FOOTBALLOUTSIDERS.COM - THE NEW HOME FOR SMART FOOTBALL TALK

FootballOutsiders.com seeks to bring the statistical revolution that has changed baseball to fans of the NFL, questioning conventional wisdom and seeking to determine the best way to build a Super Bowl champion. Since man cannot live by numbers alone, FootballOutsiders.com will also feature columns from a number of entertaining new writers as well as a forum for fans to discuss football news from around the Web.

Most football websites concentrate solely on either fantasy football or wagering. FootballOutsiders.com will discuss both, but the website is more interested in the real games in the real stadiums, where covering the spread is meaningless if your team tanks the final game and blows the playoff tiebreaker.

FootballOutsiders.com starts with a series of innovative, brand-new statistics you can't find anywhere else. We have new objective methods for analyzing skill players, offensive and defensive lines, and total team efficiency. These statistics are not only complete for the 2002 season; they will also be updated on a weekly basis during the NFL season. Our new VOA (Value Over Average) statistic breaks down the season play-by-play, comparing player performance based on similar game situations, while our new Line Yards statistic attempts to separate offensive line blocking from running back performance.

We don't just have reams of stats, though; we'll also have in-depth articles explaining these statistics as well as articles to answer specific questions and challenge conventional wisdom about the game. Among the issues tackled at the launch of FootballOutsiders.com:

*** Why the traditional view on the need to establish the run was not proven true in 2002.

*** Why Stacey Mack may be the most underrated running back in the NFL -- unless Moe Williams has an even better claim to that title.

*** How Bill James' Pythagorean win theorem applies to the NFL, and what point differentials from 2002 say about which teams will improve in 2003.

FootballOutsiders.com also launches with the first of eight columns applying our new statistics to each team in the NFL, division-by-division. We start with the AFC East, explaining where New England had its biggest hole in 2002 (hint: they didn't fill it) and why drafting Willis McGahee to replace Travis Henry might not have been such a strange idea after all.Future articles will include analysis of the theory that bigger backs break down defenses better than smaller backs, as well as a new method to rank coaching success that leads to surprising results -- and more fuel for one of the NFL's biggest controversies.

Tuesday through Saturday we may crunch numbers, but on Sunday and Monday we live for the real NFL games like all other rabid fans. FootballOutsiders.com celebrates that love of football with columns that approach the league with an outsider's detachment, a fan's obsession, and, a bit of wit to boot. Scramble for the Ball will discuss everything from fantasy football to office pool picks to which announcers make us want to throw a brick through the television. Loser League details a fantasy football alternative that will have you fantasizing about the week Chad Hutchinson has to face Tampa.

Another highlight of FootballOutsiders.com is a daily blog of the best NFL articles from around the Web. There are plenty of sites that link to a newswire, forcing football fans to sift through 100 articles about an offensive lineman who stubbed his toe at practice. The Outsiders will sort through those articles, linking to only the best-written, most insightful articles on the NFL from around the Internet and the newspapers covering all 32 teams. Each article on the blog will feature a thread where football fans can discuss and debate these articles, helping FootballOutsiders.com create a community for intelligent, dedicated NFL fans.

The staff of dedicated fans at FootballOutsiders.com includes cultural analyst Aaron Schatz and media critic Bruce Allen. Schatz is best known as writer and producer of the Lycos 50 Daily Report (http://50.lycos.com),* the Internet's foremost authority on the people, places, and things that are searched online. He has made numerous appearances on CNN and written for a number of publications including Slate.com, the American Prospect, and the Boston Phoenix. Allen writes the popular website Boston Sports Media Watch (http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/), which has been praised by the Boston Globe and called "the place to start the day" by the Manchester Union-Leader. You may not know the rest of the staff, but we hope you will soon.

FootballOutsiders.com is designed and developed by B:COMPLEX Creative (http://www.bcomplexcreative.com) of Atlanta, GA along with Pixellated, Inc (http://www.pixellated.org).

Contact: Aaron Schatz, aaron@footballoutsiders.com , or (617) 905-1358.

*(Note: FootballOutsiders.com is not affiliated with Terra Lycos, Inc.)




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