Crazy Stats From The World of Sports: The Bradiots win Another Ring-A-Goodelling, the NFL Playoffs Eye Gougers: Let's Turn On The Stiffs to Futbol (An American Mind Massacre from Europe)

THE MOST BIZARRE STATS IN THE WORLD OF SPORTAGE...
THE WEIRD......
THE SURREAL.....

THE HILARIOUS....
AND.....

THE INSANE

THE BORINGEST, MOST AWFULEST, STUPIDEST, WORSTEST, SHITTIEST, MOST REVOLTINGLY INSANE SUPER BOWL 

- Super Bowl LIII was the lowest scoring Super Bowl definitively of all time, with only 16 combined points (Pats win 13-3) and the score was only 3-0 going into the 4th quarter. What a shame it was.
- But the most insane stat has to be:
THE ONE...I repeat....ONE...single play in the RED ZONE from either team and it was the Sony Michel run into the end zone for the ONLY touchdown of the game to beat the Rams. This was after a 29 yard catch by Rob Gronkowski (the longest play of the game for either team, once again) set them up on the goal line.

- Statistically, there wasn't much difference between the LA Rams and the Patriots
......both sucked:

   - The Patriots only had the ball for 6 and a half more minutes than the Rams (it was decisive, I get it and it felt like more).
   - The Rams and Patriots had 12 and 13 drives respectively
   - New England only ran 8 more plays than the Rams (68-60)
   - Both teams quarterback threw an interception.
   - Although the rushing stats: 154 to 62 (Pats, Rams) tell the tale of who eventually pulled away from this bloodbath in the trenches.
   - Patriots running back James White, who's torched teams throughout the playoffs and in recent Super Bowls for Tom Brady, only had 2 rushes for 4 yards and a lone catch for 5. What a bizarre game..
   - How did Brandin Cooks have 8 catches for 120 yards?? When did that happen??😂😂😂
   - It was a fun game to watch if you played defensive back (like my brother and I did), with 13 total passes defended by the Super Bowl teams, with 8 by Belichick's stifling Legion of Doom and the Rams studs had a few great plays in coverage with 5.
- the Legion of Doom held McVay and Goff's balanced, yet high flying offensive attack that scored 30+ points in 13 games this season to only 3...and a shutout through 3 quarters.

- and NO! BILL BELICHICK IS NOT RACIST! He just likes lacrosse players....who happen to (99.9% of the time) come from over-priviliged white families.

*Thank you, Jason Whitlock for bringing race into the worst Super Bowl of all time...and I thought shitty refs, an even shittier league commissioner, an abhorrent halftime show and a foreign spy for a president was bad enough.

DAK PRESSTOP HOLDING ON TO THE BALL SO LONG
- Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott had a tough go against the Rams in the LA Coliseum in the Divisional Playoffs, but most of all, that proves his ineptitude when it counted most: Dak and his Cowboyzzz went 1-10 on 3rd down.

- the Chargers and Patriots' Divisional Playoff game was the first Postseason game to have touchdowns scored on the first 3 possessions since the 2009 NFC title game between Favre's Vikings and Brees' Saints. And yes, the Chargers had one of those touchdowns, too.
 COURTESY: CBS

EDELMAN IS A HALL OF FAMER
a lot of talking heads act like Julian Edelman, the Super Bowl LIII MVP and Patriots receiver, isn't a Hall of Fame football player. They also act like what he did on Sunday was something new.
It wasn't.
His Super Bowl resume:
-SUPER BOWL LIII: 10 for 141
-out injured for LII
-SUPER BOWL LI: 5 for 87 (27 yard catch)
-SUPER BOWL XIXI?: 9 for 109 1 TD (12 targ)
-SUPER BOWL XIVI?: 3 kick ret. for 73 (31 long yard return)
- 2nd all time in postseason receptions
- 4th all time in postseason yards

PREMIER LEAGUE HAPPENINGS

- Watford left back Jose Holebas has 3 goals and 6 assists, winning a total of 19 points (3= win, 1=draw, 0=loss) for his club, a staggering number for a mid-table Premier League club on the ascent: without Holebas, they could be in the relegation zone.
      Instead, Watford are pushing for a Europa League spot, with massive plaudits to the Greek left back's crossing and dead ball deliveries. In addition, he's bagged more goals this season than he's had in his entire Watford career combined (since 2015).
   

- Despite Liverpool forward Sadio Mane's

criticism from all comers, the Senegalese World Cup star has scored 11 goals in the Premier league and won 20 points for the current Premier league leaders, scoring 3 straight goals in a difficult stretch of matches (two 1-1 draws and a 4-3 over Palace), showing Mane is leading Liverpool, maybe not in his performances thoroughly, but through his goals ala Salah (see what I did there?) last campaign.

- Pundits and fans alike believe this year's Liverpool front three of Salah, Mane and Firmino have been off. There's even been recent lackluster performances that have been followed by piercing calls of the front three being "out of form" and "slowing down".
On the contrary:
We crunched the numbers and compared to last year, the front three of SMF have only scored two more goals last term at this time than this year  (38 in 2017/18, 36 in 2018/19). Salah is down from 21 to 16, Mane is up from 6 to 11 and Firmino is marginally down from 11 to 9 this campaign.


