Before we begin today, a promise was made during this podcast episode to share the Gilbert Gottfried Hollywood Squares incident, so here it is…
How Bewitching Is The Witching Hour?
By Roger Cormier
I believe it is accepted knowledge that the NFL RedZone Channel is the greatest invention in the history of the universe. Since its inception in 2009, it's rarely steered us wrong, which was why their mistake this past Sunday was so jarring. The Master of Ceremonies, Scott Hanson, directed viewers to tune in to CBS to finish watching the entertaining Raiders-Seahawks game, because the stingy No Fun League wants the lights shut off at RedZone HQ when there's only one game left. Unfortunately, most CBS affiliates were showing 60 Minutes. It wasn't even a particularly interesting 60 Minutes episode either. Hanson apologized for misleading us, because of course he did. He is a benevolent God.
But it led me to wondering about the other aspects of RedZone. Hanson tells us at around 1:02 p.m. eastern on Sundays that "seven hours of commercial-free football" is on its way. It would be more accurate to say "at least six and half hours", but it doesn't have the same pizazz. At around a quarter after three, Hanson announces that it's the Witching Hour, when wins become losses and losses become wins. Do they though? And why is there no Witching Hour for the final hour of the games played in the late Sunday afternoon window? Is there more bewitching during the 1 p.m. games than the others?
I fucked around and found out. I went back and checked every NFL regular season game since 2009, up until Week 12 of this season (last weekend) to see how many contests featured a team blowing a third quarter lead, or getting "bewitched" from a win to a loss.
Before we get into the data, a quick slam on the Cleveland Browns. No team since 2009 has led after three quarters only to lose the game more often than the squad from Believeland. Here are the five (six) worst teams percentage wise in games in which a bewitching had occurred:
And here are the five best teams, the ones who more often than not came from behind.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts have the most bewitching wins with 24. The Steelers tied the Colts with their comeback win this past Monday against…the Colts.
A key word there being “Monday.” There have been 3,524 regular season games played from the beginning of RedZone until Monday night. Of those, 2,782 of those were covered by RedZone. Exactly 1,900 were in the early game/Witching Hour window. There were 307 bewitchings in those games, good for 16.15 percent of the time.
There were 882 RedZone games in the late afternoon window. 132 bewitchings went down. That's 14.96 percent of the time. This of course means that there were 439 bewitchings in 2,782 games, or 15.78 percent.
There were 742 games not covered by RedZone, your Sunday Night, Monday Night, Thursday Night Football games, your Saturday specials, your morning Europe affairs. The team trailing after three quarters ended up winning 111 out of those 742 games. That's 14.95 percent.
So in fact, the most bewitching occurs in the 1:00 Eastern games (16.15 %) than in the 4/4:25pm (14.96%) and primetime (14.95%) ones. The Witching Hour is properly identified as between 3:15 and 4:15. RedZone must have consulted Amazon NextGen Stats. I never should have doubted them in the first place.
By Jesse Spector
You know, why even bother trying to parse the world when we’ve got Barack Obama to do it for us, speaking from both the present and the past?
To keep the vibes good here, I’m not gonna go into any thoughts on Kanye West going full Marge Schott, a Nazi memorialized by The New York Times as “eccentric.” Fuck Nazis, everywhere.
As to Herschel Walker’s debate, I’d rather be a vampire. Even if it doesn’t come with the ability to turn into a bat and fly around, I’d feel a lot less guilty about napping during the day. Plus, I’ve just about been on a liquid diet lately anyway thanks to long covid, so I could handle the blood, I think? I know I would miss garlic, but the werewolf transformation also seems like it would be really uncomfortable, and you have to remember to never wear your favorite clothes when it’s a full moon.
Speaking of the moon… when is Chanukah, anyway? I have been asked several times by my own children and have deferred to knowing that it hasn’t started yet because I haven’t seen any electric menorahs turned on around the city.
And now I’m mad at Google, which can try again with my foot in its ass. And speaking of that, I was very excited to learn this week that That ‘90s Show is real and looks pretty good. I watched That ‘70s Show as many times over as any of the NBC Thursday night shows that I mentioned on this podcast… and it’s kind of unrevisitable now because of Danny Masterson.
One big question for That ‘90s Show: will they address Red’s remarkable resemblance to the president of the Federation in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country?
In other supernatural news, I didn’t know what to get the ghost who haunts my art studio or the hard-boiled private investigator in my life, but thankfully I subscribe to The Action Cookbook Newsletter, which published a perfect gift guide.
Meanwhile, thanks to a variety of Internet rabbit holes converging, I have learned that Earl Grey not only was a real person and a 19th century British prime minister, but that their is historical mystery as to whether Earl Grey tea is named after Charles, the 2nd Earl Grey, or whether it just evolved well after the once Viscount Howick’s death in 1845. Although possibly it originated with a tea merchant nearby to his home?
Who can crack the mystery?
The Pavilion Postscript: I’ve spent a lot of time trying to put into words what I’m trying to do with Willets Pen, but I don’t think I’ve hit the nail on the head as much as Keelin did on this podcast when she said, referring to our bet on tonight’s Pac-12 title game, “I’m not saying I’m smart, but at least it’ll be fun.”
It’s been eight months now, and a ton of fun, and it’s also exciting to be able to use my creative space as an avenue to do some good. Selling stuff at willetspen.com helps pay the folks who contribute here and who I’m so thrilled to work with. It’s also a lot of fun for me to make the designs, yadda yadda yadda, all well and good, but beside the point.
For every hoodie we sell this month, we are donating warm winter hats. We’re also going to have a fundraiser to go along with our hoodie/hat match, which we’ll be tying to the Mets’ offseason activity (we’re a Mets site, dontcha know) over the next couple of weeks, so we can get more hats on folks’ heads for the winter. Stay tuned for details on that, have a great weekend, and thank goodness for not having had to write actual show notes about Hugh Freeze. Not least of all because there’s nothing I could write that wouldn’t be, and wasn’t, already written by Jason Kirk, better than I possibly could. I’m just here to get jokes off with my friends and make ill-advised bets on college football.
Not A Football Podcast 13: Aubie Hits That Uncanny Valley