The NFL labor situation is cloudier than the mickey we slip our "dates." But the almighty Cold, Hard Football Facts are moving ahead full speed. So we wanted to take a minute to share some exciting news about the 2011-12 season.

In the coming days, you will begin to notice the brand "Football Nation" appearing here on the almighty ColdHardFootballFacts.com.

It's a new network of innovative, football-centric websites, including CollegeFootballGeek.com, FFChamps.com, FFSlots.com and FootballNation.com. You can read a bit more about each of these sites below.

What does this mean to you? 

This development means that we're one step closer to the inevitable conquest of Planet Pigskin that we promised our readers when we launched CHFF back in the day.

 

It means we're bringing great new features to ColdHardFootballFacts.com, expanding our coverage (including more college football), introducing a new contributors' program that will allow you to write for CHFF and for Football Nation and expanding our multimedia outreach with major-media partnerships (more on that development as the labor situation sorts itself out).  

Soon we'll be introducing a redesigned ColdHardFootballFacts.com, highlighted by CHFF Insider. The goal of CHFF Insider is to give you the tools you need to predict who's going to win each and every NFL game, with new features built upon our groundbreaking Quality Stats.

 

CHFF Insider will include our existing Quality Stats, some great new Quality Stats, overall rankings for all 32 NFL teams in our Quality Stats, sortable charts for overall and individual indicators, side-by-side Quality Stat comparisons of every opponent in every NFL game, and new tools for analysis, such as the Correlation to Victory and Predictive Rate of Victory of all of our indicators.

 

Here are some examples, based on 2010 numbers, of the kind of information you'll find on CHFF Insider.

ONE - Teams that bested their opponent in the efficiency battle, as measured by our Scoreability and Bendability indices, went an incredible 216-40 (84.4%) in 2010.

TWO – Teams that entered a game with the higher passer rating went 164-92 (64.1%) in 2010, even if you look at no other indicator but passer rating.  

THREE – Super Bowl champion Green Bay finished No. 1 across the board in all our Quality Stats last year, with an average rank of 4.85; AFC champion Pittsburgh finished No. 2 across the board in all our Quality Stats last year, with an average rank of 5.15. Pretty handy, huh?

 

We'll track these numbers and more each week on CHFF Insider.

Football Nation/CHFF Writer's program
You'll also going to have a chance to be published, be read and be heard on ColdHardFootball.com and on FootballNation.com. (Bonus for me: readers no longer need to bury me with spreadsheets and 4,000 word diatribes each day ... you can publish yourself!)

Our new technology will allow readers to publish via the Football Nation writing and blog program.  Our top writers will also have the opportunity to be featured on our partner sites, such as SI.com.

Also, a handful of the best writers will have the opportunity to earn money for doing what they love. We will be all football, all the time. To apply to write for Football Nation, or cover a team or topic you have a passion for, follow the link here and get started now. The application process is quick and easy. Click here to apply.

Meet our Football Nation partners
Our Football Nation partners will help cover the topics we don't – for example, they'll help you dominate your NFL or even college fantasy league.

FFChamps.com is quite simply the leading NFL fantasy advice site on the internet.  Founded by industry experts Jon and Ian Millman in 1999, they have strung together an unmatched string of dominance in the Fantasy Index Experts Poll.  For the past 12 years, they have honed their fantasy tools and technology into a best-in-class offering.

CollegeFootballGeek.com College Fantasy Football is on the rise, and CFG is the leading site on the web for college fantasy football strategy. Todd DeVries is a great writer, an outstanding source of college football knowledge and has already begun contributing to Cold, Hard Football Facts. But you can get the full TD-and-Friends experience each day at CollegeFootballGeek.com.

 

FFSlots.com is the first 'spin to win' Pro and College Fantasy Football game. It is fun, fast, and easy to use online or on any mobile device. You can use your vast knowledge derived from reading Football Nation sites, or rely on the luck of the slot wheels, to select the best team. You can play head-to-head by inviting a friend or, in our Football Nation-wide cash competitions.  As soon as FFSlots.com is officially launched, you will be the first to know.

 

More information soon, folks. And, as always, thanks for the years of support of ColdHardFootballFacts.com. It will be better than ever in the season(s) ahead).