Tag: sports

I hate the concept, of course, as well as the expansion of the playoffs, but no one asked me. In any event, the NFLPA approved the new CBA agreement with the NFL owners in a very close vote:

NFL players voted to approve the new proposed collective bargaining agreement, which signals 10 years of labor peace, increased revenue share for players, added benefits for former players, an expansion to a 17-game NFL regular season and more playoff teams.

The 10-day voting period closed at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday night. Owners voted to approve the new CBA on Feb. 20.

The NFL Players Association issued the following statement:

“NFL players have voted to approve ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement by a vote tally of 1,019 to 959. This comes after a long and democratic process in accordance with our constitution. An independent auditor received submitted ballots through a secure electronic platform, then verified, tallied and certified the results.”

It’s not all bad, and in fact, it helps the average player quite a bit. But it’s still sad to see the records of yesteryear rendered even more irrelevant as what was left of the league’s historical continuity is further destroyed.

It’s also interesting to see how incompetence permeates through every aspect of an organization. From Peter King’s weekly NFL column, to which I’m not going to bother to link because it is very long and mostly unrelated to the excerpted section:

Spike Lee has been a season ticket holder to Knicks games for about 30 years. He is America’s Sporting Masochist. He has evidently been entering Madison Square Garden through the media entrance for a while, and the Knicks wanted him to enter through the VIP entry gate instead. The Knicks picked last Monday night, when Lee was on a crowded elevator, to enforce the rule that he should be entering through the VIP entrance. According to Spike, he was asked to leave the building and re-enter through the proper gate. Lee said no. Which led to a fight, and Lee going on ESPN to lay waste to the Knicks, and the Knicks issuing a press release to rip Spike. As only it could, the New York Post hilariously labeled the brouhaha “Gategate.”

Now, I am definitely not a subscriber to “the customer is always right” theory. Some customers are morons. Some are a massive pain in the posterior, so much so that one is better off without them as customers. As our valued supporters of the Replatforming know, I tend to prefer the “just RTFM, please” approach. But this sort of thing is stupid because it is so pointless and unnecessary. It obviously isn’t an actual problem, it’s just some autistic gamma in the organization sperging out about the fact that a category is being misapplied.

The correct thing to do is fire the autistic gamma for failure to be human, not publicly attack your best customer because his broken perspective of the world was offended.

I’m with JJ Watts on the new NFL proposal to the NFLPA:

The new proposal includes expanding the NFL’s regular-season schedule to 17 games, which wouldn’t go into effect until 2021 at the earliest. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported earlier this week that the proposal would also boost the sport’s postseason from six teams per conference to seven.

The NFL has been remarkably stupid under Roger Goodell. But this takes the cake, especially in light of the appearance of a new potential competitor. Watering down the regular season AND the postseason defies belief.

All sports leagues make changes in the hopes of increasing revenue. But as NASCAR has demonstrated over the last decade, it’s very far from impossible for these changes to result in steeply declining revenues.

I’ll admit it, I am intrigued:

NO EXTRA POINT KICKS

Teams can go for one point from the 2-yard line, two points from the 5-yard line or three points from the 10-yard line. That means a team could score a nine-points in one possession. These three different scoring options will make a regulation tie a lot less likely. The options will create a fascinating wrinkle in coaching strategy. It’s likely that two-point conversions will be most common, but after a defensive touchdown, why not go for three?

SAFER KICKOFFS AND PUNTS

Two other game play innovations involved the kicking game: Kickoffs have been altered to make them safer so players aren’t hitting each other at full-speed. The kicker will kick off from the 30-yard line, 5 yards farther back than in the NFL, as a way to limit touchbacks. Most players will line up across from each other between the other 30- and 35-yard line and cannot move until the returner catches the ball.

The XFL made some changes to disincentivize punting, in the hopes of encouraging more teams to go for it on fourth down. Balls that are punted into the end zone or out of bounds will be marked at the 35-yard line, as opposed to the 20 in the NFL. The XFL is calling that a “major touchback.” If a team does punt, it will be more difficult to cover. No player on the punt team can run downfield until the ball is kicked, which will give returners more space to work with.

It looks as if the XFL is making a serious attempt to improve the game of football rather than simply imitate the NFL. That doesn’t mean it will be successful, of course, but it does suggest that it may be worth watching. I really like the extra point(s) option. That’s an indication of good game design.

