Adding it up - a better ranking of TV's top 100 shows

Hollywood Reporter released a list of what industry insiders believe are the 100 best TV shows of all time.

It was an extensive effort. HR surveyed more than 2,800 industry people, included 779 actors, 365 producers and 268 directors to come up with the list. Hollywood apparently loves Friends, which topped the list.

Ranking TV shows is a popular activity the past few years. I found five top 100 rankings and one top 60 ranking just since 2013. The results, as you can imagine, are all over the board. Friends was No. 1 to Hollywood Reporter but just 26th on a TV Guide ranking in 2013.

I aggregated the rankings to come up with my own top 100. A series received 100 points for ranking No. 1, 99 for second etc. Some shows, such as Family Ties, are widely respected, landing on several rankings, but never very high. To me, a show like that deserves to be ranked ahead of a show that is ranked very highly on one or two lists but not ranked at all on any others. To compensate, a show received 100 points for each Top 100 list it landed on.

Here are the top 100 shows using this methodology -- from No. 100 to No. 1.

Why this headline already is wrong

NBA season is coming up and that means NBA previews. This one caught my eye.

"LeBron James: Will Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant or another overtake Cleveland Cavaliers star?"

LeBron played in his sixth NBA finals last season and fifth in a row. At age 30, he remains at the top of the game and likely has several great years left.

But he wasn't the best player in the NBA last season. Stephen Curry was the best player in the NBA last season and James Harden was second. LeBron was the third best player in the league if you look at the various advanced metrics.

A favorite stat in today's circles is Personal Efficiency Rating or PER. James was just sixth in that category in the regular season (behind Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Curry, Harden and Chris Paul). PER is tilted toward scorers.

In Win Shares, which is tilted to players from winning teams, LeBron was tied for ninth behind Harden, Paul, Curry, Davis, DeAndre Jordan, Jimmy Butler, Westbrook and Damian Lillard.

In Box Plus/Minus, which calculates how much better your team performs with you on the floor than it does without you, James was fifth, behind Westbrook, Curry, Harden and Paul.

Finally, James was fifth in the Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) metric, which estimates how much better a player is than the league average player at his position. Curry, Harden, Westbrook and Paul finished ahead of James in that category.

Of cource, the playoffs is where reputations are made and his impressive efforts in the finals without Kyrie Irving or Kevin Love had many saying James remains the game's top talents.

Indeed, James advanced metrics were better in the playoffs. He was tops among playoff players in Box Plus/Minus and VORP. Curry was second in both of those measurements. In playoff Win/Shares, James finished behind Curry and Davis was tops in playoff PER while James was third.

Add to that the fact that unquestionably Curry was a bigger winner (Curry's team went 67-13 in the regular season when he played and 16-5 in the playoffs compared with LeBron's winning percentages of 50-19 and 14-6) and Curry was unquestionably the top player in the game.

The question now is whether we've seen the best of James. In most respects it was LeBron's worst year since 2006-2007. And usually basketball players decline fairly rapidly in their 30s. There are some exceptions.

* Michael Jordan's greatest years, when you include playoffs, were when he was 27-28-29 and then 32-33. He showed some slippage at 34 during the Bulls' last title run and then he retired for a while.

* Julius Erving's greatest season in the NBA -- he had several better in the ABA -- was in 1981-1982 when he was 31. Erving was better than Larry Bird in 1979-1980, 1980-1981 and 1981-1982. In 1982-1983, when Erving hit 32, Bird passed him. To be accurate though, in 1981-1982, the best player in the NBA by a slight margin was Magic Johnson.

* Magic Johnson's greatest season came when he was 27. Although he wasn't at Jordan's level, Magic remained one of the top three players in the game in 1990-1991 when he was 31. The next year he abruptly retired because of the HIV virus.

* Bird peaked at 29 in 1985-1986. By 32, a bad back had reduced him to a shell of himself.

In the history of the NBA, LeBron, to me, is battling Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jordan for title of GOAT (greatest of all time). Jabbar and Jordan spent much of their 30s at or near the top of the game. James likely will follow that arc, but it's also likely that his reign as the unquestioned best already is over.

Why Bengals fans should believe in Andy Dalton

I love the Cincinnati Bengals and yet I didn't watch last year's playoff loss. I forget now how many in a row it is. Four?

And the Bengals are 3-0 for the second straight year and getting love from CBSSports.com's Pete Prisco. The have stars at every skill position on offense (A.J. Green, Tyler Eifert, Jermaine Hill/Gio Bernard) and one of the top offensive lines, perhaps the best offensive line, in the NFL.

On defense, the team is deep in the secondary and Gino Atkins is back to being a wrecking ball in the middle.

In short, the team has everything it needs -- but it has Andy Dalton at quarterback.

OK. I did some research to talk myself into believing these Bengals can actually not just make the leap and win a playoff game but win Super Bowl 50.

I looked at the other 31 quarterbacks who have been starters on Super Bowl winning teams and I somewhat talked myself into being a believer.

Andy Dalton is 28 years old. That's one of the prime ages for Super Bowl winning quarterbacks.

Age -- number of Super Bowl winners
22 -- 0
23 -- 1 (2%)
24 -- 1 (2%)
25 -- 4 (7%)
26 -- 7 (13%)
27 -- 9 (16%)
28 -- 6 (11%)
29 -- 4 (7%)
30 -- 4 (7%)
31 -- 4 (7%)
32 -- 3 (5%)
33 -- 5 (9%)
34 -- 2 (4%)
35 -- 1 (2%)
36 -- 1 (2%)
37 -- 3 (5%)
38 -- 0
39 -- 0
40 -- 0

Note: I'm including titles won by Bart Starr, Len Dawson and Johnny Unitas before there was a Super Bowl just to have an apples to apples comparison.

