Chill Sports

With two weeks of NFL action in the books, we’ve seen quite a wide range of quarterback talent on display. On one end of the spectrum are the known commodities like Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, who have been going scorched earth on the league and cementing their status as being in a tier of their own. Per RBSDM, Mahomes and Allen are first and second in EPA/play among quarterbacks with marks of 0.479 and 0.476, respectively; the next-closest quarterback has an EPA/play of 0.360 (more on him soon!). More intriguing, however, is the play from the quarterbacks with chips on their shoulders. I could gush about players like Allen and Mahomes for pages and pages, but “Guys Who You Know Are Good at Football Continue to Be Good at Football” reads almost like a headline from The Onion. So instead I’d like to focus on the passers with points to prove-- let’s discuss those who are silencing their doubters, and those who are playing their way out of employment. Trending Up: ...

In the world of professional sports, everyone who plays at the highest level is a near-superhuman athlete. To play a single minute -- hell, to even get a roster spot -- on a team in the NFL, NBA, NHL, or almost any league, you need to be in the 99th percentile of athletes in your position. Yes, there are exceptions , but this point still mostly holds. So what separates the good athletes from the truly great ones? What’s the difference between the “just fine” players (the Kirk Cousinses, Jimmy Garoppolos, and Ryan Tannehills of the world) and, say, Joe Montana? Largely, the answer lies in their mentality. No, your mental fortitude isn’t absolutely everything -- even if I had the most killer-instinct mindset imaginable, I’d wager Julio Jones would still have a better NFL career than me. However, between those already in the 99th percentile, how you study, prepare, and visualize success is often the deciding factor between having a solid career and having a Hall-of-Fame one. Perhaps mos...

It’s hard to put into words just how much this past decade of Seahawks football has meant to their fans as well as to the city of Seattle as a whole. It’s been an unimaginable prize for the fans who toughed it out through decades of mediocrity and for the newer sports fans alike, but more than that, Seahawks football is a pervasive and inescapable part of Seattle culture. Image Source You can see ‘12’ flags outside houses, classrooms, and businesses anywhere in the state. Likely a majority of the greater Seattle area wears Seahawks gear or team colors every ‘Blue Friday’ before a game. The games themselves are perhaps the most powerful community bonding event in the Pacific Northwest. Even for those who don’t follow football, it’s a welcome excitement whenever the weekend rolls around. For these reasons, it’s equally hard to put into words how heartbreaking Tuesday, March 9 was to the team’s faithful. In the darkest day in Seahawks history since that play , two of the last remnants of ...