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Ok, this really is getting ridiculous.  I thought Tebow was an odd signing for New England.  He doesn’t really fit their system.  But, when a team is as loaded as they are, they can afford to experiment.

But what if there were a team that had signed a running quarterback, and was all geared up to run a read-option offense, but he was injured for week one?  And their backup was also injured for the rest of the season? And they were in a position where they were being forced to start an undrafted free-agent?

Wouldn’t it be worth it to give a quarterback with a playoff win and a 75.3 career rating a try?

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It’s that time of the year again! My predictions were uneven last year–I was totally right about Atlanta and Arizona, but was woefully wrong about Chicago and Denver.

Atlanta

They are becoming

Just what the Colts used to be.

Will choke yet again.

Arizona

Larry Fitzgerald

Should be traded for linemen.

Would be a win/win.

Baltimore

The defending champs

Will not make the postseason.

Third in division.

Buffalo

Rebuilding again.

Manuel looks like poor man’s

Kind of Tim Tebow.

Carolina

The Anti-Niners:

Demonstrating the option

Won’t work in the pros.

Chicago

Will Cutler breakthrough?

Can there really be offense

In Windy City?

Cincinnati

Will get past Houston;

And in all the excitement

Will get to New York.

Cleveland

They seem to have been

Re-rebuilding ever since

1999.

Dallas

Changes make them good.

Win their division, first round

And lose in Green Bay.

Denver

Their last playoff loss

Looked just like Manning’s Colts teams.

Will regress this year.

Detroit

Arizona East:

One Hall of Fame receiver,

And just nothing else.

Green Bay

Need to have balance;

But having the best QB

Makes up for a lot.

Houston

It’s make or break time.

Schaub should declare he’s “elite”;

It seems to work well.

Indianapolis

Well, now, that was quick.

They’re right back where they belong:

Can they win big one?

Jacksonville

They’re gonna be bad.

Like, really, really awful.

As in, not too good.

Kansas City

Might surprise people.

But not nearly enough to

Surpass the Broncos.

Miami

Are getting better,

But they are a year away

From winning the East.

Minnesota

This will be the year

Peterson will disappoint.

Can Ponder step up?

New England

In spite of it all

They will still field a good team.

Also, Tim Tebow.

New Orleans

More insane offense,

But will the defense improve

Or still let them down?

 New York Jets

You heard it here first:

They will somehow make playoffs

And save Rex’s job.

New York Giants

Can take one more year

Before they shape up and win.

Third Championship.

Oakland

They are still lost in

A giant black hole in West.

Where will they finish?

Philadelphia

Kelly’s new offense

Will be a flop in this league.

Won’t win more than five.

Pittsburgh

Will compete again,

With infusion of talent.

And sweep Baltimore.

San Diego

This will be last year

Rivers plays for them, and then

They’ll draft new QB.

San Francisco

They look amazing.

They will live up to their hype

And will win it all.

Seattle

Won’t live up to hype,

Sophomore slump for Wilson

And get passed by Rams.

St. Louis

Will take second place

In the division, but the

Offense will struggle.

Tampa Bay

Revis Island moved,

And that alone gives them hope.

Can’t beat Atlanta.

Tennessee

They will crash and burn;

And have to start rebuilding.

Enjoy Fitzpatrick.

Washington

If Griffin’s healthy

They could be great, but if not

They won’t fall apart.

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Jason Whitlock column on the Aaron Hernandez case

At times it slides into “Ya got trouble right here in River City” territory with his complaining about the culture, but I do think a lot of his points are accurate even so.

The thing about Hernandez is that, in addition to (assuming the charges are true, of course) being an evil criminal, he must be a complete moron.  He had a $40 million contract!  Most of the gangsters Whitlock refers to were in it for the money. What was Hernandez’s reason?

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Chuck Norris has written an article about how great Tim Tebow is.  I hate to say it, but beneath all the hyperbole and cliches about “clutchness”, he has something of a point, even if he has a much higher opinion of Tebow than I do.  I don’t think he’ll ever be a really great player, but he deserves more of a chance than he’s getting.  I wish Buffalo had signed him and spent their first round pick on a defensive player instead.