Even better, the average age of quarterbacks when they got their first Super Bowl (or AFL or NFL title) is 28.4 years old.

Age -- QBs getting first NFL/AFL title
23 -- Roethlisberger
24 -- Brady
25 -- Namath, Unitas, Montana, Wilson
26 -- Bradshaw, McMahon, Aikman, Eli Manning
27 -- Starr, Dawson, Griese, Favre, Rodgers, Flacco
28 -- Warner, Dilfer
29 -- Staubach, Hostetler, Rypien
30 -- Payton Manning, Brees
31 -- Stabler, Simms
32 -- Doug Williams
33 -- Plunkett, Theismann, Young
34 -- Brad Johnson
35 -- none
36 -- none
37 -- Elway

Dalton didn't get to the NFL until he was 24. He's already been a starter or at least gotten signficant playing time in four seasons. The average experience of Super Bowl winning QBs before winning their first title is 3.6.

Years of significant playing experience before first title
0 -- Hostetler, Warner, Brady, Staubach
1 -- Dawson, Montana, Roethlisberger, Rodgers, Wilson
2 -- Unitas
3 -- Namath, Stabler, McMahon, Rypien, Aikman, Eli Manning, Flacco
4 -- Bradshaw, Plunkett, Favre
5 -- Starr, Griese, Simms, Williams, Young, Dilfer
6 -- Theismann, Brad Johnson
7 -- Brees
8 -- Payton Manning
9, 10, 11, 12, 13 -- none
14 -- John Elway

Of course, Dalton is not considered one of the great quarterbacks in the NFL, even with his hot start this year (66 percent completion rate, 8-1 TD to Int. ratio). So what. There are lots of Super Bowl winning quarterbacks who weren't great.

For decades, quarterback rating has been considered the No. 1 QB metric. I like the newer QBR ratings because it includes sacks and yards lost because of them in the overall rating. Still, for this, I looked at the traditional quarterback rating. Eighteen of the 31 quarterbacks never once led the league in QB rating.

Those non league leaders were: Namath, Bradshaw, Plunkett, Theismann, McMahon, Simms, Williams, Hostetler, Rypien, Aikman, Favre, Elway, Dilfer, Johnson, Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Joe Flacco and Russell Wilson.

If you want to look at teams that really relied on their QBs, only 10 won AFL, NFL titles in the same years that they led in QB rating:

Bart Starr, Len Dawson, Johnny Unitas, Roger Staubach, Ken Stabler, Joe Montana, Steve Young, Kurt Warner, Payton Manning and Drew Brees.

For as much flack as Dalton has gotten so far, he's already been chosen to play in two Pro Bowls. That means at least his fellow NFL players respect him. In fact, he's more "decorated" than six Super Bowl winning QBs.

Quarterback, Pro Bowls, All Pro
Payton Manning, 14, 7
Johnny Unitas, 10, 5
Brett Favre, 11, 3
Tom Brady, 10, 2
Joe Montana, 8, 3
Bob Griese, 8, 2
Steve Young, 7, 3
Drew Brees, 9, 1
Len Dawson, 7, 2
John Elway, 9, 0
Joe Namath, 5, 1
Roger Staubach, 6, 0
Troy Aikman, 6, 0
Kurt Warner, 4, 2
Aaron Rodgers, 4, 2
Bart Starr, 4, 1
Ken Stabler, 4, 1
Terry Bradshaw, 3, 1
Joe Theismann, 2, 1
Ben Roethlisberger, 3, 0
Eli Manning, 3, 0
Phil Simms, 2, 0
Mark Rypien, 2, 0
Brad Johnson, 2, 0
Russell Wilson, 2, 0
Andy Dalton, 2, 0
Jim McMahon, 1, 0
Jeff Hostetler, 1, 0
Trent Dilfer, 1, 0 *
Jim Plunkett, 0, 0   **
Doug Williams, 0, 0
Joe Flacco, 0, 0

* Yes, Trent Dilfer was a Pro Bowler. That shocked me, too.
** I actually had a Raiders fan argue with me on FaceBook that Plunkett should go into the Hall of Fame.

So there you have it. Dalton has the experience and is the right age to help the Bengals make the leap. And history has shown you don't have to be a great quarterback to win as long as you have a great defense (Terry Bradshaw, Jim McMahon, Russell Wilson, Ben Roethlisberger, Joe Flacco, Trent Diler, Brad Johnson) or are surrounded by tons of talent (Phil Simms, Mark Rypian, Jeff Hostetler, Doug Williams).

Am I convinced? Not really. I won't believe until the Bengals actually win a playoff game with Dalton as starter. I'm more sold on the Arizona Cardinals with Carson Palmer, who actually is an excellent quarterback who unfortunately has toiled on average to bad teams. But if the Bengals do win a playoff game, then I'm all-in on the Red Rifle.

New ranking high on Bush, Obama

Back in April I put together a master list of Presidential rankings using 18 widely published polls, the first beginning in 1948.

In July, I was able to add a new ranking put together with a different set of measurables. InsideGov ranked all the presidents on "influence," looking at such factors as:

* Number of executive orders.