THE CURIOUS CASE OF SAMUEL UMTITI 
- Barcelona center back Samuel Umtiti has been missing nearly all season for the Catalan giants with a bizarre knee injury. The defense, led by Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba, has been beyond suspect for 3/4 of the season, giving up 31 this campaign already; compared to last year with Umtiti appearing in 99.9% of matches, Barca only allowed 26 the entire campaign. This proves (along with another billion stats out there, I'm sure) how valuable Samuel Umtiti is for Barcelona success.

THE QUESTIONS OF A THOUSAND DREAMS: Can Clement Lenglet continue to prove his talents and solidify that LCB spot next to Pique and tighten Barca's defense in the process? Or will some of the strange deficiencies he's shown (most born from his recent arrival to a new club with new ways of playing out of the back) rear their ugly head, such as against PSV?
      Or will Valverde go with a committee of centerbacks, with Columbian Jeison Murrilo, Belgian Thomas Vermaelen, La Masia product Chumi and the former Sevilla man Lenglet at his disposal (Toulouse sold another talented young French center back, Jean-Claire Todibo, to Barca although he arrives in the Summer.


THE MOST BIZARRE PATRIOTS STAT

- The New England Bradiots have failed to score a touchdown in the 1st quarter in every Super Bowl appearance under the Brady - Belichick nonconsensual relationship (all 9! That's crazy!)
COURTESY: THE EVER NASTY SHOT-TAKING PARTNERSHIP OF JIM NANTZ AND TONY ROMO, WHO TOOK 10-20 BARELY VEILED SHOTS AT ONE ANOTHER DURING THE SUPER BOWL BROADCAST.... IT WAS HILARIOUS. JIM THINKS TONY IS A ROOKIE. TONY THINKS JIM IS...WELL.........OLD!

DOUBLE TROUBLE: IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE
- Both Chelsea's Eden Hazard, the Belgium captain and his brother, Borussia Monchengladbach star and Belgium World Cup player Thorgan Hazard, notched double digits in dribbles on the same day  (Eden with 12 and Thorgan with 11). While Thorgan dished 2 assists for his club's

victory and Eden scored 2 goals for Chelsea's EPL victory. A weird simultaneous duo of braces from the Brothers Hazard.

BAT IT DOWN!!!

- The Kansas City Chiefs brutally harassed Andrew Luck's passing over the trenches in the Divisional Playoffs in KC. But the biggest impact was the batting or deflecting of passes by the linemen, linebackers and secondary. They got their hands on 11 passes from Andrew Luck, with defensive lineman Chris Jones batting 3 down and all-pro linebacker / defensive end hybrid Justin Houston with 1 himself and 2 sacks, with 1 being especially huge on a 3rd and 6 that all but emasculated The Colts.
IN DEPTH: The Chiefs even seemed to either partially deflect, or at least disrupt Adam Vinatieri's earlier missed field goal, a 23 yard field goal: the shortest field goal Vinatieri has ever missed in his entire two decade plus career. The former Patriots Super Bowl hero (x3) and Colts Super Bowl passenger (x2, with 1 loss) also shanked an extra point, too.

BYE BYE WILD CARD TEAMS 

-  in this year's playoffs, all 4 teams with a first round bye (Chiefs, Saints, Pariapricots and Rams) advanced to the conference championship games, this is the first time since the 2015/16 season that this has happened and before then it happened in the 2004/05 season.

THEY WENT UNDEFEATED IN SOMETHING AND WON THE SUPER BOWL 
- with their 10th win at home this season (after they lambasted the LA Chargers at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.,) the New England Patriots became the first NFL team to ever go undefeated at home throughout an NFL regular and postseason (the AFC title game was at Arrowhead Stadium, KC, so there was no opportunity for an 11th win, or a 1st loss, which there wasn't anyway, as the Bradiots went on to win yet another Super Bowl).

CALL IT DA TUMBLIN DIIII-IICE
- NFL teams this postseason were a collective 87% on 4th down tries. A sign o' the times, baby: everyone's been rolling the dice . The NFL is calling you, Les Miles... it's tailor made for him now  (can I insert a wink emoji?).



SANE THE ASSISTDRAGON
- Manchester City has cultivated a large attacking group with the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling, Bernardo and David Silva, young in form Brazilian Gabriel Jesus, Algerian Riyad Mahrez  (who was PFA player of the year and led Leicester to a Premier league title on his shoulders in 2016) and youngsters like Phil Foden.  Yet when it comes to sheer numbers, the German left winger Leroy Sane leads them all: Sane has 25 Premier league assists since the beginning of last season, more than any other City, or Premier League player  (perhaps De Bruyne leads this list if he isn't out injured for most of the first half of this campaign).


DE GEA CAN STOP EVERYTHING....JUST NOT HIMSELF WHEN IT'S NONCONSENSUAL 
- Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea put on a career retrospective type performance against Tottenham a few weeks ago, with ALL 11 of his saves coming in the 2nd half alone as Kane, Eriksen, Alli and Dier all peppered his goal with brilliant shots that would've been goals had any other keeper been in between the sticks.
      The Spaniard was absolutely brilliant, maintaining a 1-0 United lead throughout the siege of the second half as Tottenham completely ran the roost and were the better side, but even with 11 shots on target, This Spurs team  previously scored 25 goals in their last 6 matches, yet could not break through David De Gea.
    A truly remarkable performance.
    Who knows where this United club would be without this guy....