Battle Royale in the NFC East Blogs

‘Tis once again the time in the football season known as the ‘dead zone’, that awkward period of nothingness between OTA’s and Training camp that tests and exposes the true mettle of every fan on planet pigskin, a period where even no news can be big news and excruciating boredom results in fanposts like this.

It is also a time to ponder the imponderable, question the unquestionable and refute the irrefutable. And as I sat here pondering, questioning and refuting, I stumbled across a seemingly innocuous little paragraph in a recent story by the Washington Post:

"We were on the 12th fairway, Tiger and Tony's third hole, when I saw a father and daughter in matching Romo jerseys perched around the green. That would be Joe Ramirez from Mechanicsburg PA, along with his five-year old daughter Dallas. Yeah, Dallas. "Better than naming her Washington," he said."

Truer words were never spoken. Right away, this set me off on a mission to test and expose the mettle of the fan groups of our NFC East friends.

Sun Tzu once said "To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy". It was therefore clear that I needed to survey other NFC fan groups in their natural habitat, a place where they feel safe, display their natural behavior and communicate freely with each other.

So this morning at 6.00 AM EDT I descended into the smelly bowels of the Bleeding Green Nation, Big Blue View and Hogs Heaven to apply a cold, hard statistical analysis of NFC East fan groups during this daunting time of nothingness, and provide easy-to-understand stats by which to measure fan unit performance.

In my previous forays into the netherworlds of the NFC East, I had kept my visits brief and anonymous, lest I be pounced upon with meaningless statistics, bloodied by low quality youtube snippets and run out by cubicle quarterbacks with opinions masking as truths. I did notice that all the sites looked properly maintained, well-written and generally solid. Entering their lairs again for a prolonged statistical analysis, I expected hordes of angry trolls to attack me, but, lo and behold, I came upon a barren and depopulated landscape:

Frequency of featured posts written by staff writers (days elapsed between the 25 most recent blogs on the home page):

Overall, no big surpises. All sites look well-managed, with only the Hogs dropping off slightly.

Frequency of fanposts (how far back do the top 25 Recently Posted Fanposts go):

Clear lead for BGN. Notably, 10 of the 25 most recent posts on BGN were posted by kingmcnabb5 and our favourite Philly fan, Bye, Dawk :( . NY Fans have clearly fallen into the post Burress/Ward/Toomer departure depression, while Washington fans are too busy weeping after Jay Cutler.

On to the next question: Now that we understand the absolute number of featured posts and fanposts, with BGN enjoying a slight lead over BTB, lets look at the participation of the hoi polloi, the rank and file, the masses that keep the heart of fandom beating strongly.

Number of comments made on last 25 featured posts written by staff writers as seen on the home page (how much the fans care about the content being provided to them by their favorite fan site):

Ladies and Gents, it's not even close. BTB wins the featured post Audience Participation Award hands down. The Hogs recover nicely from the featured post frequency beatdown. Ironically, their one featured post surpassing the 100 comments mark (235 to be exact) deals with the Philly Phutility. Philly fan comments drop like a dead bird out of the sky as the fans are clearly still thunderstruck by why they drafted Kevin Kolb with their 1st pick in 2007. Giants fans can't type right now because their hands are folded in fervent prayer for at least one passable WR, and the Washington faithful are afraid to say anything that might make Clinton Portis leave the team.

Number of comments made on the top 25 Recently Active Fanposts (how much we the fans care about what others on our respective sites say):

BGN rebounds somewhat from their embarassment in the featured post Audience Participation Award but are still left eating the dust of BTB, as they are wasting too much energy shouting at Santa and the Easter Bunny. BBV and HH appear to have an aversion to listening and talking to each other, and remain as mute as their respective quarterbacks in the huddle.

And so the Battle Royale in the NFC East Blogs is won by BTB through simple, overwhelming force, just like our multi-pronged offense will rip through the overhyped defenses of our friends in the NFC East.

Hat tip to peytonsurdaddy who had the original idea here for comparing X's and O's between Stampede Blue and the Evil Empire known as the Pats Pulpit.