* Number of years in office.

* Number of major foreign treaties signed.

* Number of years in charge of war.

* Number of Supreme Court appointments.

* Lasting impression.

The InsideGov ranking was skewed toward two-term presidents because the longer you are in office the more time you have to accomplish things. That made for a couple surprising choices. Abraham Lincoln, widely regarded as the greatest president, ranked just seventh on this list because of his short second term. Franklin Roosevelt, who served for more than twelve years, was No. 1. To see InsideGov's list, click here.

Still, it was a well thought ranking and nonpartisan so I added it to the 18 prior polls I had collected. It did change my overall rankings in several spots.

Rank, President, polls, average, (highest, lowest)
1. Abe Lincoln,19, 1.85, (highest, 1st, lowest, 7th)
2. Franklin Roosevelt, 19, 2.05 (highest, 1st, lowest, 3rd)
3. George Washington, 19, 2.68 (highest, 1st, lowest, 4th)
4. Theodore Roosevelt, 19, 4.68 (highest, 2nd, lowest, 7th)
5. Thomas Jefferson, 19, 4.74 (highest, 2nd, lowest, 8th)

6. Harry Truman, 18, 6.94 (highest, 4th, lowest, 9th)
7. Woodrow Wilson, 19, 6.95 (highest, 3rd, lowest, 11th)
8. Andrew Jackson, 19, 9.53 (highest, 5th, lowest, 14th)
9. Dwight Eisenhower, 18, 9.72 (highest, 6th, lowest, 22nd)
10. James Polk, 19, 11.84 (highest, 8th, lowest, 19th)

11. John Kennedy, 17, 12.47 (highest, 6th, lowest, 18th)
12. (tie) John Adams, 19, 13.05 (highest, 9th, lowest, 17th)
12. (tie) James Madison, 19, 13.05 (highest, 6th, lowest, 20th)
14. Lyndon Johnson, 17, 13.06 (highest, 10th, lowest, 18th)
15. James Monroe, 19, 14.11 (highest, 7th, lowest, 21st)

16. Ronald Reagan, 15, 14.47 (highest, 6th, lowest, 26th)
17. Barack Obama, 3, 15.67 (highest, 14th, lowest, 18th)
18. Grover Cleveland, 19, 16.74 (highest, 8th, lowest, 23rd)
19. William McKinley, 19, 17.16 (highest, 10th, lowest, 22nd)
20. John Quincy Adams, 19, 18.26 (highest, 11th, lowest, 25th)

21. Bill Clinton, 13, 18.30 (highest, 8th, lowest, 24th)
22. William Howard Taft, 19, 21.05 (highest, 16th, lowest, 29th)
23. George H.W. Bush, 14, 21.50 (highest, 17th, lowest, 31st)
24. Martin Van Buren, 19, 23.95 (highest, 15th, lowest, 40th)
25. Rutherford B. Hayes, 19, 24.63 (highest, 13th, lowest, 33rd)

26. Gerald Ford, 17, 26.35 (highest, 22nd, lowest, 34th)
27. Chester Arthur, 19, 26.74 (highest, 17th, lowest, 32nd)
28. Jimmy Carter, 17, 26.82 (highest, 18th, lowest, 34th)
29. Calvin Coolidge, 19, 28.11 (highest, 23rd, lowest, 36th)
30. Benjamin Harrison, 19, 28.26 (highest, 19th, lowest, 34th)

31. Herbert Hoover, 19, 28.79 (highest, 19th, lowest, 38th)
32. Richard Nixon, 17, 29.35 (highest, 19th, lowest, 38th)
33. James Garfield, 12, 30.33 (highest, 25th, lowest, 38th)
34. Zachary Taylor, 19, 30.37 (highest, 24th, lowest, 37th)
35. U.S. Grant, 19, 30.79 (highest, 18th, lowest, 38th)

36. John Tyler, 19, 32.89 (highest, 22nd, lowest, 37th)
37. Millard Fillmore, 19, 33.79 (highest, 24th, lowest, 42nd)
38. George W. Bush, 7, 34.86 (highest, 19th, lowest, 37th)
39. Andrew Johnson, 19, 35.68 (highest, 19th, lowest, 42nd)
40. William Henry Harrison, 12, 35.83 (highest, 26th, lowest, 43rd)

41. Franklin Pierce, 19, 36.47 (highest, 27th, lowest, 41st)
42. Warren Harding, 19, 37.68 (highest, 29th, lowest, 42nd)
43. James Buchanan, 19, 38.21 (highest, 26th, lowest, 43rd)

Theodore Roosevelt, Barack Obama, Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge each moved up one spot based on InsideGov's most influential rankings. Richard Nixon moved up two spots and George W. Bush jumped three spots.

Thomas Jefferson, Grover Cleveland, Jimmy Carter, Benjamin Harrison, James Garfield, Zachary Taylor and Franklin Pierce each dropped a spot and William Henry Harrison fell two spots.

How great is American Pharoah?

My guys at fivethirtyeight.com beat me to this with a post yesterday saying the newly minted Triple Crown champion American Pharoah is a super horse but no Secretariat.

That's an easy call no matter how you look at the data. In the history of horse racing in the U.S., Secretariat and the ancient Man O' War remain the top two contenders for all-time super horse.

Instead, I spent a little time yesterday ranking where American Pharoah ranks among the 12 winners of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. The answer is pretty high.

