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

How the USTA Foundation is Diversifying Tennis

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. Happy almost end of National Tennis Month! (You didn’t know? Congrats, now you do.)When you think of diverse sports, tennis probably isn’t the first that comes to mind.
Can We Please Humanize Youth Sports Tryouts?

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. One of the first-ever Good Game posts was a little therapy session dedicated to the lessons learned from an intense week of soccer tryouts. After quite the roller coaster for my family and so many other families we knew, I thought a little perspective would be useful.
MLB 2025 predictions: are the dead-cert Dodgers actually maybe-cert?

Mar 27, 2025 | 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

Mar 7, 2025 | 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?

Feb 19, 2025 | 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

Feb 14, 2025 | 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

Feb 9, 2025 | 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

Feb 5, 2025 | 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.

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Melissa Jacobs 💙 @thefootballgirl

9 Jun 25

How I would love to run out of issues to address in the tangled mess that is youth sports. In the meantime, let’s celebrate the small wins and troubleshoot together at Good Game. Would love to have you subscribe if you haven't already! 👊 https://t.co/7HXXgsmkwq

Melissa Jacobs 💙 @thefootballgirl

9 Jun 25

I have watched this at least 15 times since last night.

Hamilton @HamiltonMusical

Inimitable. The original. #Hamilten https://t.co/r5YpwujkUw

Melissa Jacobs 💙 @thefootballgirl

31 May 25

Parent behavior that needs to go (have experienced both in the past three minutes): - A mom telling her son he’s late while he’s trying to time the pitcher. - A dad telling his son he was going to have to walk home if he didn’t make a (pretty difficult) catch.