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Saw the movie Rudy on TV the other day.  It was about what I always expect sports movies to be.  Totally predictable, and thus somewhat dull, even though the acting, cinematography and music were all pretty good.  It’s based on a true story, and to its credit remained relatively true to the actual events.  You can see film of the actual play  by Daniel Ruettiger here.

What surprised me a little about the movie was the extent to which it is a giant ad for the University of Notre Dame.  That, and the fact that Rudy, as depicted in the film, seemed a little unhinged in his obsession with playing football for them. I don’t know if the real  guy was like that–probably not–but the character as shown in the movie seems overly fixated on it to me.

I’m not saying a person shouldn’t want to play football for their favorite team, and I am totally behind the “don’t give up on your dreams” message, but still, there’s a difference between “never giving up” and “obsessing to the point of madness”.  It made it difficult for me to relate to the character.

 

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Well, he’s wrong about a lot of things, actually, but at the moment, I want to address his incorrect claims about football.  Now, his recent column is based on the idea that the game cannot be made concussion free without fundamentally changing the sport.  This is true.  I’ll give him that.

Where he goes wrong is in assuming that this means the talent pool will dry up as parents forbid their children from playing the sport.  It won’t.  It will just make the game less skill based and more strength and speed based.

What’s the first thing kids immediately do when they don’t have to live by their parents rules anymore?  Violate them.  If they can’t play organized football, they’ll play disorganized football.  And ultimately, college and pro football will start recruiting physical freaks of nature like Calvin Johnson and Rob Gronkowski who have little training in the game, but more than enough inherent physical prowess to make up for it.

The game will not be destroyed; it will simply morph back into what it used to be in the 1950s and ’60s.  Only with, as Will notes, bigger players.  There will be less strategy and more sheer strength to it.  I suspect the running game will make a great comeback 10-25 years from now in pro football, because it requires less practice and timing and more physical ability.

There is a dark irony to all this, of course: as people keep their kids out of football,  it encourages the sport to rely more on violent play at its uppermost levels to remain popular, as teams become comprised of untrained, unpracticed hitting machines.

Most football players, when asked, say “this is what we signed up for.”  They don’t mind the risk.  Watch players getting themselves pumped up before a game, and you’ll often see them headbutting each other.  It’s not a full-force collision to be sure, but studies show that it’s by repeated, routine hits that the damage is done.  And here the players are, doing it on purpose, voluntarily, to themselves and their teammates.

The bottom line here is that there is only so much you can do to prevent people hurting themselves if they are really hell-bent on it.  (This lesson applies to so many areas in life.)  Of course, I have previously stated my thoughts on the safest, most viable alternative to dangerous sports, but there are some, probably many, players who will accept nothing less than the real thing.

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Football season is upon us!  It’s only pre-season, but still!  Therefore I have prepared some poetry for the occasion.  I wanted to do more haiku since my political ones were pretty popular, and I got the idea to do a football-themed set from Gregg Easterbrook.  Some of them contain an actual prediction, some just make a lousy pun, but all of them contain 5-7-5 syllable goodness!

Atlanta

This will be the year

They win a postseason game.

But only the one.

Arizona

Two great receivers

Never get hands on the ball

If QB’s on ground.

Baltimore

Most boring good team

Will make playoffs, win, then lose.

Wash, rinse and repeat.

Buffalo

Upgraded defense.

But inconsistent passing

Will give the fans “Fitz”.

Carolina

“Cam will change the game”

Maybe so, but then again

We’ve heard that before.

Chicago

Will win division.

And if they can stay healthy

Will reach New Orleans.

Cincinnati
They ought to be good.

Yet, whenever we think that,

They always collapse.

Cleveland

They seem to have been

Re-rebuilding ever since

1999.

Dallas

Poor Dallas Cowboys:

With the biggest screen ever,

And a small window.

Denver

Broadway Joe the Ram

Unitas as a Charger

Condemned to repeat.

Detroit

Don’t blame Megatron;

‘Cover curse’, and their defense,

Put them in cellar.

Green Bay

Defense gets better

But offensive regression

Makes them a fifth seed.

Houston

Just who are these guys?

They lost Mario, but they’ll

Win the Lombardi.

Indianapolis

Well, with any Luck

They will be back into form

Come twenty-fourteen

Jacksonville

They’re gonna be bad.

Like, really, really awful.

As in, not too good.