Note: I wanted to do a more comprehensive look at ALL horses that won at least two of the three races and competed in all three (sorry Man O' War), but it's been difficult to get the data necessary. Maybe I'll revisit it.

First step, I adjusted Sir Barton's times (the 1919 winner won the Preakness and Belmont under different distances) and added up the combined times of all three races. Here are the best horses from first to 12th:

1973 Secretariat, 6:16.4
1978 Affirmed, 6:22.4
1977 Seattle Slew, 6:26.2
2015 American Pharoah, 6:28.13
1943 Count Fleet, 6:29.6
1937 War Admiral, 6:30.2
1941 Whirlaway, 6:31.2
1935 Omaha, 6:34.0
1948 Citation, 6:36.0
1946 Assault, 6:38.8
1919 Sir Barton, 6:39.0*
1930 Gallant Fox, 6:39.8

Not surprisingly, times were getting better over the decades -- until the 1970s. That was a decade of super horses and not just Secretariat. Considering that Alydar finished second to affirmed by 1.5 lengths, a head and a nose, it is likely that Alydar would rank second or third on this list if his times were kept.

Then I looked at the cumulative number of lengths of which each horse won the Triple Crown.

1943 Count Fleet, 36
1973 Secretariat, 35.5
1948 Citation, 17
1941 Whirlaway, 16.5
1919 Sir Barton, 14
2015 American Pharoah, 13.5
1946 Assault, 11.25
1935 Omaha, 9
1977 Seattle Slew, 8.25
1930 Gallant Fox, 5.75
1937 War Admiral, 5
1978 Affirmed, 2

As mentioned above, Affirmed's dominance was lessened by Alydar. Secretariat had the huge Belmont win of 31 lengths, but in both the Derby and the Preakness he was pushed hard by Sham even while setting speed records.

Then I just looked at the times of each horse in each race to see how they would have finished.

Kentucky Derby
1. Secretariat, 1:59.4
2. Affirmed, 2:01.2
3. Whirlaway, 2:01.4
4. Seattle Slew, 2:02.2
5. American Pharoah, 2:03.02
6. War Admiral, 2:03.2
7. Count Fleet, 2:04.0
8. Omaha, 2:05.0
9. Citation, 2:05.4
10. Assault, 2:06.6
11. Gallant Fox, 2:07.6
12. Sir Barton, 2:09.8

Preakness Stakes
1. Secretariat, 1:53.0
2. Seattle Slew, 1:54.4
2. Affirmed, 1:54.4
4. Count Fleet, 1:57.4
5. Omaha, 1:58.4
5. War Admiral, 1:58.4
7. American Pharoah, 1:58.46
8. Whirlaway, 1:58.8
9. Sir Barton, 1:59.3
10. Gallant Fox, 2:00.6
11. Assault, 2:01.4
12. Citation, 2:02.4

Belmont Stakes
1. Secretariat, 2:24.0
2. American Pharoah, 2:26.65
3. Affirmed, 2:26.8
4. Count Fleet, 2:28.2
5. Citation, 2:28.2
6. War Admiral, 2:28.6
7. Seattle Slew, 2:29.6
8. Sir Barton, 2:29.9
9. Assault, 2:30.8
10. Omaha, 2:30.6
11. Whirlaway, 2:31.0
12. Gallant Fox, 2:31.6

If you give the horses points ranked on 12 for best and one for worst, I rank American Pharoah having just completed the fourth greatest Triple Crown campaign since it was created in 1919 by Sir Barton.

Rank, year, horse, total weighted points
1. Secretariat, 1973, 59 points out of a total of 60, still the standard all others have to be judged by
2. Affirmed, 1978, 44 points
3. Count Fleet, 1943, 44 points (his scored was helped by winning the cumulative lengths ranking)
4. American Pharoah, 2015, 41
5. Seattle Slew, 40 (slow Belmont time hurts his campaign)
6. Whirlaway, 1941, 32
7. War Admiral, 1937, 31
8. Citation, 1948, 27
9. Omaha, 1935, 26
10. Sir Barton, 1919, 20
11. Assault, 1946, 18
12. Gallant Fox, 1930, 10

Rating presidents - by the numbers

I'm a history nut and especially a presidential history nut. Living in the time of Obama has been interesting as will be the next 30 years as Obama's policies are tested by time.

Recently, I was looking through my Kindle on any books on objectively judging presidencies. I came across a 2008 book by Alvin Felzenberg called "The Leaders We Deserved (And a Few We Didn't)."

The premise was intriguing and I was prepared to buy it when I found his presidential scorecard on the web through an interview with Freakonomics. It's different. Ronald Reagan is abnormally high at a tied for No. 3 with Theodore Roosevelt, while Bill Clinton is at No. 22, tied with William Howard Taft, and behind such presidents as Gerald Ford and Benjamin Harrison.

It's all opinion and I'm sure the book lays it out, but then I noticed Felzenberg rated Reagan's economic policy a 5 on a 5-point scale, while Clinton gets a 4.

OK. I can buy a 5 on Reagan's economic policy. I know economists who still worship St. Ronnie. But how can you give Clinton a 4 on economic policy?

Instead of arguing semantics I spent a couple of days trying to find actual numbers. Here's everything I found.

Gallup is the longest tenured polling company with the best historical data. If you trying to judge presidents, perhaps the best way is how satisfied was the country when they left office?

