Welcome to this week’s episode of Hot Takedown, our podcast where the hot sports takes of the week meet the numbers that prove them right or tear them down. On this week’s show (Sept. 8, 2015), we offer a preview of this year’s NFL season now that Tom Brady is playing a full slate of games. Plus FiveThirtyEight’s Walt Hickey helps launch our newest crowdsourcing project — challenging you to win the Super Bowl using his avatar in Madden. Then we bring you the latest in our U.S. Open mini-podcast, Baseline, with host Carl Bialik. And to close out the show, a Significant Digit on the weirdness of this year’s Premier League season.
Stream the episode by clicking the play button, or subscribe using one of the podcast clients we’ve linked to above. Below are links to some of the articles we discussed on the show.
- FiveThirtyEight’s comprehensive NFL preview coverage, rolling out all this week.
- Walt Hickey and Neil Paine go behind the Madden ratings.
- Want to win Madden with Walt as your quarterback? Here’s how to take part in our crowdsourcing project.
- The full archive of Baseline podcasts from Carl Bialik.
- Significant Digit: 0.8. Soccer journalist Michael Caley recently created an “Early Season Weirdness Rating” for the Premier League. This year’s early weirdness is only 0.8 standard deviations above the average weirdness at this point in the season. In other words, just a little bit weird!
Madden Challenge: Win the Superbowl with this guy
If you’re a fan of our podcasts, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts and leave a rating/review. That helps spread the word to other listeners. And get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments. Tell us what you think, send us hot takes to discuss and tell us why we’re wrong.