It’s my least favorite holiday; but hey, at least there’s football on. And then people start gearing up for the ridiculousness that is “Black Friday’. Speaking of which, here is a good article by Shamus Young about how all that frenzied shopping came about.
football
Should we keep watching football?
It’s the question on every fan’s mind, what with the slew of arrests and allegations against players for all sorts of atrocious crimes, coupled with the already-known health effects of the game.
Personally, I’m still going to watch it. It was shameful that the league only suspended Ray Rice for two games, but now that they have fixed that, it seems that some kind of progress is being made. I don’t blame people who choose to boycott the league but, as I’ve blogged about before, I’ve gotten used to enjoying performances and work by people who were really awful human beings. “Hate the Sinner, Enjoy the Sinner’s Work”, I guess.
It’s not the same, though–it’s tough watching guys who are real scumbags. I think almost every team has at least one guy who has committed some crime.
The problem is, if we assume that it’s the popularity–and thus profitability–of the sport that makes some players feel so arrogant and spoiled that they think they’re above the law, then following some new sport instead will just make those people the same way. There’s really no part of the entertainment industry that’s free from criminals.
I have no doubt that soon–maybe in the next decade–football’s popularity will start to wane. We’ve just been through the “golden age” of football over the past 15 years, and so a decline is inevitable. As I’ve said before, it will probably be replaced by virtual sports.
Yet another open letter to the Buffalo Bills–oh, never mind! What’s the point?
Yeah, I think Buffalo ought to claim Michael Sam off waivers, but at this point I’ve learned that they never do anything I think they should.
I tell them to get a QB who won a playoff game, and instead they go draft E.J. Manuel. I tell them not to waste their draft picks on wide-receivers and they trade up to draft an injury-prone one. I tell them they need more pass-rushers, and they don’t bother to get any, and their star at the linebacker position gets hurt.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see how my proposal for a team built around Tebow, C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson running the ball on option plays, with Brandon Spikes (yes, he is the one intelligent addition they have made) stopping the run, Kahlil Mack filling for Alonso, and Michael Sam rushing the passer could be any worse than what they have now, and if nothing else, it would have a first-round pick next year.
NFL haiku
Atlanta
They return to form,
And will be in the playoffs.
But not the S-B.
Arizona
Could be pretty good.
But are in a division
That is much too strong.
Baltimore
They’re like the Giants;
Championship, followed by
Mediocrity.
Buffalo
Can Sammy Watkins
Make E.J. into a star?
History says no.
Carolina
They won’t be as good.
Had lots of good luck last year.
Cannot count on that.
Chicago
Now they have offense;
But it’s their defense that’s weak–
Ya can’t have it all.
Cincinnati
They will fall apart;
Dalton and Lewis will go;
Green new Megatron.
Cleveland
With Johnny Football
Being the next Broadway Joe,
They might beat the Colts.
Dallas
No “D” in Big D,
At least, that is how it looks;
8 and 8 again.
Denver
Seem to have improved;
But stats say that offense will
Regress to the mean.
Detroit
After collapse last year,
Will be hard to be rebuilt–
But what else is new?
Green Bay
Are underrated;
First game will tell us a lot–
If well-refereed.
Houston
Clowney and Watt will
Be difficult to slow down.
But the offense won’t.
Indianapolis
Andrew Luck’s third year
Will be the one where he breaks
Into the “elite” class.
Jacksonville
They’re gonna be bad.
Like, really, really awful.
As in, not too good.
Kansas City
Still a decent team–
But San Diego and Denver
Are too much for them.
Miami
Buffalo swept them
Last year. That alone is a
Harbinger of doom.
Minnesota
Year of Transition–
“Bridge over Troubled Water”
You might even say.
New England
With improved defense
Tom Brady and Belichick
Finally get four.
New Orleans
Maybe I’m crazy;
But Brees has to decline soon–
And he’s their offense.
New York Jets
Decker in for shock–
Amazing how good you look
When on Manning’s team.
New York Giants
When they’re counted out
Is when they do their best work;
But can’t beat the ‘Hawks..
Oakland
The AFC West’s
“Other” football team is still
Down in the cellar.
Philadelphia
Who needs DeSean
When they have LeSean and Foles?
Reinvent the screen.
Pittsburgh
Will win division
But more or less by default–
And lose in first round.
San Diego
They will beat Denver,
But lose two to the Raiders
And go 8 and 8.
