Welcome back to Keeping Score, our Friday column that highlights the personalities, teams and games that sports fans are talking about—by the numbers.
27.49
Average age of the undefeated San Francisco 49ers, the oldest team in the league.
So far in this NFL season, age is an advantage. The oldest team in the league is off to a 4-0 start in San Francisco, while the youngest team, the Miami Dolphins (average age: 25.09 years old), is 0-4.
Jake Brendel, the 49ers' starting center, told The Athletic that his teammates are benefiting from the wisdom and leadership of players like 33-year-old Mike Evans, who played with cracked ribs last week.
“We have a lot of guys that kind of sharpen their swords quietly," the 34-year-old Brendel said. "We don’t really say it with words—we say it in actions. And we have guys that say it, too. But it would be hard for a young player to come in and see Mike Evans with his presence, his calm leadership and stoicism and will to win and not want to follow suit.”
The only other undefeated team is the Minnesota Vikings, the eighth-oldest team in the league (average age: 26.69), and other Super Bowl favorites like the Rams, the Bills, the Seahawks and the Ravens are among the top 10 oldest teams.
The only Super Bowl favorite included in the top 10 youngest teams is the Kansas City Chiefs, but the Chiefs have seasoned leadership in quarterback Patrick Mahomes, 31, tight end Travis Kelce, 37, and head coach Andy Reid, 68.
No wonder Tom Brady isn't ruling out a comeback at 49.
1,740
Words in Cristiano Ronaldo's apology to his fans and teammates for abruptly leaving the Portugal team’s camp last week after not playing in Portugal's game against Norway.
He probably only needed three: "Sorry, not sorry."
Cristiano Ronaldo's long goodbye is not going as smoothly as Lionel Messi's. While Messi basked in adulation in his "last tango" for the Argentinian national team against Benin in Argentina this week, Ronaldo felt compelled to issue a complicated explanation and apology for ducking out on the Portuguese national team after clashing with Portugal coach Jorge Jesus.
The heart of the issue appears to be Jesus telling Ronaldo that he would play 30 minutes in Portugal's game against Norway and then leaving him on the bench.
“The coach had broken his word to me,” Ronaldo said in his statement.
Ronaldo also apologized to his teammates and Portuguese fans. As for his future with the team, he acknowledged that he expects to face punishment and a possible suspension for his actions, but he still wants to compete for the national team.
"I can promise all my fans, and especially all Portuguese people, that we will have one or more farewell matches. There will be time for that," Ronaldo wrote. "But when I think about the national team, what I really think about is competing."
Portugal won all four of its games during the international break and they will play against Denmark and Wales in November.
36
Premium sports rights held by Skydance after the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger finally closed on Tuesday, but the ultimate impact on sports fans’ wallets will be felt in the months and years ahead. The new company will hold the rights to 36 premium sports properties, almost double the 19 sports held by Versant, the Comcast spinoff of NBCUniversal.
Skydance’s expanded rights portfolio has some of our most valuable and beloved sporting events, including March Madness, the Masters, the Champions League and the College Football Playoff, as well as rights to NFL and MLB games.
Expect to see the result of this merger on your streaming bills. Earlier this year, Bloomberg estimated that an out-of-market Philadelphia Eagles fan would need to pay $526 to various streaming services to watch all 17 Eagles games this season.
550%
Increase in high school girls playing flag football at school over the last five years.
The next major U.S. women’s professional sport might be flag football. According to Bloomberg and the National Federation of State High School Associations, more than 100,000 girls played flag football at school in the 2025-26 school year, a 48% increase from the previous year and a 550% increase over the last five years.
The NFL has pledged $192 million to develop both boys' and girls' flag football since 2025, and the league estimates that approximately 800,000 girls from ages 6 to 17 play flag football.
According to the Aspen Institute's Project Play, flag football is the only team sport that grew overall youth participation in the US from 2012 to 2024.
80
How old Real Madrid manager José Mourinho, 63, expects to be when the Manchester City case is finally resolved.
The wheels of Premier League justice move very slowly. The Premier League opened its investigation into Manchester City in 2018, and it was only just last month that an independent panel found the club guilty of more than 100 serious breaches of financial regulations and of inflating its commercial revenue by £830 million ($1.08 billion) between 2009 and 2018.