Kansas City

They might be healthy

This year, and have a good chance

To win Division.

Miami

Major rebuilding.

The last time that they did that

They made the playoffs.

Minnesota

Is it just me who

Believes that “Christian Ponder”

Should be Tebow’s name?

New England

Impressive offense

Figures to run up the score.

Without the “running”.

New Orleans

Team’s united; there’s

No mutiny on bounty.

But still, no Captain.

 New York Jets

Should have signed Owens

And Moss and Ochocinco.

Would be great TV.

New York Giants

They look weak compared

To the Eagles and Cowboys.

Like they did last year.

Oakland

How’ll the West be won?

I don’t know, but it will not

Be by the Raiders.

Philadelphia

Unpredictable

They always surprise people.

Not this year–sixth seed.

Pittsburgh

They tried to Ward off

The ravages of time, but

It’s caught up to them.

San Diego

I think that Turner

Could lose all sixteen games and

Still not get fired.

San Francisco

Will regress a lot

And still win their division

But not NFC.

Seattle

Weird new uniforms

Make them the NFL’s Ducks:

Good, but not elite.

St. Louis

Could surprise some teams,

But Braford’s injury prone.

Can’t beat the Niners.

Tampa Bay

Like the G-Man says:

“Rise and Shine, Mr. Freeman”.

Wrong man in right place.

Tennessee

They appear destined

For second in division

And missing playoffs.

Washington

Griffin next Newton.

Puts up good numbers, but fails

To win seven games.

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This is awesome.  It’s like the sort of thing I would have wanted to do as a kid, except that I would have become frustrated and given up after one section.  But this fan, one Robert J. Hall, saw it through to the end.  There’s an article about him and a photo gallery of his project here.

Now, if only he could build a really good, life-size, moving #2 wide-receiver, we’d be all set this year.  He could use “Mindstorms” to program in the routes to run.  It’d be great.

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Since I posted about it a week ago, it’s become by far my most viewed post.  Tons of people are getting here searching on variations of “I don’t get the NCAA 13 commercials”.

The game itself is, I have to say, pretty fun.  Now, granted, it’s not exactly super-realistic.  I play as Akron in dynasty mode, because they’re one of the worst rated teams, and there was a game against Arkansas with the final score of 91-49. (Arkansas’s favor)  Now, granted it’s a mismatch, but that’s kind of insane nonetheless.  My star receiver had like 2,000 yards and 12 TDs as of week three–and this is on “All-American” difficulty.  And the made-up players you’re supposed to recruit are all rude as heck for some reason.  But it’s still fun, except for a few freezing issues.

The “Heisman Challenge” mode, meanwhile, is way more fun than it should be.  It’s even less realistic.  I play as Andre Ware, and so far he has 32 touchdowns  and 3,000+ yards in four games.  The only competition he could have for the Heisman are his own receivers.  It shouldn’t be fun and yet, weirdly, it is.

(One thing that bothers me: why does Ware have the wrong facemask?  The loading screen clearly shows a picture of him wearing this mask, and yet in the game he has one more like Tom Brady’s.  And while we’re on the subject, what’s that giant faceguard Herschel Walker’s wearing in the above ad?  He never wore that. /end mysterious man facemask rant)

Anyway, it’s a very fun game, but it has more of an “arcade” feeling to it.  Which is cool.  The college game feels looser and more wide-open than pro, so that makes sense.

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Over at the Buffalo Bills fanblog “Buffalo Rumblings“, Aaron Lowinger wrote a counter-factual season preview/review of past Bills seasons; that is, a kind of historical fiction or “alternate reality” type of post.  I thought it was a cool idea, but the reaction from most of the site’s readers was pretty negative.  I can sort of see why, too, because even in Lowinger’s fantastic universe, the Bills are still seeking their first championship.  Enhanced misery is not what people want in their daydreams.

I really like the idea, though. I’d like to try it myself in fact.  Allow me, if I may, to borrow Lowinger’s (and Buffalo Rumblings editor Brian Galliford’s) idea, and try to make it into a happier one.  What follows is purely fictional–although it may be factual somewhere in the multiverse…

****

When the ball slipped through the fingers of their most reliable receiver this past January, it shattered many Bills fans’ hopes of doing something done only twice before: three championships in four years.  The Bills, coming off a franchise-best 14-2 regular-season record, had marched down the field for a touchdown to cut the upstart Jaguars’ lead to 31-29, but the two-point conversion fell short with only seconds remaining.

