"Football just sort of happens to them."
August 23, 2017 11:04 AM   Subscribe

SB Nation staffer, master storyteller, and stats geek Jon Bois has a new Chart Party - where he examines the volatility of every NFL team over the past three decades. (SLYT)

Jon defines volatility as the difference of a team's record between seasons - less volatile teams trend towards a certain record, while highly volatile teams oscillate between bad and good.
posted by NoxAeternum (19 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I dig Jon Bois more than just about anyone else on the Internet, but it is a goddamn crime that this is a video and not an article.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:59 AM on August 23, 2017 [12 favorites]


There was only one possible 'winner' here. They don't call us the Cardiac Cats for nothing. Interesting post!
posted by matrixclown at 12:01 PM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


I feel like this didn't need a video, even though I would have missed out on the sounds of Smooth 103.3, or whatever soft jazz station they pulled the background music.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:03 PM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Doesn't the Panthers relatively short history enable them to be outliers? Sample size!
posted by chrchr at 12:12 PM on August 23, 2017


They secured berths in playoff games for five years straight

                                                          them
                                         all
                            lost               of
                  and


                                                                    And then they went home.
                                                                    This is their home.
                                                                    This is where they live.
posted by JHarris at 12:21 PM on August 23, 2017 [13 favorites]


I learned today that one should go all in on the Panthers this season.
posted by NoMich at 12:25 PM on August 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'd be careful about asking Jon Bois to do an "article" rather than a video, you're liable to end up with another metafictional multimedia work like 17776.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:45 PM on August 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


I would visit a site called Boisfilter.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:00 PM on August 23, 2017 [6 favorites]


I'd be careful about asking Jon Bois to do an "article" rather than a video, you're liable to end up with another metafictional multimedia work like 17776.

What if I like that sportswriting now has an avant-garde?
posted by The Gaffer at 1:04 PM on August 23, 2017 [14 favorites]


"And that's the story of the Atlanta Falcons."

The slo-mo replay clearly showed that this was the play where Bois separated from the defenders in space.
posted by riverlife at 1:31 PM on August 23, 2017


This does not imply football or any other system of rules, or anything but a random outcome generator.
posted by nubs at 1:51 PM on August 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


I wish there were a Jon Bois-type who made these kinds of videos about footb... soccer. Then I could appreciate them on another level than just its wonderful presentation of interesting statistical information. Actually, I'd be happy if someone just ripped off the stuff Bois does and redid them as videos about football. Sorry, soccer.
posted by Kattullus at 1:58 PM on August 23, 2017


Part of Jon Bois' genius, I think, is that he takes these kinds of videos and makes them not just interesting, but universally interesting, not just to sports geeks.

I was just over at YouTube and I loaded a video about the world record chase for speedrunning Sonic 2. It is interminable. I don't mean this as an offense against the makers, they're trying, but all their effort just come across as tired. They do some of the same things that Jon Bois does, using editing and music, trying to add drama to it, but I'm disliking it so much. Maybe it's the subject matter, or Bois is just that good at pacing and editing, or his storytelling is that much better, or whatever, but it's something that Jon Bois has, at this point, pretty much mastered, so even his less watchable videos are still very interesting, even to people who know a lot less about football than Sonic 2.
posted by JHarris at 5:23 PM on August 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Maybe self-awareness is part of it? Watching Jon Bois one gets the feeling that he doesn't take it too seriously, while those speedrunning videos make it seem like you have got to think that these lone guys playing Sonic 2 quickly are the most important thing in the world!!!
posted by JHarris at 5:26 PM on August 23, 2017


I dig Jon Bois more than just about anyone else on the Internet, but it is a goddamn crime that this is a video and not an article.

The SBNation article lays it out for people who share that objection.
posted by mhoye at 5:32 PM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Thinking about it a bit more, I think context is a big part of Jon Bois' secret. He doesn't just tell us something is unusual or great, but shows us what we need to know to understand how great it is. That Sonic 2 video just takes it for granted that viewers will understand that people beating a vidyagaem before an arbitrary number of minutes is amazing. I dunno.
posted by JHarris at 5:41 PM on August 23, 2017


Bois definitely makes his subject matter accessible to people with only a passing familiarity with the sport, and that's a big part of it, but I think his best trick is framing things in such a human context - these are bewildering oddities, or devastating failures, or astonishing accomplishments, and he centers everything on the feelings that those things evoke in players, fans, and his viewers and readers. And takes it up a notch by elevating these things to the level of minor mythology or grand events in the course of human history, while still grounding them in the small and personal. It's not boring team stats, it's football set adrift on the whims of fate and human decisions that sent entire teams spiraling into failure. His Pretty Good stories run the gamut from the incredible personal achievements of underdogs (Koo Dae-Sung) to reflecting on the worst impulses of post-911 American society through the absurd excess of our popular media ("I Wish Everyone Else Was Dead"). The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles is a ludicrous journey fully rooted in the emotional state of a has-been football player finding glory in an insane quest in a foreign land with strange customs that take the foundation of his life, Knowing Football Really Well, out from under him. Breaking Madden isn't just funny computer glitches, it treats the simulation as something real that's being toyed with by an inscrutable god who's poking at chance and entropy to see what spills out, and it affects characters we care about like BEEFTANK or a team of tiny, tiny men sent to face gargantuan monsters. That's what puts Bois over the top.

Also he's real funny.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:24 PM on August 23, 2017 [10 favorites]


I am annoyed by his use of a smoothed line instead of straight lines from point to point. It makes it very hard to see the true trends.
posted by crashlanding at 8:21 PM on August 23, 2017 [6 favorites]


I agree that it obscures the data, and in a few places puts highs and lows a bit off their true data points, but on the plus side it gives peaks and valleys a little more "body," in terms of area, in which to fit funny comments.
posted by JHarris at 11:09 PM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


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