HERRRRE’S JOHNNY! A BREAKTHROUGH IN ANALYTICS
Robservations ...
Much was made of TSN announcers’ propensity to mention Montreal Alouettes quarterback Johnny Manziel during the telecast of Sunday’s game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Ergo, I decided to quantify the references — allowing sports analytics to ascend to a once-unimaginable tier. Brace yourself for the most knowledge you can ever hope to extract from a cheapo cop-out of a “he can’t think of a topic so this is the kind of stuff he resorts to” odds-andends column.
Manziel’s name or his moniker (Johnny Football) were mentioned 154 times, or once every 57.66 seconds (commercial time excluded). Roughriders quarterback Zach Collaros was next at 138 (once every 64.35 seconds).
Raw numbers can be deceiving, however, because Collaros was on the field considerably longer than his quarterbacking counterpart — Saskatchewan’s time of possession was 35 minutes 20 seconds — and much busier through the air (going 29-for-41, whereas Manziel was 9-for 16).
Mentions per pass attempt: Manziel 9.63; Collaros 3.37.
Mentions per play from scrimmage: Manziel 4.40; Collaros 2.09.
Mentions of the head coaches while using the Manzielometer: Chris Jones 9; Mike Sherman 3. (See? I told you the Riders would win in a rout!)
Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions and accuses TSN of overkill, consider that Darian Durant has been referenced 1,400 times during one of my columns or articles. Other notables: Kent Austin (1,048); Henry Burris (879); Danny Barrett (780); Weston Dressler (709); Kerry Joseph (627); Ron Lancaster (608); Kevin Glenn (564); Roy Shivers (554); Ken Miller (487); Brent Parker (428); Chris Jones (387); Brendan Taman (382); George Reed (319); Joey Walters (277); Ray Elgaard (262); Jim Hopson (248); Don Narcisse (244); Jeff Fairholm (220); Jordan Eberle (172, including the first article ever written about him); John Paddock (169); Wayne Gretzky (167); Zach Collaros (126); Sam Steel (117); Bob Hughes (111); Adam Brooks (99); Oscar Peterson (99); “We want ESPN!” (61); Johnny Manziel (22); Johnny Football (6); Johnny Equestrian (0).
Seriously ... 1,400 mentions of Durant? That is one or two short of overkill.
Should the Manzielometer be used to tabulate references to John Tavares during a Toronto Maple Leafs telecast? Anyone?
Nice gesture: Collaros shook hands with head referee Dave Foxcroft after the Roughriders’ 34-29 victory in Montreal.
Roughriders president-ceo Craig Reynolds is the special guest on this week’s Leader-post Rider Rumblings video podcast, which is available on leaderpost. com, itunes or Google Play Music.
Baseball’s champagne-soaked celebrations are over the top. Instead of going bonkers over winning a wild-card game, save something for advancing to or, preferably, winning the World Series.
Email of the week (arrived Sunday): “A few games ago you were apoplectic that the Riders were losing. Now that they’re starting to win you’re arrogantly predicting beatdowns. I follow the league fairly closely and I don’t recall reading anything like that from papers in Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary or Winnipeg. The Riders won today but not by much ... against the worst team in the league. I get that there’s not a lot happening in Regina but your ridiculous sophomoric allegiance just makes you and your fans sound like hillbilly’s. Please stop it. It’s embarrassing.” (Sort of like misspelling “hillbillies.”)
Whacko email of the week (spelling, spacing, punctuation and capitalization errors preserved for comedic effect): “Hey (anatomical reference) just remember you guys can’t even count lost you a grey cup 13th man how many grey cups have you one, more than the also, I think not.so (BLEEP) you homer.”
Recommended reading: “Football for a Buck,” Jeff Pearlman’s much-anticipated book about the United States Football League. This spectacular page-turner, written by my favourite author, arrived Tuesday and was finished within 36 hours. Reading it was an obsession and a joy. The Manzielometer should have been modified to count the laugh-outloud moments. Buy this book!
Even the index cracked me up. See: “cigarette smoking, 36, 55, 59, 231, 246, 290.” Also, “drugs” is broken down into cocaine (5960, 64, 164, 176, 238, 250, 266), heroin (266), marijuana (32, 85, 150, 155, 191, 266), prescription (154-55) and steroids (31, 154), with cross-references to “alcohol” and “smoking.”
Ex-roughriders players, coaches or hopefuls mentioned in “Football for a Buck”: Hugh Campbell, Tom Rozantz, Ray Jauch, Mike Hohensee, Ron Estay, Bruce Miller, Mike Stock and, now at 278 mentions, Joey Walters.
Nice people who deserve a plug: Joey Walters (279), James Duthie, Jamie Mclennan, Tracey Blair, Tony Wolters, Shirley Prokop, Mark Rolfes, Tim Tress, Brent Butcher, Bill Pierce, Derek Tse, Garry Braun, Danielle Reed, Kerry Wrishko, Chris Parish and, returning to Regina this weekend, Kevin Glenn.