It was a rare miscue for a team accustomed to winning.  After their thrilling 31-28 O.T. win over Arizona in SB 43, the Bills had established a reputation as clutch winners.  Their improbable run to a 34-15 shellacking of that same Arizona team in SB 45 only cemented that reputation, with a thrilling 17-point rally to beat Indy in the divisional round, followed by Trent Edwards’ clutch drive to down favored Baltimore 27-24 in the conference final being the most notable examples.

January’s disappointment aside, the Bills remain a young team with all the major pieces in place for another championship run.  Although they lost star running back Steven Jackson in free-agency, they are confident that Spiller can fill his shoes.  The receiving corps remains intact, as does the offensive line. The addition of Asante Samuel to a strong secondary makes them arguably even more powerful than the #2 defensive unit that led them to their first championship.

****

Well, that was fun, right?  Or maybe not.  Is it just a sad reminder of how bad things are, or an uplifting diversion?  For, after all, sports themselves are meant to be an uplifting diversion.  They really aren’t much good if you let them make you sad.

P.S. Lowinger and Galliford–should you happen to read this, I hope you don’t mind me reworking your idea.  If you do, I’ll gladly take it down.  It’s not exactly Goethe reworking Marlowe’s stuff, but sometimes it pays to take more than one crack at an idea.

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Why would that upset the dad?  Who wouldn’t like the idea of stealing one of their arch-rival’s greatest players?  It’d make more sense if the kid had put Archie Griffin on Michigan.

Well, regardless, I think the NCAA game looks cool, although in all the videos I’ve seen, I’ve had a hard time because I get distracted by the ESPN crawl at the bottom.  The thing that says in big red letters “Upset Alert! Danger, Danger!  Warning, Dr. Smith!” or whatever.  That is great in real life, but in the game it’s just a nuisance.  I don’t care if the simulation has Wyoming beating Alabama or something, and it distracts me from the game I’m playing.

Actually, I think presentation in sports games is overrated.  I used to think it was important, but I gradually realized I’d much rather play a good, realistic simulation of football with a stripped-down presentation than a mediocre game with great presentation.  Presentation is just easier to do, so people fixate on it.

I don’t even care about the announcers at all anymore; I think every game I’ve played has them saying the same lines over and over.  And I don’t blame the people who make the games for that; it’s just inevitable.  (If I get Madden, which I doubt very much I will, I will not play the sound.  I can’t stand Phil Simms’s accent. “Well, Jeeem, the Cincinatt-uh Beeengals can’t run buh-cause the Buffalo Beeels are stoppin’ them.”  Sorry, Simms; don’t take it personally.)

Ultimately, I don’t play sports games to feel like I’m watching a game on TV, I play to feel like I’m, you know, playing in the game.

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G4TV has compiled a list of the top 100 video games.  Really, it was far from right of them to do that without consulting me.  I would have put KotOR II in the top spot, just for starters.  And frankly, I thought the list generally placed too much value on historically significant games.  Yes, Pong was indeed a major milestone for gaming, but I refuse to believe that it has anything to offer players that any tennis sim made in the last three console generations cannot.

Lists and rankings like this are fun, aren’t they?  Me and a friend of mine were chatting the other day about the top 5 NFL quarterbacks.  It took some hashing out, but we ultimately agreed that Roethlisberger was #3 and Brees #4.  The post-season records speak for themselves.

I am not sure why rankings matter so much, and indeed oftentimes comparisons are simply inane.  Roethlisberger and Brees have no control over most of the factors which determine their success in the play-offs.  (Both of them played very well in defeats last postseason, after all.)  Likewise, how can you really compare Angry Birds and Metal Gear Solid?   They are in different genres, in different styles, on different platforms–comparison is pretty much impossible if you think about it rationally.  But that doesn’t deter me or lots of other people from doing it. (My personal opinion: Angry Birds has no business being in the top 1,000.)

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Image via Wikipedia

“Gentlemen, this is a football.”  Thus did the famous coach Vince Lombardi supposedly begin every first team meeting of the season, while holding up same.   The point being, you always start off with the basics. However, I don’t know about the AIFA; some of their players might be seeing a football for the first time.

The other day, somebody got to this blog by searching for the terms “how would max weber view american football”. I don’t know if he was even thinking of the same Max Weber I’m so fond of, but regardless, I thought to myself: “Heck, I would like to read that article.”  So, here is a cursory attempt at writing it.

