Melissa Jacobs

Oakland

Founder and Managing Editor at The Football Girl

Subscribe (free or paid) to Good Game, my youth sports newsletter. | The 🏈 Girl | Contributor @guardian & @bbc & more. | Pitches: [email protected].

Articles

MLB 2025 predictions: are the dead-cert Dodgers actually maybe-cert?

4 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Gabriel Baumgaertner |Melissa Jacobs |Hannah Keyser |David Lengel

Are the days of small markets teams winning the World Series over? No, because winning the World Series only requires 11 postseason wins, providing you avoid the wildcard. The best thing that any team can do to win the World Series is to get into the playoffs. Getting into the playoffs usually requires that teams spend money to employ the best players, but last year was the first time since 2018 that the team with the best regular-season record won the World Series. GBDefinitely not.
Conflict of Interest

1 month ago | goodgamekid.substack.com | Melissa Jacobs

Good Game is a 1-2x/week newsletter speaking the language of youth sports parents. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our efforts to educate and empower everyone with a stake in youth sports. “How the hell am I going to manage?” It’s a common complaint for parents of one multi-sport kid. It’s nightmare-inducing for parents of multiple multi-sport kids. I’m sure many of you feel me, right?
Could Flag Football's Explosion Alter the NFL's Pipeline?

2 months ago | goodgamekid.substack.com | Melissa Jacobs

Good Game is a 1-2x/week newsletter speaking the language of youth sports parents. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our efforts to educate and empower everyone with a stake in youth sports. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stood nervously in front of the House Judiaciary Committee and refused to acknowledge a connection between head injuries from playing football and later brain trauma. The year was 2009, and if the seeds weren’t already planted, they were now.
Our 2024 NFL predictions revisited: the Chiefs weren’t inevitable after all

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Melissa Jacobs

Congratulations to the 99% of NFL pundits and fans whose preseason predictions have long made their way through the garbage disposal. Unfortunately, the NFL writers for the Guardian have no such luck. Our villainous editors are forcing us to turn back the clock to early September to revisit our season predictions (you can read them in full here). While we’d love to take a victory lap and say we saw all the twists and turns coming, that’s not exactly the case (though we did nail a few).
Super Bowl 2025 predictions: Picks for Chiefs v Eagles, MVP, score and winners

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Connolly |Bryan Armen Graham |Melissa Jacobs |Andrew Lawrence |Graham Searles

What the Kansas City Chiefs need to do to winWin the first downs. The Chiefs need to find a way to turn the Eagles into a dropback passing offense. Philly’s passing game can be boom-or-bust, relying on low-percentage shot plays to AJ Brown to keep the chains moving. If Steve Spagnuolo can scheme up something to win the initial down, his front can take over on second and third downs. Oliver ConnollyKeep Mahomes clean.
The Chiefs may be the Super Bowl villain but we’d be lost without one

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Melissa Jacobs

The term Chiefs fatigue, already in heavy use throughout the season, has only become more common the closer we get to Sunday’s Super Bowl. The team’s pursuit of a three-peat with a quarterback on pace to break all sorts of records for some reason doesn’t do it for most people outside Kansas City. That so many teams (ahem, the Bills) have come so close to unseating the Chiefs only to head home in despair, means frustration and anger is naturally directed at the winner.
Bills v Ravens was supposed to be about two stars. It was settled by a brutal drop

Jan 20, 2025 | theguardian.com | Melissa Jacobs

Josh Allen v Lamar Jackson was set to be an epic. The idea of this season’s MVP favorites sharing a field was chill inducing. Because whichever quarterback punctuated a brilliant individual season with a conference championship berth would do so because he outplayed his counterpart. Then the actual game was played in snowy Buffalo. It turns out there’s so much more to a football game than the two men under center, even men as supremely talented as Allen and Jackson.
NFL playoff predictions: can anyone derail the Kansas City Chiefs’ three-peat bid?

Jan 8, 2025 | theguardian.com | Doug Farrar |Bryan Armen Graham |Melissa Jacobs |Andrew Lawrence

Team that will be most missed in the playoffsCincinnati Bengals. This is the obvious answer, as it’s a bummer when the team with one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks (Joe Burrow), the receiving triple crown winner (Ja’Marr Chase) and the NFL’s sack leader (Trey Hendrickson) is on the outside looking in. Plus, it would certainly be fun to watch opposing offenses torch the Bengals’ iffy defense.
LeBron to Saudi and a UK NFL team: our bold sports predictions for 2025

Dec 31, 2024 | theguardian.com | Bryan Armen Graham |Melissa Jacobs |Tom Dart |Stephanie Kaloi |Andrew Lawrence |David Lengel | +2 more
$1 for a ticket to watch the New York Giants suddenly seems a little overpriced

Dec 8, 2024 | theguardian.com | Melissa Jacobs

A $1 ticket for an NFL game – or nearly any professional sporting event for that matter – sounds like a phenomenal deal. But most bargains come with a catch and Sunday’s was no exception: you had to watch the New York Giants play football. Still, mere pennies to be part of the sights and sounds of an NFL game may be worth it, even if a Giants loss is predetermined.