LISTMAKER: MONEYBALL

"The only football players in my time were fellows who really loved to play football. They were not in it for the money. There wasn't much money there. They would have played football for nothing.." 
- RED GRANGE


That can't be said of today's game, as the $9.5 billion a year behemoth that is the NFL dwarfs the next largest American sports league (MLB) by 25% and pays its quarterbacks an average $3,840,017, and even its kickers average $1,662,786 (the most under-appreciated position appears to be tight end, with an average salary of $1,420,890).

Some teams spend a lot more than others. Not surprisingly, the Cowboy's billionaire owner Jerry Jones has the 1st and 5th highest paid linebackers (Ware, Spencer), the highest paid tight end (Witten), and the overall fifth highest paid player in the NFL (Romo). The Broncos have three of the top 25 salaries in the NFL (Bailey, Manning, Dumervil). Player pay, however makes up less than 48% of total revenue. How does the rest of the spending affect on-the-field performance? Some teams have been very successful financially without being competitive.

For this week's big list, I decided to look at how NFL teams are using their revenue, based on how much each team is spending (these numbers fluctuate constantly, so my calculations are based on what they were on the day I pulled the data) compared to how much each team is winning. I compared the most recent spending data to the number of wins each team had in 2012.   I have ranked the five WORST managers of money in the NFL and the five BEST, based on how much overall cash spending each team incurs annually divided by the number of games that said teams won last year ($PW).

TICKER: Hernandez Officially Released

Aaron Hernandez has been officially released from the New England Patriots after his arrest this morning.

Respect for the team in making this tough decision - will their TE pass-heavy offense take a hit this fall?

LISTMAKER: CHAMPION CITY

"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing." 
- VINCE LOMBARDI

For this week's big list, I looked at NFL championships, from 1920 to the present, starting with AFPA/NFL championships, followed by Super Bowl championships beginning in 1967. Because franchises move and change names, I have credited championships to the city that the team resided in (with the exception of the ever in flux Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders... close enough), rather than to a specific franchise name. The top eleven cities are listed below. In cases where a city had the same number of championships, the year of their most recent championship decided the tie-breaker.

FRIEND PICK: CHICAGO BEARS

Elizabeth Singer gets the honor of being the first friend to write a guest editorial for this blog. Her comments on my Team Ticker article were a passionate, reasoned appeal for Chicago Bears Fandom. I have re-posted here with added illustrations and links.

LISTMAKER: LARGEST VENUES

Perhaps one of the most important things to consider when choosing an NFL team is ticket availability. If I'm going to be travelling out of state to go see my team, I would want to make sure there were seats available for my, my family, and crew! That's why I'm making a list of the top ten NFL stadiums by capacity for football seating*. Additionally, I took a look at the stadiums with a bird's eye view, courtesy of Google Maps.

*some stadiums have differing seating for concert venues, or multi-sport arrangements. For the purposes of this list, only seating for football games is considered

Information on stadium football capacity from wikipedia.org
Stadium photos from Google Maps

Team Ticker: JAX, NYG, and WAS drop

The Jacksonville Jaguars (JAX) trended down on news that video may exist of Maurice Jones-Drew punching a security guard in the head.

The New York Giants (NYG) dropped slightly with Hakeem Nick's second straight skipped voluntary Organized Team Activities.

Washington's (WAS) stock dropped dramatically after ESPN's scathing opinion piece calling for an end to the organization's continued use of a racist name and logo, and owner Daniel Snyder's refusal to even consider a name change.

Team Ticker: CHI Down, OAK Up

Brian Urlacher retiring, Bears (CHI) stock dips slightly.

Raiders (OAK) stock up slightly after signing Charles Woodson.