The above chart shows that of the last 11 presidents, not including Obama, six left office with above a 50 percent approval rate. That includes two, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford, who lost their election bids. Truman, of course, is the great hope of all presidents who struggle at the end. Truman's approval was just 32 percent, but his standing among historians has improved over time.

From this chart, Reagan deserves his high regard, but he ranks below Clinton.

OK. There are lots of caveats with this one.

* John Quincy Adams is one of four presidents to win the electoral college while losing the popular vote. In 1824, Adams was one of four candidates running and he finished second in the popular vote to Andrew Jackson by a wide margin. The election went to the House of Representatives where "the corrupt bargain" with Henry Clay gave Adams the victory. In 1828, in a two-way race with Jackson Adams gained some popular vote but still was slaughtered in the electoral college.

** In 1888, Grover Cleveland became the third person to win the popular vote but lose in the electoral college. In 1992, Cleveland faced Benjamin Harrison in a rematch and trounced him.

*** In 1912, William Howard Taft was part of a three-way election. His former mentor, Theodore Roosevelt, decided to run under a new party after being denied at the Republican convention. Taft refused to drop out of the race and the two split the vote, giving Woodrow Wilson an easy victory.

**** Wilson's popular vote increase is, at least in part because of the fact he was in a traditional two main candidate election in 1916 as compared with 2012.

***** In 1968, George Wallace ran a spirited third-party election, which siphoned voters both from Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. In 1972, Nixon faced George McGovern alone and won a historic landslide. Of course, it came out later that Nixon's campaign played a number of dirty tricks during the election and the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign. The great irony is that Nixon likely would have won without any of the dirty tricks.

****** After winning a traditional two-way election in 1988, George H.W. Bush faced Bill Clinton and a major third-party try from H. Ross Perot. Perot siphoned voters from Bush and Clinton, making Bush's loss of support appear larger than it likely was.

******* The famous election of 1860 was really a series of sectional candidates. Abraham Lincoln won an easy electoral college victory, but Stephen Douglas, John Breckenridge and John Bell each gathered more than 12.6 percent of popular vote support. In 1864, with the South not in the vote, Lincoln faced just George McClellan, making his increase in support abnormally large.

Another note is about Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt trounced Herbert Hoover in 1932 and then won by an even larger percentage in 1936. I listed his next two elections separately. In each one, Roosevelt lost support. His third election some were upset he was breaking the two term tradition of George Washington. His fourth election, he lost more support because of general fatigue over having one person in the White House for so long.

FDR, Andrew Jackson and Barack Obama were the three presidents on the chart to win re-election despite losing some of their popular vote majority from their first (or in Roosevelt's case, prior) elections.

Re-elections are a chance for voters to say they had buyer's remorse. There was no buyer's remorse, at least after four years, for Reagan, Clinton, FDR, George W. Bush and Dwight Eisenhower.

Five vice presidents who took over the presidency ran for election in their own right and they won a solid four times. Theodore Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson increased the popular vote percentage from their predecessors.

The only losing candidate was Gerald Ford and he faced a nearly impossible task, running after Nixon resigned the office.

Now to some economic measurements.

Roosevelt's numbers are an outlier because he started during the Great Depression and then had World War II significantly goose the numbers. Truman's numbers are artificially low because he was president during the ramp down from WWII.

Hoover's numbers only cover part of his presidency. Obama's covers five years so far and he is trending upward. GDP growth during Obama's years:

2009: -0.27%
2010: 2.75%
2011: 1.67%
2012: 1.58%
2013: 3.18%
2014: 2.32%

GDP was surprisingly strong in the 1960s and not nearly as strong in the 1950s. The Eisenhower years are remembered as this idyllic time of economic prosperity. In this measurement, Reagan is a solid fifth overall, but Clinton ranks ahead of him at No. 4.

The data covers only part of Truman's presidency and five years of Obama's presidency. Both Reagan and Obama had significant recessions early in their presidencies. Clinton also came in during a recession, although it was a minor one. Obama's jobless rates are trending downward.

Jan. 1, 2010: 9.2%
Jan. 1: 2011: 8.3%
Jan. 1: 2012: 8.0%
Jan. 1: 2013: 6.6%
Jan. 1: 2014: 5.7%

Clinton again ranks above Reagan.

A different way to look at jobless rates is how much progress -- or lack thereof -- economies made on jobs from one presidency to the next.

Ronald Reagan inherited a struggling economy from Jimmy Carter, then went through a major recession, before leaving office with a pretty solid jobs picture.

Still, Reagan is tied for third here behind Clinton and Lyndon Johnson, who because of the Vietnam fiasco, rarely gets talked about when it comes to economic policy.

As you see, Reagan is tied in this chart with Obama and, considering that unemployment rates, have continued to fall, the Gipper might end up fourth in this measurement.

How often have you heard that Barack Obama has accumulated more debt than every other president combined? Several have peddled the theory. Politifact actually fact checked it:

Sarah Palin says Obama has accumulated more debt than previous 43 presidents combined

It's not true. As you see above, the U.S. Government has run at a $4.8 trillion deficit in Obama's five years. Of course, Reagan and the two Bushes ran up deficits of $6.0 trillion so obviously the fact is false.

Interestingly, it has been true twice. Both Reagan and George W. Bush wracked up more debts than all of their predecessors combined -- at least from the data I found.

Dick Cheney famously said Reagan proved "deficits don't matter." Reagan ran a deficit of $1.4 trillion during his eight years. The previous eight presidents had a combined deficit of $754.9 billion. The Roosevelt numbers are only from 1940 forward.