San Francisco
Kaepernick should not
Throw to the right-side corner
With game on the line.
Seattle
The next Dynasty
Makes it back again this year–
But won’t win title.
St. Louis
“Distractions” can be
overcome, but the Niners
and ‘Hawks cannot.
Tampa Bay
Cool new uniforms
Sadly cannot mask the fact
They’re still pretty bad.
Tennessee
Will be wild-card,
And could even win a game–
But can’t beat the Colts.
Washington
After this season,
They will want to change their name,
They’ll have been so bad.
George Plimpton
There was a good show on PBS last night about George Plimpton, of which the above video is an excerpt. As I have said before, I love his most famous book, Paper Lion, about his time as the “last-string” quarterback for the Detroit Lions. I also enjoyed his book Open Net about playing goalie for the Boston Bruins.
That’s really only the tip of the Plimpton iceberg, though. It would probably be faster to list all the things he didn’t do in life, but just read the Wikipedia synopsis of his career. I don’t think he could ever be accused of not living life to the fullest.
The thing that gets forgotten in the talk of the guts Plimpton had to try (and fail) all these difficult activities, is the fact that he was also a truly great writer. I recommend Paper Lion even to people who don’t care about football in the least, simply because it is so well-written.
Post-Mortem on the Buffalo Bills’ Draft
A Disaster
The only thing worse than drafting a wide-receiver in the first round is trading up to do so. Buffalo mortgaged the future in order to get someone who won’t help them win now. Then they picked a lineman from Alabama, and linemen from Alabama generally don’t work out in the pros. But at least they did pick some linemen–that is the one and only good thing to say about this draft.
Really, it all goes back to the fact that I am not sold on E.J. Manuel as the quarterback. I don’t care how good Sammy Watkins is; it’s not going to matter if they can’t get him the ball. They would have been so much better off drafting University of Buffalo’s Khalil Mack, but I guess they saw no value in having a hometown star who plays a key position on the team.
But ok; so they decided to go the “build the offense by getting good receivers” route. I have seen no evidence that this plan will work, (look at Arizona for the past decade to see the best outcome of this scheme) but apparently, that was their strategy.
So, if that really is their idea, why would they then go and trade the best (or second-best, if you buy the Watkins hype) receiver on the roster? I mean, do they want to have a strong receiving corps or not?
And of course they failed to draft Michael Sam, which I really thought they should have. That’s not a disaster, but it would have been smart. (By the way, how is it that the Defensive Player of the Year in the best college conference falls to the late seventh-round, especially when the latest any previous recipient of that honor went was in the fifth round?)
To my mind, the clear winner of this draft was Cleveland. They strengthened their defense, got someone who has the potential to be the next Colin Kaepernick or Cam Newton, and got Buffalo’s first-round pick next year (I expect it will be a very high one) to boot.
How Football Helmets would look in “Star Wars”
Ok, so I lied a bit when I said no football stuff for a few months. But really, these are so cool. Check them out. The “Yavin Rebels” one is my favorite
I admit, I’ve always been fascinated by football helmet and uniform design. In my opinion, this is the best football helmet and uniform design ever. Interestingly, it was also the very first.
“Defense Wins Championships”
“When an outstanding offensive team meets an outstanding defensive team, the defense will win every time.” So said Hall of Fame football coach Marv Levy in 1974, when coaching the Montreal Alouettes and their top defense against the top-ranked offense of the Edmonton Eskimos for the Grey Cup. Levy was vindicated when the Alouettes won, 20-7. (The story is recounted on page 194 of Levy’s autobiography, Where Else Would You Rather Be?)
Ironically, Levy was also on the sidelines for perhaps the most famous example of this claim, when his top-ranked offense narrowly lost to New York’s top-ranked defense, in a game that was ultimately decided by neither offense nor defense, but by the kicking game.
Until this year, that was the last time the number one defense played the number one offense for the championship. That bodes well for Seattle and their defense. However, that’s not the only good news for them. More recent history shows us that powerful offense usually fail to bring home the title. Look at St. Louis in 2001, Oakland in 2002, Seattle in 2005, and New England in 2007 and 2011.
Interestingly, the two recent exceptions I can think of to this pattern both involve Peyton Manning. His always-efficient Indianapolis offense beat Chicago’s famed defense in a downpour in 2006, and lost to New Orleans’ record-setting offense in 2009, in a matchup of two teams with strong offenses and suspect defenses.