This was my prediction the last time Andy Reid got to the Super Bowl:

Andy Reid is a solid coach, but he is not a great one. He doesn’t get outcoached, for the most part, but neither does he outcoach anyone, not even Mike Tice. Bill Belicheck, on the other hand, has repeatedly proven himself to be a Jedi master, with game plans in this year’s playoffs that left two very good teams, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, in near-complete disarray. Notice how there hasn’t even been a whisper of Charlie Weis being distracted by his moonlighting job as the Notre Dame head coach of late. The Patriots are a strategic machine, awesome to behold.

Factor in the Terrell Owens injury and the “happy-to-be-there” factor of the Eagles, and I suspect that under the guidance of the maglia ex machina, the Patriots will methodically dismantle the Eagles. I don’t think it will be a blow-out, and the combination of a tough Eagles defense and a screw-the-gameplan drive filled with scrambles by McNabb will probably help the Eagles make a last, desperate push to keep the game close in the third quarter, but this one should be over early in the fourth with a nail-in-the-coffin Patriots score.

I suspect Kyle Shanahan learned more from his Super Bowl failure than Andy Reid did from his. Despite all the media hype surrounding the Chiefs and Pat Mahomes, few observers seem to be paying much attention to the actual performance of the two teams this year or the way in which they played in getting to the Super Bowl. I really don’t like the way Kansas City seems to come out flatter than flat in big games this year.

It is, of course, well known that in championship games, defense generally trumps even the most explosive offenses. The 49ers have the second-best yards/game defense and the eighth-best points/game defense. The Chiefs actually have the seventh-best points/game defense, although they give up more yards and rank only 17th in that category.

But when it comes down to it, I have more confidence in Shanahan + Garappolo + DEF-SF than I do in Reid + Mahomes + DEF-KC. Also, if the 49ers have the lead, Shanahan isn’t going to make the mistake that Houston’s O’Brien did by taking his foot off the gas.

49ers by 10.

Football Outsiders, on the other hand, predicts a Chiefs victory:

I give the slight edge to Kansas City. I think San Francisco will be able to have offensive success running the ball, but their defense is not going to go out and make Patrick Mahomes look like Kirk Cousins looked three weeks ago. Calling for a high-scoring game didn’t end up working out for me last year but I’m calling for a high-scoring game again this year. I also think it will be close, but the Chiefs are the favorite with the better chance to come out ahead.

Both MDS and Florio from ProFootballTalk are also picking the Chiefs.

HALFTIME: 10-10. I don’t watch the halftime show, or the commercials, but the game itself is pretty good. Shanahan was getting a little too cute early on, but now that he’s gone back to the run, I expect San Francisco to start to take control in the third quarter.

4TH QUARTER: SF 20 KC 17. Kyle Shanahan is still a choker. Twice, he’s faced 2nd-and-5, tried to get cute instead of relying upon his superior running game, thrown incomplete twice, and been forced to punt. Incredibly stupid considering they have the lead, the ball, and the clock. SF could and should win this game, but if they lose it, it’s on Shanahan’s poor play-calling in the fourth quarter.

Unbelievable! San Francisco is averaging nearly 9 yards per rush on the ground. It’s first down inside Kansas City territory with four minutes left. So, naturally, you THROW THE BALL FOUR TIMES I A ROW for zero yards to lose the game. Absolutely INDEFENSIBLE stupidity. This is the second time Shanahan has thrown away a perfectly winnable Super Bowl for his team.

I don’t like the 49ers. I didn’t want them to win, although I’m not looking forward to all the unwarranted, but inevitable Mahomes worship to come. But watching the SF playcalling in the 4th quarter was downright painful. I can’t even imagine how berserk the more knowledgeable 49er fans must have been going when watching that coaching choke job for the ages.

I like the Titans and the 49ers today, because defense wins championships. Discuss amongst yourselves.

UPDATE: And it’s over. Chiefs just went up 35-17 halfway through the fourth quarter. I did NOT like anything Tennessee did since the last five minutes of the first half. The KC defense was actually better than the Tennessee defense.

I was pretty sure that I was faster than Derrick Henry back in the day, but I didn’t realize I was THAT much faster:

Also a standout track & field athlete, Henry competed as a sprinter at Yulee from 2010 to 2011. He posted a personal-best time of 11.11 seconds in the 100-meter dash at the 2011 FHSAA 2A District 3 Championships, where he placed seventh.

I found that mildly amusing, as my best high school 100-meter time was 10.82. Of course, it’s not just Henry’s speed that makes him a great running back. It’s one thing to run that fast at 135 pounds, it’s another thing to do it at 235. I remember watching Darrell Thompson play at the University of Minnesota during my college track days and thinking, “I wonder if I could do that? He’s slower than me… but then, he is probably a LOT harder to bring down.” Thompson and I were at the same meet once, but we didn’t run against each other. He was beaten by one of my teammates, though.

