Ball Knower

@Real1_balogun There should be more Intercontinental playoff slots. Let's settle it on the pitch. The likes of Poland, Denmark, Italy, and Bosnia should be playing against DR Congo, Iraq, Jamaica, and Bolivia for the right to a World Cup spot.

One of those 16 slots has gone to a country that failed to win a single game during normal qualifying. There are African teams who won four games in their groups and they haven't made it to the World Cup. Burkina Faso won 6 of their 10 games, and lost only one. No World Cup. Cameroon won 5 of their 10 and lost 1, they'll be watching from home. Gabon won 8 of their 10 games. A staggering 80% of their games and they are not going to the World Cup. They lost only one. One can even argue that Madagascar are more deserving of a place in the World Cup than Sweden because they won 60% of their qualifying games. If you prune it down to the mathematics of it, the 4 semi-finalists at the last World Cup comprised 2 European countries. That's 15% of the European countries who were there — 13. Africa had one semi-finalist out of the five representatives there. That's a 20% success rate in the semis for Africa. None of both continents won the World Cup. This is what a convenient analysis looks like. And that's what you're doing. Europe has a third of the World Cup slots. There are 5 confederations sharing the other thirty-two slots but Europe believes it's not enough. You call it ‘mere’ 16 places. They say it's unfair yet everything else says otherwise. UEFA should have 24 slots while the rest of the world can share the rest? That's not ‘fair’ representation. Europe has ‘just’ 16 of 55. Africa has ‘just’ 10 (read 9+1) of its 54. None of the European countries had to travel several miles to play an intercontinental fixture. The point on home advantage lends to logic. Neutrality would have been better in their selection of venues but on those countries calling for more slots when they have one-third already, it's everything but fair. My name is Rilwan, I love and write about football systems, memories and the depths behind the game. Follow me and repost if you want more of this.

@BarryOnHere Mahomes has had 16 AP 1st teamers in 8 years as a starter and TB had 22 AP 1st teamers in 21 years as a starter. Mahomes may have lucked his way into the best supporting cast of any GOAT caliber QB of all time.

Here's the career playoff efficiency for 6 Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Not medicore QB's with fluky good playoff stats. 6 HALL OF FAMERS. So how is it, in a sport where winning is heavily correlated with QB efficiency, that the QB with the 2nd worst efficiency of the bunch has by far the most rings? Could it be that Brady was....dare I say.....an overrated luck merchant who got bailed out at an unprecedentedly high rate which led to an inflated ring count?

@JustEsBaraheni @WashWizards @PelicansNBA @Pacers @SacramentoKings @BrooklynNets @utahjazz @dallasmavs @memgrizz @Bucks @chicagobulls The rest of the picks are in reverse order of record so being the worst team in the league still gets you the #4 pick but teams rebuilding could get a boost from the lottery as they try to navigate through the "Bermuda Triangle of Mid"

@JustEsBaraheni @WashWizards @PelicansNBA @Pacers @SacramentoKings @BrooklynNets @utahjazz @dallasmavs @memgrizz @Bucks @chicagobulls Teams would be fighting to the end to not end up bottom three and it would actually make games between moribund teams thrilling as a late season tilt between the Pelicans and Wizards could knock them into relegation and out of contention for the #1 overall pick.

Abolishing the draft is probably the way to go, but they’ll never do that. My pitch is to completely flatten out the odds. All lottery teams get the same chance at the #1 pick.

@KevinOConnor Simple fix, use the Lottery-Relegation model to reward middle of the pack teams and punish the bottom three. Placing towards the middle of the non-playoff teams gives you the best odds for #1 while being bottom three gives you no chance of landing a top three pick. See 2025 odds.

New pod! An NBA Awards check-in, then the league’s tanking issue, what rules I’m hearing Silver could actually change, Mike Zarren’s classic Wheel proposal, and my take on his idea. APPLE: tinyurl.com/ue5a9tt2 SPOTIFY: tinyurl.com/4z7tu8um YOUTUBE: youtube.com/live/8e71QX1Ny…

@TheDunkCentral @KevinOConnor Simple fix, use the Lottery-Relegation model to reward middle of the pack teams and punish the bottom three. Placing towards the middle of the non-playoff teams gives you the best odds for #1 while being bottom three gives you no chance of landing a top three pick. See 2025 odds.

There’s growing support for a potential rule that would freeze NBA draft lottery odds at a certain point in the season, meaning losses after that date wouldn’t affect lottery positioning, per @KevinOConnor The date could change each year and might not be revealed until after the season to discourage tanking.

@LegionHoops @ShamsCharania @flasportsbuzz Simple fix, use the Lottery-Relegation model to reward middle of the pack teams and punish the bottom three. Placing towards the middle of the non-playoff teams gives you the best odds for #1 while being bottom three gives you no chance of landing a top three pick.

DEVELOPING: The NBA is discussing creating a tournament among lottery teams to determine draft order in order to stop tanking. (via @ShamsCharania, h/t @flasportsbuzz)

@jrrmee @SavageSports_ NFL MVP has only been awarded to a QB that did not play for the #1 or #2 seeded team once in the past 30 years. The one exception was when the award was split between Peyton Manning and Steve McNair.

@SavageSports_ There’s no way yall thought maye was actually gonna win… and im a patriots fan

Results got leaked. Unfortunate.