Math With Jerome

There are many ways football analysts can describe a player.  He's a high energy player...hits with a lot of force...has exceptional power…puts in the work. For the most part we all understand what is meant when these types of words are used to describe some physical attribute of a player. However, in the world of physics each of the words I used above has a specific meaning and, you guessed it, a formula. This is going to dive into what is sometimes referred to as Newtonian (or Classical) Mechanics , which looks at how forces applied to objects create and influence motion. This is, of course, named after Sir Isaac Newton , the founder of gravity and partially credited with inventing calculus (I'm team Leibniz , but that's maybe for a later time). You may have heard of Newton's Three Laws of Motion - that's what we're going to explore here and relate the mechanics of motion to the NFL combine.  Newton discovering gravity by getting donked in the head by an...

So WTF is the NFL's passer rating, really? It's one of those stats announcers and talking heads on TV like to use to make a point when it's mentioned only when it's very high or very low. I knew  only a few things  (and I think is the case for most people)  about passer ratings: Greater values are "better", it ranges from 0 to 158.3, and sometimes a quarterback would be better off throwing all their attempts into the ground, or so the announcer would say.  This prompted several questions. How is this rating calculated? Are greater values always better? Why is the max 158.3? And what is with that weird scenario I hear about where a QB would be better off with all incompletions?  I'll hit on a few of the key concepts and background of passer ratings, but if you want to read more on this the NFL has goes into more detail here . Quick Background of Passer Ratings The point of this passer rating system is to compare passers' performances from season t...