Green Bay

In about 30 minutes I begin my trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin to see the Redskins play the Packers. The trip to Lambeau Field has been described as a sports fan's mecca. I have gotten ready for the trip by reading Rick Reiley: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/rick_reilly/10/09/reilly1015/index.html

And the Sportsguy:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060825

I am looking forward to giving my opinion on Lambeau Field and the atmosphere in Green Bay. Today I bought a small portable grill, a Packers shirt, and a cheesehead. Also, I have brats, chips, and whiskey ready. Thomas Jefferson once said "Luck falls on the prepared man" so I tried my best to prepare for this trip.

One thing that I think is interesting is that Packers vs Redskins features two Mississippi quarterbacks. That made me wonder what states produced the most Nfl starting quarterbacks. Here is a list of states and the number of starting quarterbacks they produced:

• California: 7
• Mississippi: 4
• Washington, Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama: 2 each
• Tennessee, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Iowa, Indiana, and Illinois: 1 each

Note: I used starting quarterbacks from either last week or this week. The starting quarterbacks from Mississippi are Brett Farve, Jason Campbell, Steve McNair, and Cleo Lemon. That means that 12.5% of the starting quarterbacks in the Nfl are from Mississippi. To put that in perspective Mississippi is ranked 31st in population size by state with nearly 3 million residents. The United States on a whole has around 300 million people. That means that Mississippians represent 1% of the United States population, but has produced 12.5% of the starting quarterbacks. By comparison California has around 33 million people, which means that a state that represents 11% of the total population has produced 22% of the starting quarterbacks. That is a very impressive number, but not nearly as impressive as the jump from 1% to 12.5%.

Another interesting stat about starting quarterbacks is that New York with a population of nearly 20 million (7 times as much as Mississippi) doesn't have a single starting quarterback in the Nfl. Neither does Michigan (with 10 million residents), Georgia (9 million residents), or North Carolina (9 million residents).

Now if only Archie Manning's (an Ole Miss legend to put it lightly) kids (Peyton and Eli) were born in Mississippi instead of New Orleans then we would be talking about 6 starting quarterbacks born in Mississippi. As it stands 4 people Qbs born in Mississippi and 3 Qbs who went to Mississippi colleges is an impressive stat no matter how you slice and dice it.