Of course, it’s hard to figure out the answer without a Ouija board and some arcane black magic.  And even then, it would probably only be something simplistic like “the competitiveness reflects the Protestant ethic” or “the Browns are 6 and 10 this year, best case.”

I’m not too familiar with his most famous writings about religion; I’ve mostly studied Weber’s contributions to political thought. Long-time readers probably remember his three types of authority:

  1. Charismatic authority
  2. Traditional authority
  3. Legal authority

Well, I suppose he’d think that coaches like Rex Ryan and players like Tim Tebow have charismatic authority, whereas coaches like Belichick and players like Ray Lewis rely on a sort of traditional authority–they have enjoyed a lot of success, so people are supposed to automatically respect them.  The equivalent to Legal authority is, well, the referees and the commissioner. (As the Saints are discovering.)

But this doesn’t tell us anything about the broader social phenomenon of football. Maybe Weber would note the similarity of the sport to religion.  After all, some fans follow it with the same zeal that people follow religions. They even collect artifacts and relics relating to the heroes of the sport.  And then, of course, there’s the ubiquitous Mr. Tebow. (I know I’m breaking my vow here. I’m sorry. But I promise you one thing: you will never see another blogger try as hard not to mention him as I will try the rest of the off-season.)

I once saw an NFL Films show about the Pittsburgh Steelers championship run in 2005.  It started off with this quasi-hymn or chant-like music that sounded religious and very eerie all at once. Imagine “Duel of the Fates“, only way creepier.  It seemed pretty serious for a bunch of football highlights.  But there are people who definitely see football as nearly as important. (Another Lombardi line, of which there are some variations: “All that matters is your God, your family and the Green Bay Packers”.)

Still, Weber studied religions as a way of highlighting differences in cultures and people’s philosophies.  The superficial resemblance of sports fanatics to religious fanatics is obviously more about the features of fanaticism than religion.  So we’re still at a dead end.

Let’s approach this from a different direction: we know that American football, though wildly popular in the United States, is not the number one sport in any other country. Perhaps the reasons for this are tied to “American exceptionalism”.  But this is more Tocqueville than it is Weber. (Where is that Ouija board?) And unfortunately, I cannot find much that Weber had to say about America.

So once again, I am frustrated.  I leave it to you, blogosphere and distinguished commenters, to sort this problem out.  What would Max Weber think of American football?

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You all have heard about how the NFL is trying to make the game of football safer. The talk about the trauma sustained by the players is everywhere. There is talk of banning the game in some circles. Even players are saying they don’t want their kids playing the game.

I think football is on its way out, frankly. Hockey and basketball, too. Even baseball’s days are numbered. Safety is only part of the reason. The other part can be seen by watching these two clips:

That’s a game from 1991. Now here is the first gameplay video for Madden 13, which will come out this August:

It’s a big difference. Meanwhile, real-world football is still the same as it was in 1991. Sure, the equipment is a little better, but it’s still pretty similar.

“But,” you object, “there’s a ceiling on how much the game can improve. The best it can do is look just like the real thing, and it doesn’t even do that yet. Besides, we need a real-life version game of football to provide a benchmark for what the video game should be like.”

I used to think that, too. But we have a benchmark, in the form of NFL films historical record. And the Madden games already include a mode in which you can play against virtual replicas of former football stars. People know who those guys are–and the thrill will be playing as your own team, with players named for you and your friends, going up against the ’72 Dolphins or the ’85 Bears.

More to the point, most fans don’t like all real football games. Sometimes, they are “boring”–that is, they are defensive struggles, as opposed to exciting, long-touchdown filled games. Most fans hate that. But video games can fix this problem–you can have 70-63 games if you like.

It goes without saying that you don’t get injured playing virtual football over the internet. Out of shape, maybe, but not “injured”. The  celebrities of football will no longer be the athletes, but people who are unbeatable at the virtual game. And the best part is, way more people can play a video game than can play actual, pro-level football.

We’re already most of the way there. This is where the safety concerns really come into play, because soon, no one will like the actual sport–too much danger. The video games will provide something for all the football experts to go into when the real game is too controversial. Imagine what it would be like to go up against some former player or coach in the video game–it will be incredibly popular.

The same thing will happen with all other sports, too. But I doubt anyone will miss them; they’re too much trouble. Video game sports are more accessible, safer, and can be played year-round.