With the Superbowl just a few weeks away, thought it would be interesting to take a look back on the season leading up to the play offs and player performance from a geographical perspective. The first take, summarized in this blog, focusses on selected positions from the offense side: quarterback, running back, tight end and wide receiver. Player performance is measured using total fantasy football points for the regular season (www.fftoday.com) and the hometowns of each player geocoded using latitude and longitude coordinates.

The heat maps that follow show what parts of the country the top performers for each position come from; in more technical terms, the maps are players’ hometowns weighted by fantasy football points. For football trivia buffs, some summary statistics are provided below each map. Top performing team for each position is based on average fantasy football points and top players on total points.

The complete dataset with other player attributes: college/university attended, number of years pro, division and conference, average fantasy football points for the regular season and number of games played can be found at www.geocommons.com.

Wide Receivers

Top Performers: Randy Moss (New England Patriots); Braylon Edwards (Cleveland Browns); Terrell Owens (Dallas Cowboys)

Top Performing Team: New England Patriots

Most Common Hometown State: California

Average Years Pro: 4.9

Running Backs

Top Performers: LaDainian Thomlinson (San Diego Chargers); Brian Westbrook (Philadelphia Eagles); Adrian Peterson (Minnesota Vikings)

Top Performing Team: Pittsburgh Steelers

Most Common Hometown State: Florida

Average Years Pro: 4.33

Tight Ends

Top Performers: Jason Whitten (Dallas Cowboys); Antononio Gates (San Diego Chargers); Tony Gonzalez (Kansas City Chiefs)

Top Performing Team: Dallas Cowboys

Most Common Hometown State: California

Average Years Pro: 4.6

Quarterbacks

Top Performers: Tom Brady (New England Patriots); Tony Romo (Dallas Cowboys); Drew Brees (New Orleans Saints)

Top Performing Team: New England Patriots

Most Common Hometown State: California

Average Years Pro: 6.03

Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson

Tony Romo was clearly a superstar this season but a look at his weekly fantasy football points shows a precipitous drop towards the end of the 17 weeks. Have anything to do with Jessica Simpson? Weigh in below.

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