I really can’t figure out the weird reluctance by teams to take Tebow.  It’s not that Tebow doesn’t have his flaws, but rather that teams are willing to gamble so much more to get potentially so much less.  E.J. Manuel may end up being the next J.P. Losman, whereas Tebow at least has won a playoff game, which is more than can be said for Rob Johnson, whom Buffalo once anointed their starter for no apparent reason, or Ryan Fitzpatrick, or any of the other placeholders they’ve had these past thirteen years.

It’s not just Buffalo, though; nobody wants Tebow.  If teams were generally very conservative, this might make sense, but they aren’t.  They gamble on worse odds all the time. Heck, Geno Smith, who signaled the end for Tebow time in New York, has “bust” written all over him in giant, neon green letters.   (B! U! S! T! Bust! Bust! Bust!)

People keep passing this off by saying “well, teams don’t want the attention he brings.” Of course they do!  They’re pro football teams! The reason they exist is to get attention, and thus money.  “Well, Tebow has this zealous fan base, led by people like Chuck Norris,” you say.  Yeah, he does.  So what? All pro football teams aim to fill their stadia with zealous fanbases each week, and it doesn’t seem to bother them then.

Tebow’s fans say he’s being discriminated against due to his religion.  Seems unlikely.  Most football players are Christians.  Kurt Warner was an outspoken Christian, like Tebow, and teams were quite willing to give him a chance, even when his play was very inconsistent.

So, we come inevitably back to his bad mechanics.  Well, no one can deny his throwing motion is terrible.  But, even so, the Pittsburgh defense could not stop him in a playoff game.    It may be bad, but it was good enough to win that day.

Can Tebow be a championship-winning quarterback?  No; it’s very unlikely, unless he travels back in time and signs with the ’85 Bears.  But can he get a team into the playoffs?  Yes–he already has done it once. Can he make a team relevant again?  Yes, even if he plays poorly, he will still attract attention.  That’s why perennially bad teams, like Buffalo, Cleveland and, as Norris mentioned, Jacksonville would be wise to get him.

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(Part 1 is here.)  The big difference between soccer and football is the pace–with soccer, play just goes on and on, in a more or less continuous flow. With football, everybody sets up runs a play which takes usually not more than 20 seconds, and thenfootball stop and set up to run another play.

This is kind of weird, because if you think of sports as a substitute for war, football is more analogous to 19th-century European warfare, with units being moved carefully into position and then executing maneuvers.  Soccer is faster and more anarchic.  I wonder how this relates to the fact that soccer is popular in Europe and football is popular in America.soccer

On another note, I think football looks cooler than soccer, largely because of the helmets. (Some people I know think they look stupid, though.)  It looks like there are robots out there fighting, as opposed to just guys in shorts and polo shirts.

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SF: 38

 

BAL: 21

 

I have to be honest, though:  I could see almost anything happening in this game.  Both teams are very unpredictable.  That might make it exciting, except that I’m almost completely indifferent to who wins.  I plan to root for San Francisco, solely because I like their colors.

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[To the tune of the Scottish folk song “Ye Jacobites By Name“.]

Ye Patriots by name, lend an ear, lend an ear,

 Ye Patriots by name, lend an ear,

 Ye Patriots by name,

 Your faults I will proclaim,

 Your gameplan I must blame, you shall hear.

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

When to Run, and When to Pass, by the chart, by the chart?

 When to Run, and When to Pass, by the chart?

 When to Run, and When to Pass?

Two throws for each run, alas,

 Against the league’s top class falls apart.

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

What makes defensive ends slow their pace, slow their pace?

 What makes defensive ends slow their pace?

 What makes defensive ends

 Unsure which threat to defend,

 And let your speedy friends out in space?

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

Then leave some plays un-thrown, and shift gears, and shift gears

 Then leave some plays un-thrown, and shift gears.