Not to be outdone, George W. Bush followed the only president since before the Great Depression to actually operate the government in the black, and ran up a deficit of $3.5 trillion over eight years. The previous 11 presidents ran the government at a combined deficit of $3.1 trillion.

In terms of Reagan versus Clinton, there really is no starker comparison than the deficit. If you believe that the mounting debt is a bad thing then you have to grade Clinton's management of the government higher than Reagan's.

Backers of Obama argue that he inherited the biggest fiscal mess since FDR. This chart supports the contention. The U.S. Government's deficit has fallen four of the five years he's been in charge of the government.

On the bottom end of the spectrum are both Bushes and Reagan. Clinton again fares much better than Reagan in this measurement.

Criticized as a tax and spend liberal, Obama actually has shrunk the government, at least through 2014. Here again Clinton ranks higher than Reagan, who goosed economic growth by vastly ramping up military budgets.

This one was a bit of a shocker. Per capital personal income exploded under both Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and neither one of them was re-elected. The three at the bottom, Bush II, Ike and Obama all were re-elected even with sluggish income growth.

Here is one of the few measurements where Reagan actually finished higher than Clinton.

This leads to the final, very concerning chart.

This isn't perhaps the best chart to compare presidents because if you look at it, the trend is clear. When you factor in inflation, people in the U.S. essentially have been treading water since the late 1970s.

If you put these presidents in chronological order you get:

Roosevelt: 8.37%
Truman: 4.06%
Eisenhower: 2.76%
Kennedy: 3.57%
Johnson: 5.71%
Nixon: 5.75%
Ford: 4.84%
Carter: 2.32%
Reagan: 2.31%
Bush 1: -1.32%
Clinton: 0.15%
Bush 2: -1.47%
Obama: -1.96%

Essentially, since Bush 1 was elected, the average American consumer is a worse place economically because inflation is rising at a greater rate than income. This should be a focus in the next presidential election.

Winning separates Curry in NBA MVP race

This year's NBA MVP debate is fascinating because for once more than one or two players are in the conversation. I've read over the past few weeks convincing arguments for Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and my guy, Kentucky great, Anthony Davis.

Curry plays for the team with the best record in the NBA and Harden has carried the Rockets without Dwight Howard to one of the higher seeds in the Western Conference. Westbrook's candidacy is built around the fact he has been churning out triple doubles like Magic Johnson since Kevin Durant was declared out for the season with a foot injury. Davis supporters point to a relatively new statistic -- PER or Personal Efficiency Rating -- to push his MVP credentials.

PER was developed by ESPN.com columnist John Hollinger. It "sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance."

Basketball-reference.com has used Hollinger's formula, which some assumptions for incomplete data of earlier years, to calculate PER ratings back to 1951-1952. Davis' PER this year with a handful of games to go is 30.70. He will finish the season as just the seventh player to top the 30 mark, joining Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal, Tracey McGrady and LeBron James.

That's rare company, but it is just one statistic to look at. There are three other advanced metrics that help you weigh a player's worth more accurately than the old points-rebounds-assists per game models.

There are win shares, which is derivative of baseball's Bill James. It's a highly complex formula that calculates points produced by a player and offensive possessions and an estimate of a player's points allowed per 100 defensive possessions. Unlike PER, which favors players who are the focal points of their team's offense, win shares favor players on teams with high winning percentages.

Then there is Box Plus/Minus, which uses a player's box score information and the team's overall performance to estimate a player's performance relative to league average based on a per-100-possession basis. Someone with a 0.0 BPM is league average. A -2 score is replacement level and 5 points or better is all-star level.

Finally, there is a Value over Replacement Player (VORP), which takes the BPM and measures it against the value of a player on a minimum salary and not a normal member of the team's rotation.

What is interesting about the 2014-2015 NBA season is that each of the most popular candidates leads in one of these categories. We've already discussed Davis and his PER rating. The leader in win shares with the playoffs just a few games away is James Harden at 15.8 over Chris Paul at 15.4. Curry stands third, Davis fourth and Westbrook is not in the top 10.

Westbrook though tops Box Plus/Minus at 10.66, followed by Curry, Harden, LeBron James, then Anthony Davis. Curry finally comes out on top of VORP with a score of 7.64 to Harden's 7.50. The next four are Westbrook, Paul, James and Davis.

To see which of the four stands out I weighted the categories. First place in a category was worth 20 points, second was worth 19 and so on down to getting one point for finishing 20th. The top 10 players using this method were:

Player (points for PER, WS, BPM, VORP -- Total)
1. Curry, 18, 18, 19, 20 -- 75
2. Harden, 17, 20, 18, 19 -- 74

3. Paul, 15, 19, 17, 17 -- 68

4. Davis, 20, 17, 15, 15 -- 67

5. Westbrook, 19, 8, 20, 18 -- 65
6. James, 16, 12.5, 16, 16 -- 60.5
7. Damian Lillard, 0, 14.5, 11, 14 -- 39.5
8. Jimmy Butler, 1.5, 14.5, 7.5, 10.5 -- 34
9. Rudy Gobert, 5, 7, 13, 8 -- 33
10. Marc Gasol, 4, 9, 6, 12.5 -- 31.5

So just based on these individual rating metrics, I have Curry slightly ahead of Harden for MVP. Of course, the ultimate goal of a basketball team is to win the game. And if you take a player's winning percentage -- the wins/losses of games he actually played in -- and add it to the equation then Curry is the clear choice. To do that, I took a player's winning percentage and multiplied it by 100 and added it the individual weighted points. My top 10 changes a bit once you add in winning percentage.