It’s funny how the knock on Manning has long been that he “chokes”, that he “can’t win the big one” (or, since 2006, that he can’t win it a second time.) The truth is, he’s just been a victim of his own success, of being at the center of some wildly unbalanced teams. You can have a fair amount of regular season success with that, but come the postseason, you will be defeated by other good teams that know how to take away what you do best.
People thought Tom Brady was particularly “clutch” early in his career, but I think it was more that he played on balanced teams. Then New England became more one-dimensional in favor of the passing game, and suddenly Brady always fails in the playoffs just like Manning used to. It’s not that Brady forgot how to play in big games; it’s that other teams simply realized that if they took him away, New England had nothing else.
Denver is about as unbalanced as it gets, and if anyone slows down their passing game, they will find that they have nothing else.
Seattle is almost uniquely suited to slowing Denver down, having the top defensive secondary in the league. Manning’s arm is pretty weak at this point, so it’s not like he’ll be able to throw the long bomb. (In the AFC championship, he threw some truly awful passes that were complete only by sheer luck. And that was in the thin Denver air.) Their offense is heavily reliant on the short pass, which relies on timing, and which Seattle’s defensive backs will be able to disrupt.
Meanwhile, people keep saying the Denver defense can stop Seattle’s running game, but I am skeptical. I think they look better on the stat sheet than they actually are. Probably, they seem so good against the run because the lousy teams they played abandoned the run after falling behind to the Manning attack. That won’t be an issue for Seattle.
SEA: 27
DEN: 19
My Predictions
SEA: 23
SF: 22
Kaepernick is not quite as good as Wilson.
NE: 29
DEN: 26 (O.T.)
…however, ask me in another half hour, and I might say “Denver by 14” instead. I went back and forth trying to figure this game out. But it’s one of the most difficult matchups I can remember.
On the one hand, Denver is exactly the kind of powerful but wildly unbalanced offense that almost always collapses in the playoffs. It’s not that Manning “chokes” as people always say; it’s just that his teams are usually one-dimensional passing attacks, and when they meet someone who can stop that, they lose.
New England, meanwhile, seems to have finally done what I’ve been saying they should do these past few seasons, and developed a running game. This is good–for a time, they were the one-dimensional passing team that was always collapsing in the postseason.
The only difficulty is that almost all of their first-stringers on defense, and their top receiving weapon, are injured. Soon or later, this seems bound to catch up to them. Thanks to the salary cap, teams just can’t build up depth. But then again, no one would’ve said they could get even this far with so many injuries, and yet here they are. So why not take down one of the best offenses in NFL history while they’re at it?
Then, of course, there is the meeting earlier in the season between the two teams. Normally, that would give some indication of what to expect. But somehow, I doubt New England will spot Denver a 24-point lead again by fumbling three times. But if they do, I don’t think their offense, sans Gronkowski, can come back.
It could be a shootout. It could be a defensive struggle. It could be a blowout by either side. All I know is it figures to be pretty entertaining.
Fantasy Football, revisited.
Against my better judgment, I’m in a fantasy football league again this season. my team is much stronger this year since I decided to abandon my “contrarian” strategy of last year and go the more conservative route of doing what the fantasy experts recommend.
Even so, it’s scary to me how addictive it is. I never understood how anyone could be addicted to gambling, but I’m starting to see. You get a thrill when some random player you picked off of waivers does well, and are frustrated when you 1st round pick under-performs. But it’s not like there’s anything you can do about it.
I suppose it’s more like stock picking than gambling per se. There’s some element of skill to stock picking; you have to have a decent grasp of business and the economy to be able to have sustained success. But after that, both stocks and fantasy football are all about 90% luck. And when you consider that everybody in my league is reasonably knowledgeable about football, that’s practically the equivalent of it being 100% luck.
Case in point: everyone knew Peyton Manning would, barring injury, be good this year. He’s been good basically every year of his career. But it’s not like it was unreasonable to think, back in August, that Aaron Rodgers might be better. No one could have expected this record-shattering pace from Manning.
It’s an amusing little diversion, don’t get me wrong. It can make watching the games more interesting. But from the perspective of a video gamer, who has heard that his pastime is “unproductive” and “a waste of time”, I can at least say that with video games, you can influence the outcome–that seems like it’s a bit more worthwhile then spending time trying to win a competition you have no control over.