It’s even more amusing to see that Wikipedia considers Henry to be “a standout track & field athlete” when it doesn’t even mention my track & field career, which included multiple conference championships, both individual and team, at the high school and NCAA D1 levels.

UPDATE: An alternate history sidenote. In my very brief football career, which ended at the age of 8, I almost never got on the field because the coach always played this one boy who was very fast and strong at running back. The boy also grew up to be an excellent sprinter in high school, although we never happened to run against each other due to being in different conferences and regions. But there was no shame in sitting on the bench behind him, as he wound up being an All-American running back who held his conference’s career rushing record for 12 years.

Years later, that coach apologized to me for never even trying to give me a chance to get on the field. But I didn’t have a problem with it at the time, and it was probably a blessing in the end because I’m the only one of the three Minnesota sprinters mentioned who hasn’t had any knee or hip surgeries. I certainly wouldn’t still be playing soccer. But it is intriguing to think of how good one high school’s football and track teams might have been if I’d stayed in the public school system and continued playing football instead of soccer.

Mike McDaniel, the 49ers run-game coordinator, explains how the various failures of the coaches on the Mike Shanahan tree has led to their astonishing success this year, with heavy influences on three of the four NFL teams still in contention:

“Our greatest strength has been our weakness, where our longest tenure at a place has been three years,” McDaniel says in August. “And we’ve had to do it with not always elite players. Some of the biggest shortcomings, the worst things that can happen to a coach, is the system that’s set up for failure. How do you get jobs? You win. People that win in the same place, those people get promoted. Well, often times those people—there are compounding variables for success. And they won because, Tom Brady, for instance.”

He continued: “What getting fired but still being the league allows you to do is you have so many different things where you have to figure out a way to make sh– work. And that has made us night-and-day a thousand times better; the best years we’ve ever coached have been the years where we had to scratch and claw for everything. To lose a ton and stay in the NFL—that was the perfect storm for us to expand and innovate.”

It reminds me of Mike Cernovich’s advice to me: scratch and claw. Reinforce success and abandon failure. Eventually, you’ll be able to refine your approach to find something that not only works, but succeeds.

There isn’t a lot of grammar, or IQ, in Marshawn Lynch’s parting advice for the young sportsman, but there is a surprising amount of wisdom:

“It’s a vulnerable time for a lot of these young dudes, you feel me? They don’t be taking care of their chicken right, you feel me? If they was me or I had the opportunity, the opportunity to let them know something, I say, ‘Take care of y’all money because that s— don’t last forever.’ Now I’ve been on the other side of retirement, and it’s good when you get over there and you can do what the f— you want to, so I tell y’all right now while y’all in it: Take care of y’all bread so when you’re all done, you go ahead and take care of yourself. So while y’all at it right now, take care of y’all bodies. Don’t take care of y’all chicken, don’t take care of y’all mentals, ’cause we ain’t lasting that long.

“I had a couple players that I played with that they no longer here no more, they no longer — so you feel me? Start taking care of y’all mental, y’all bodies and y’all chicken for when you’re all ready to walk away, you walk away and be able to do what you want to do, but I appreciate it. Thank you all and have a good day.”

Never confuse intelligence with wisdom. And never discount observation because it cannot be properly explained.

Whereas a lot of people were amazed that the Titans won. I wasn’t even remotely surprised. They’re a solid, well-coached team across the board whereas the Ravens are overly reliant upon RGIII 2.0, whose long-term utility I continue to seriously doubt despite his incipient MVP status. I was even less surprised by the Vikings’ loss to the 49ers, since it was clear from the first possession that the offensive line could not get Dalvin Cook going.

As for what I expect today, it is Chiefs over Texans, easily, and Green Bay over Seattle.

BREAKING NEWS: The Cleveland Browns have hired their next head coach. Former Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski is the Browns’ new head coach, according to multiple reports.

Good for him. Although I have to say, on the basis of yesterday’s game, I would have gone with Robert Saleh.

It’s Houston 21, Kansas City 0. This is why I don’t bet on football.

UPDATE: I did not like O’Brien’s decision to kick the field goal to go up 24. But I did not see it coming back to bite him so fast and so hard. The lesson, as always, is this: if you are the underdog, never take your foot off the gas.

The sooner you lose the momentum, the more likely it is that you lose the game.