should we expect them to be any less? I wanted to sort this out, so I did the only thing I know how - crunch the numbers and compare. I was REALLY surprised by what I found out. In my opinion, the two most important things are TD-INT ratio, since it shows the ability to score vs. errors, and completion percentage, because it proves accuracy. Using these two stats levels the playing field as well because it evens the comparison between someone who played for 7 seasons and someone who played for 14. Here's where Favre lands...

Player TD-INT Ratio, Completion Percentage
Steve Young 2.17 to 1, 64.3%
Joe Montana 1.98 to 1, 63.2%
Dan Marino 1.66 to 1, 59.4%
Brett Favre 1.53 to 1, 61.4%
John Elway 1.33 to 1, 56.9%
Fran Tarkenton 1.29 to 1, 57.0%
Troy Aikman 1.17 to 1, 61.5%
Johnny Unitas 1.15 to 1, 54.6%
Terry Bradshaw 1.01 to 1, 51.9%
Joe Namath .786 to 1, 50.1%

My first surprise was how strong the correlation was; besides Aikman, the two categories go hand in hand very well. He threw the numbers off because he never threw that many more TDs than INTs (his best differential was +9 for a few seasons, but in '93 he completed 69%). My second surprise was how well he really did stack up. My third surprise was how much Joe Namath sucked. He proves that personality can get you into the Hall of Fame.

So here's the real test of where Brady and Manning's places are amongst the best. How do they stack up in those categories?

Tom Brady 2.29 to 1, 63%
Peyton Manning 2 to 1, 64.2%

You really can't argue with the results. The three of them really are among the top 6-7 QBs of all time.

My New Love for Netflix
One of the principles of successful business strategy is identify a market weakness and market your product accordingly. For example, my family used to have 7 videotapes, one for each day of the week, to record their favorite tv shows (yes, they watch a lot of tv... not surprising if you know me.) This was inefficient because they would frequently forget to tape a certain show, the VCR was unreliable, and the tape quality was poor after a few uses. TiVo was the obvious gift for my parents two Christmases ago. They love the ability to set a "season pass", organize the shows they love, skip the commercials quickly, and pause live tv. It's perfect for them.

The second most successful entertainment innovation of the past 5 years is Netflix, which last February delivered its billionth disc. It has been a few months since I've rented a movie, which is probably shocking until you figure in the number of movies we watch at the dollar theater. The other night was Stacey's birthday, so we rented a movie to cap the night off. I forgot Blockbuster now charges around $4.50 to rent a movie, only $2 less than it normally costs us to see a new movie. How in the hell do they think they can compete with Netflix, which charges $9 for unlimited rentals per month? If you didn't guess already, I signed up for the "one at a time" Netflix plan. I figure this will help me get through the writer's strike.

I started my two week free trial by renting the first season of the Mole, the best reality tv show ever. Kevin, I am convinced that you would actually enjoy this show - just forget the word that precedes "tv show". The whole show involves a lot of intrigue, mystery, and deception. The competitions are usually pretty enjoyable and it doesn't focus on the lives of the contestants. The discs take 1 day to ship, so the entire day yesterday I was looking forward to coming home to the first disc. Of course I watched the whole thing and shipped it back today. Waiting two-three days to get the next one is hard, so I instantly upgraded to the "two at a time" plan. Their website is really well designed and it makes it very easy for you to upgrade. I love to see a really good marketing strategy such as this.

My New Love for my Crockpot
We really put our crockpot to work this weekend. We started with a dessert because Stacey and I have the biggest sweet teeth. It was really simple - a layer of chocolate pudding on the bottom with a layer of prepared chocolate fudge cake mix on top. It mixes a little into a chocolate lava dessert. It is incredibly rich, so I can only eat a few bites before I feel like throwing up. I'd rate it 4.5/5 - it loses a point only because it made me feel sick both times I ate it, but it was sooo good.

Next up was a soft taco casserole. It was had layers of cheese, beans and a ground turkey/salsa mix separated by tortillas. The tortillas ended up getting soggy (which I assume was supposed to happen) so they had the consistency of cooked pasta noodles. The whole dish tasted more like lasagna than mexican. 2/5

Tonight was the premier dish - beef brisket sandwiches on french bread. I didn't know what to expect when I ordered brisket; luckily the guy at the deli counter only asked me how many pounds. It turns out brisket is just a big slab of marbled beef. I think it comes from the undercarriage. (How fun is that word, "undercarriage"?) I bought the 10,000 spices that the marinade requires (among them was "all spice" - by definition, shouldn't that alone have done the trick?) and marinated it overnight. This morning, I threw it in with a bottle of beer and 2 cups of apple cider and set it cook for 10 hours. This is the exact reason why I was excited to have a crockpot - the ability to come home to real cooking that is already done. The meat was very flavorful, but it ended up tasting pretty similar to a pot roast. Still, the sandwiches were good and leaving it all day didn't burn our apartment down. 4/5