 So leave some plays un-thrown,

 Don’t give up on the run,

 And titles you’d have won last two years.

(Chorus: “Ye Patriots by Name”, etc.)

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He’s a good coach, sure, but it’s not like he’s in a class by himself.  He hasn’t even won a championship.  Seems to me that most of his team’s success is built on their superior speed, which is not going to work at the pro level, where there is less difference between players’ abilities.

There was big article by Tim Livingston a few months ago about how awesome Kelly is. It’s a good article,  but it doesn’t convince me that he is going to change the game.  So he understands statistics and probability; as Livingston himself notes, Bill Belichick has been doing the same thing for years, and it’s won him a lot of games. But it’s also far from infallible.

Here’s how I see it: Kelly knows the probabilities better than most coaches, and in most games, has the talent to execute plays flawlessly against less gifted opponents.  Against equal opposition, it may still provide a slight advantage, but there is no special reason for thinking that Kelly’s pro players will necessarily be able to out-perform their opponents.

In other words, Kelly has made following the probabilities look like more of magic formula than it is by defeating second-tier college teams.  Am I wrong?

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On Sports Illustrated today, there’s an interesting excerpt from the book When Saturday Mattered Most by Mark Beech.  It’s about Army Black Knights football coach Red Blaik’s invention of the famous “Lonesome End” formation in 1958:

Blaik[…] began to wonder. What if a team lined up in nothing but unbalanced wide-receiver sets, making them constitute the entirety of the offensive attack? And what if the receiver — in Blaik’s words the “far flanker” — was positioned far wider than was normal?

Unbalancing his offensive line, Blaik knew, would not only give his offense overwhelming force on one side, but it would also compel the defense to make a choice — whether to remain in its normal alignment, conceding the advantage to Army’s running game on the strong side, or to shift players over Army’s extra blockers, leaving itself exposed to a play that went the other way. Splitting the end extremely wide on the strong side would break up the defensive front.

What’s cool about this is how seemingly minor this innovation was.  So he had the end stand a bit further out.  So what?  But sometimes, making minor tweaks can lead to game-changing results, just because no one else thought of it because it seemed so minor.

I remember in Marv Levy’s book Where Else Would You Rather Be?, he mentioned how some American football coaches who went to the Canadian league dealt with the fact that Canadian football is 12 against 12, rather than American-style 11 against 11.  Levy said they simply put the extra player far out near the sideline, forcing one man to cover him.  And then just ignored those players, and played 11-on-11 football.  Not the ideal solution, but still clever.

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With the season getting started in earnest today, Dan Kois writes in Slate about good football books.  I’ve actually never read most of the ones he mentions; I probably should.

Some of my personal favorite football books:

  • Paper Lion by George Plimpton.  Plimpton was a journalist and essayist who decided to write about what it was like to play football.  He went through training camp as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions, and got five plays in a scrimmage at the end of camp.  It didn’t go well, but the point of the book is mostly about the fascinating personalities in football at the time.  It’s very well-written, and for someone like me, who was abysmal at sports in their youth, Plimpton’s experience is easy to relate to.
  • The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam.  It’s about Bill Belichick’s career and his knowledge of football.  Sort of a biography, but it also contains some important points about strategy and tactics.  I would recommend supplementing it with…
  • Patriot Reign by Michael Holley.  This book is not terribly well-written, but it does contain some very interesting information about football coaching.  If you’re into the strategy of the game, I recommend it for chapter on how they stifled “The Greatest Show On Turf” alone.
  • Where Else Would You Rather Be? by Marv Levy.  The memoir of the great Buffalo coach.  Levy might have been the greatest pro coach never to win it all, but his tone is light and not at all bitter.  He recounts many amusing stories from his long career.  I don’t think you even need to be a football fan to enjoy this book, although it helps.
  • Football Physics by Timothy Gay.  This book is fun; it’s an introduction to basic physics using examples drawn from football. I suppose it’s more a “physics” book than a “football” book, but it still makes the subject matter easier to read about.