Player, individual rating points, winning percentage -- total

1. Curry, 75 individual points, 83 winning points (Curry is 64-13 in gamse he's played in) for 158 points.

2. Harden, 74 individual points, 69 winning wings, 143

3. Paul, 68 individual points, 67 winning points, 135

4. James, 60.5 plus 73 winning points, 134
5. Westbrook, 65 plus 59 winning points, 124

6. Davis, 67 plus 56 winning points, 123
7. Lillard, 39.5 plus 65 winning points, 105
8. Kawhi Leonard, 30.5 plus 72 winning points, 103

9. Marc Gasol, 31.5 plus 69 winning points, 101

10. Butler, 34 plus 60 winning points, 94

So that would be my NBA MVP ballot.

The rise of Bill Clinton

In 1948, when historian Arthur Schlesinger of Harvard conducted the first respected poll of presidential historians and political scientists, Grover Cleveland was ranked No. 8 and William McKinley was No. 18.

Cleveland, who served from 1885 to 1889 and then from 1893 to 1897, was against against "special interest legislation" because he thought it would lead to a social welfare state. He created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroads. He avoided international entanglements.

McKinley, who served from 1897 until he was assassinated in 1901, advocated high tariffs to protect U.S. industries, and he was an expansionist. The U.S. drove Spain out of Cuba and gained control of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillippines as part of the peace settlement. In 1898, the country annexed Hawaii as well.

In 2011 though, even though none of those accomplishments had changed, a survey of United Kingdom academics ranked McKinley 21st and Cleveland 23rd.

The point is historians are fickle and there remains a sometimes wide split of opinion on several U.S. Presidents.

The latest poll was conducted by the Brookings Institute, which polled several hundred members of the American Political Science Association. The poll asked the APSA members to rank the presidents on things such as political, legislative and military skill. 

The top of the Brookings poll was familiar. Abe Lincoln was No. 1, followed by George Washington and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One of those three have topped every one of the 18 major presidential greatness polls conducted since the first 1948 poll. If this was an AP college basketball poll, you'd say Lincoln has gotten 10 No. 1 votes, FDR six and Washington two.  

The poll got interesting at No. 7 and No. 8 where this set of political scientists placed Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton.

Eisenhower, of course, left office in 1961. In a 1962 poll conducted again by Schlesinger, Eisenhower was ranked a mediocre 22nd, below such presidents as Cleveland and McKinley as well as William Howard Taft and Martin Van Buren. 

That seemed unfair to a president who presided over eight years of economic expansion and instituted the federal interstate highway system. In subsequent polls conducted by various organizations from 1982 through this last one, Eisenhower has never ranked lower than 12th and once reached No. 6 in a poll by the New York Times in 2008.

When Clinton left office in 2001, he was personally popular -- Gallup recorded his approval rate at 57 percent when he completed his second term -- but still under the cloud of having been the second president to go through an impeachment trial. 

With that blot on his record, Clinton ranked 24th in the first major poll after his presidency, which was conducted by the decidedly Republican Wall Street Journal in 2000. Still, in polls in 2002, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, Clinton ranked as low as 19th and as high as 13th until making the leap in the Brookings poll. 

Of course, I'm a numbers nut. I did a quick ranking by adding the Brookings poll with the 17 prior polls, which had been nicely gathered on Wikipedia.

President, polls included, average ranking, (high ranking, low ranking)

1. Abraham Lincoln, 18 polls, 1.56 average (highest: 1st; lowest, 3rd)

2. Franklin Roosevelt, 18 polls, 2.11 average (highest: 1st; lowest, 3rd)
3. George Washington, 18 polls, 2.72 average (highest: 1st; lowest, 4th)
4. Thomas Jefferson, 18 polls, 4.56 average (highest, 2nd; lowest, 7th)
5. Theodore Roosevelt, 18 polls, 4.67 average (highest, 2nd; lowest, 7th)

6. Harry Truman, 17 polls, 7.12 average (highest, 5th; lowest, 9th)
7. Woodrow Wilson, 18 polls, 7.17 average (highest, 4th; lowest, 11th)
8. Andrew Jackson, 18 polls, 9.56 average (highest, 5th; lowest, 14th)

9. Dwight Eisenhower, 17 polls, 9.94 average (highest, 6th; lowest, 22nd)
10. James K. Polk, 18 polls, 11.67 average (highest, 8th; lowest, 19th)

11. John Kennedy, 16 polls, 12.13 average (highest, 6th; lowest, 18th)
12. John Adams, 18 polls, 12.83 average (highest, 9th; lowest, 17th)
13. James Madison, 18 polls, 13.17 average (highest, 6th; lowest, 20th)
14. Lyndon Johnson, 16 polls, 13.25 average (highest, 10th; lowest, 18th)
15. James Monroe, 18 polls, 14.17 average (highest, 7th; lowest, 21st)

16. Ronald Reagan, 14 polls, 14.64 average (highest, 6th; lowest, 26th)
17. Grover Cleveland, 18 polls, 16.5 average (highest, 8th; lowest, 23rd)
18. Barack Obama, 2 polls, 16.5 average (highest, 15th; lowest, 18th)
19. William McKinley, 18 polls, 16.89 average (highest, 10th; lowest, 21st)
20. John Quincy Adams, 18 polls, 17.89 average (highest, 11th; lowest, 25th)

