Our inevitable conquest of Planet Pigskin took another leap forward recently as readers of Football Outsiders.com named Cold, Hard Football Facts.com the second-best independent football site on the Web.

 

“If there were a humble bone in my body, I’d thank Football Outsiders.com for including us in their survey and thank its readers for thinking so highly of us,” said Cold, Hard Football Facts.com publisher Kerry J. Byrne. “But as our readers know, humility is not something we do well. The truth is that the result of this survey is merely symbolic of our preordained conquest of Planet Pigskin. If I were the publisher of another site, or an illiterate sports writer at a media dinosaur like the Boston Globe, I’d surrender now while there’s still hope.”

 

Many of our readers are familiar with Football Outsiders.com, a nifty site for statistical analysis that was among the very first to publicize Cold, Hard Football Facts.com when we launched in September 2004.

 

Cold, Hard Football Facts.com received 7.8 percent of the vote among Football Outsiders.com readers. It put us a distant second to Pro Football Talk.com, a site devoted to rumor peddling, but we feel it’s a strong showing and proves that it’s only inevitable that we will soon crush all other sites on our way to world domination. Consider that Pro Football Talk.com was launched in November 2001, nearly three years before Cold, Hard Football Facts.com. We’ve made our presence known in a very short 18-month period.

 

“With writer and editor John Dudley, beer and whiskey expert Lew Bryson, and a revolving cast of contributors including folks like NFL broadcaster Mike Carlson, we’ve assembled the most talented collection of beer, food and football writers the world has ever seen,” said Byrne. “We have reinvented the concept of sports writing by combining the entertaining bombast of opinionated sports reporting with deadly accurate gridiron analysis. We’re also the only site in existence that’s devoted to more than just the game, but to the entire culture of American football. It’s a recipe for world domination.”

 

In March 2005, Cold, Hard Football Facts.com finished third in voting among Football Outsiders.com readers. We consider that showing a remarkable accomplishment, as Cold, Hard Football Facts.com was a mere six months old when the voting took place.

 

Soon after, also in March of 2005, Cold, Hard Football Facts.com was voted the No. 1 sports site on the Web by readers of BostonSportsMedia.com. Again, it was a remarkable accomplishment for a six-month-old site. BostonSportsMedia.com recently held its 2006 voting and we’re awaiting the results.

 

“We’ve done particularly well in the Boston market,” said Byrne. “Our goal now is to generate the same exposure in every other major football market and, ultimately, to turn up No. 1 on every survey ever held again. Because, let's face it, No. 2 is just the first loser.”