Manchester City has appealed the ruling. According to ESPN, a resolution is expected “by the end of the season.” But Real Madrid manager José Mourinho isn't holding his breath.
“I’d rather have a bit of a laugh about it," Mourinho said. "Being in my 60s, I’ll have to be lucky enough still to be here when the final verdict arrives. Now a ruling will come, then an appeal … I’ll be 80!”
34
Pages in MLB's confidential memo to owners describing what to expect and how to conduct business during the expected lockout this winter.
Baseball has the most thrilling postseason of any American sport, largely because the fewest number of teams qualify for the playoffs (12 in baseball versus 14 in the NFL, and 16 in the NBA and NHL) so the playoff teams are all actually good.
However, this year's playoffs are being played in the shadow of an impending lockout that most knowledgeable baseball observers expect to begin on Dec. 2, after the current collective bargaining agreement expires.
The Athletic reported that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred's top lieutenant Dan Halem sent a confidential memo to team owners and executives that outlined how the teams should respond to the lockout. The recommendations include:
Players' images and videos will be taken down from team websites.
Teams will not try to prevent players from playing other professional sports, including baseball in Japan.
Team staff can attend a player’s wedding, but they can’t talk about work.
No Christmas cards should be sent from teams to players after Dec. 2.
Opening day may be a long time coming.
3.2%
Win probability of the Los Angeles Rams when they trailed the Philadelphia Eagles by 10 in the fourth quarter. The Rams won 24-20.
In golf, a “Mongolian reversal” is when you win a hole that you almost certainly were going to lose until a sudden change of momentum. That's what the Rams did to the Eagles last Sunday after the Eagles had the ball on the Rams' 2-yard line, leading by 10 points, halfway through the fourth quarter.
At that moment, the NFL's win probability model gave the Rams just a 3.2% chance of winning. But time and chance happeneth to them all. The Rams made a goal-line stand and turned the game around.
Of course, the most famous Mongolian reversal in football is the Patriots coming back from 28-3 to beat the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl 51 in 2017. At the time, ESPN’s win probability model gave the Patriots just a 0.2% chance to win.
200
Ranking points that Daniil Medvedev was docked after he was disqualified from the China Open semifinal for striking a spectator with a ball.
Daniil Medvedev couldn't hold it together in his semifinal match against Novak Djokovic at the China Open this week. Trying to mount a second-set comeback on Djokovic’s serve, Medvedev got beat by a Djokovic winner and then hit the ball in frustration into the crowd, where it struck a fan in the face. The fan was escorted out for treatment, and Medvedev was DQ’d shortly afterward.
Medvedev, who lost $220,000 in prize money and 200 ranking points as a result of the disqualification, sounded sincere in his apologetic remarks afterward, according to The Athletic.
“I’m trying to get in touch with him, if he wants it. Hopefully I can apologize in person and see how he feels. … I just hope he’s OK. That’s the most important. I just really care about him right now.”
90
Waist size in inches of the Phillie Phanatic mascot, who is the subject of a new documentary called Big Phan.
Philadelphia fans are notoriously tough, but they’re also fiercely loyal to the ones they love and there are few Philadelphia sporting heroes more beloved than the Phillie Phanatic.
The Phanatic was co-designed by Bonnie Erickson, who helped Jim Henson create Miss Piggy, and the man in green made his MLB debut in April 1978. Now, the Phanatic will be a film star in the documentary Big Phan, which premieres Oct. 17 at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
From the festival guide: “This playful tell-all slides headfirst into nearly half a century of slapstick chaos and ballpark pandemonium to reveal how the Phanatic went from wild child to bona fide hometown hero.”
4
Years it took MIT math professor John Urschel to earn his Ph.D. after retiring from the Baltimore Ravens.
When he was an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, John Urschel tried to figure out how to protect quarterback Joe Flacco. Now, Urschel tries to figure out the most difficult problems in mathematics as an assistant professor of math at MIT.
Urschel left the Ravens in 2017 to go back to school after three seasons. He got his Ph.D. in math at MIT and returned there as a professor two years later.
In a recent paper, Urschel proved a conjecture about Gaussian elimination, a way of solving linear systems. He doesn't miss football a bit.
“I feel like I bet on myself in a big way,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I’m living my best life right now.” 🏈
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