21. Bill Clinton, 12 polls, 18.5 points (highest, 8th; lowest, 24th)
22. William Howard Taft, 18 polls, 21.11 average (highest, 16th; lowest, 29th)
23. George H.W. Bush, 13 polls, 21.38 average (highest, 17th; lowest, 31st)
24. Martin Van Buren, 18 polls, 23.69 average (highest, 15th; lowest, 40th)
25. Rutherford B. Hayes, 18 polls, 24.33 average (highest, 13th; lowest, 33rd)

26. Gerald Ford, 16 polls, 25.88 average (highest, 22nd; lowest, 32nd)
27. Jimmy Carter, 16 polls, 26.44 average (highest, 18th; lowest, 34th)
28. Chester Arthur, 18 polls, 26.44 average (highest, 17th; lowest, 32nd)
29. Benjamin Harrison, 18 polls, 28.11 average (highest, 19th; lowest, 34th)
30. Calvin Coolidge, 18 polls, 28.17 average (highest, 23rd; lowest, 36th)

31. Herbert Hoover, 18 polls, 28.83 average (highest, 19th; lowest, 38th)
32. James Garfield, 11 polls, 29.64 average (highest, 25th; lowest, 33rd)
33. Zachary Taylor, 18 polls, 30.00 average (highest, 24th; lowest, 34th)
34. Richard Nixon, 16 polls, 30.00 average (highest, 23rd; lowest, 38th)
35. Ulysses S. Grant, 18 polls, 31.06 average (highest, 18th; lowest, 37th)

36. John Tyler, 18 polls, 32.72 average (highest, 22nd; lowest, 37th)
37. Millard Fillmore, 18 polls, 33.33 average (highest, 24th; lowest, 38th)
38. William Henry Harrison, 11 polls, 35.18 average (highest, 28th; lowest, 39th)
39. Andrew Johnson, 18 polls, 35.5 average (highest, 19th; lowest, 43rd)
40. Franklin Pierce, 18 polls, 36.22 average (highest ,27th; lowest, 41st)

41. George W. Bush, 6 polls, 36.67 average (highest, 19th; lowest, 39th)
42. Warren Harding, 18 polls, 37.83 average (highest, 29th; lowest, 42nd)
43. James Buchanan, 18 polls, 38.11 average (highest, 26th; lowest, 43rd)

The Brookings poll is the second to include Barack Obama. Obama ranked No. 15 in his first poll, the Siena College presidential rankings in 2010. In the Brookings poll, Obama slipped to 18th. Still, considering some of the accomplishments of the Obama years -- health care reform, ending the Great Recession, the auto industry bailout, the killing of Osama Bin Laden and now the nuclear arms talks with Iran -- his rankings could vary greatly in the coming years depending on how those actions resonate with future historians.

A look at George W. Bush's rankings show how much opinion can shift on a president in a short time. Bush II first was ranked in the 2002 Siena poll, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He came in 23rd. In 2005, in a Wall Street Journal poll, the economy was performing well and the war in Iraq was just two years old, Bush improved to 19th.

The next major poll was released in 2008 by the New York Times. At that time, the economy had slipped in to the Great Recession and the war in Iraq was still a chain around the U.S economy's neck. Bush slipped to 37th in that poll and hasn't come in higher than 31st since. 

The true 'blue bloods' of college basketball

I am a Kentucky fan so I was on the edge of my seat last night watching the Wildcats somehow survive against Notre Dame.

As I've gotten older -- almost 46 now -- sports and watching sports has become less appealing. Still, with Kentucky chasing history, it's must-see TV.

Earlier this month, I watched the documentary "The Sixth Man" about Big Blue Nation, the crazy Kentucky fans that make the program unlike any other.

With Duke still alive, I wanted to do a quick ranking of the most successful college basketball programs ever. I assumed Kentucky, with having won titles under five different coaches would be No. 1. I was off slightly.

Quick system. Every Final Four appearance was worth one point. Runner-up finishes were an extra point. Titles were two extra points. This is updated through this weekend's Elite Eight games. All four of the schools still alive are on this list. Here are the results:

Rank	School	Titles (x2)	Second	Final Fours	Total
1.	UCLA	11	2	18	41
2.	Kentucky	8	4	17	36
3.	North Carolina	5	4	18	32
4.	Duke	4	6	16	30
5.	Kansas	3	6	14	26
6.	Indiana	5	1	8	19
7.	Ohio State	1	4	11	17
8.	Louisville	3	0	10	16
9.	Michigan	1	5	7	14
9.	Michigan State	2	1	9	14
11.	Connecticut	4	0	5	13
12.	Cincinnati	2	1	6	11
12.	Oklahoma St.	2	1	6	11
14.	Florida	2	1	5	10
14.	Georgetown	1	3	5	10
16.	Arkansas	1	1	6	9
16.	Syracuse	1	2	5	9
18.	Houston	0	2	5	7
18.	N.C. State	2	0	3	7
18.	Utah	1	1	4	7
18.	Villanova	1	1	4	7
18.	Arizona	1	1	4	7
23.	California	1	1	3	6
23.	Illinois	0	1	5	6
23.	Marquette	1	1	3	6
23.	Oklahoma	0	2	4	6
23.	UNLV	1	0	4	6
23.	Wisconsin	1	0	4	6