Tag: sports

VPFL Week 10

85 Greenfield Grizzlies (7-3-0)
84 Moundsview Meerkats (6-4-0)

69 Bailout Banksters (6-3-1)
61 Macau Marauders (3-6-1)

57 RR Redbeards (4-5-1)
41 GroverBeach Quixotes (4-6-0)

87 MS Swamp Spartans (5-5-0)
56 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (3-7-0)

67 Bane Sidhe (5-5-0)
39 Green Reverends (5-4-1)

Two weeks, zero defensive points. That cost me first place last week; even a mediocre performance would have been enough to win. It was particularly galling since the White Buffalo got THIRTY (30!) out of his Chicago defense. Unbelievable, especially since I picked up KC vs Denver in preference to Chicago vs Detroit.

This week, I have to hope that Nate doesn’t make me regret dropping Denarius Moore after Carson Palmer’s dreadful debut. I really like him as a receiver, but after Campbell got hurt, I figured there wasn’t anyone to throw him the ball.

Mailvox: thinking Tebow through

castricv is skeptical that the Veer can work in the NFL:

Tebow is a great person, a stand up leader, and will always give his all. However, there is no way he is starting for any team past next year and though he may remain as a great backup or a pinch runner/QB, he will never be able to keep pace with the Brees, Brady, Rodgers of the league.

I said much the same thing after watching the Miami game. And I still THINK that’s the case now that the Broncos are 4-1 with Tebow at the helm, compared to 1-4 when starting Orton. (So much for Coach Fox’s ability to correctly calculate his team’s chances to win.) But I’m no longer so certain it can’t keep working in the long term, because there is the possibility of a running-heavy game being very effective for a team in an era when the entire NFL has gone passing-mad for two very important reasons. Turnovers and game time.

The Broncos simply don’t turn the ball over in the Tebow offense. In six games, he has one INT and one fumble lost. That is absolutely huge in the day of the frequent pick-six. Let’s look at the three elite quarterbacks castricv mentioned. Drew Brees has 7 INT 0 FL in the last six games. Brady has 5 INT 1 FL in the same span. So, you have to factor in Tebow’s turnover rate of .333 compared to 1.16 and 1.0. Part of Aaron Rodgers incredible value as a QB comes from his low turnover rate of 0.333, the same as Tebow’s. I think this is an aspect of the position that analysts are leaving out of the equation and helps explain why the Broncos are winning despite everyone’s expectations.

Imagine if the Broncos acquired a very good running back to pair with Tebow, one that can break a stacked box like Adrian Peterson. The quarterback being a runner helps address the stacked box issue because there is an additional blocker. I’m not saying this definitely would work, I’m simply saying that I can imagine that it COULD work. And it has a lot more potential than throwing another mediocre quarterback with a turnover rate of 2+ like Orton out there.

The lack of turnovers is particularly significant since a running team reduces the number of possessions for both teams from 12 to 9. Since the average points scored in a game by one team is 21, the average number of scoring possessions is around 3. (Keeping it simple here.) An average NFL quarterback turns the ball over twice per game, so in normal game he’s got to lead his team on a scoring drive three times out of ten to give it a reasonable chance to win, but three times out of seven when playing Tebow and the Broncos. How many quarterbacks can be expected to score every other drive?

Tebow, on the other hand, only has to generate a scoring drive one out of every three drives. Throw in the field position advantage provided by the nearly two turnover advantage, and you can see why the approach might theoretically work so long as Tebow can continue to avoid turning the ball over. He’ll never be able to keep pace with Brady, Brees, or Rodgers, but then, he doesn’t necessarily have to. Remember, this is not all that different from the approach that Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick used to beat the superior K-Gun offense of the Bills in Super Bowl XXV.

The three things that struck me when watching the final Denver drive to beat the Jets were as follows:

1. Tebow has excellent vision and patience when running the ball. It’s really striking. This makes stopping him much harder than it looks. There must have been four or five times when a Jets defender would have had him if he hadn’t seen the opening and taken it at just the right moment. It also explains why he is so much more effective towards the end of games when the defenders are a little tired and slow.

2. His teammates have his back. Champ Bailey has been the most openly supportive, but after the last touchdown, when Tebow returned to the bench, one of the Denver cornerbacks, Cassius Vaughn, bent down, hugged him, and the microphone caught him telling Tebow “You keep turning it on! We love you, boy.” In the ultimate team sport, this is more meaningful than most spectators understand.

3. The coaches can’t believe what’s happening and really don’t know what to do with him or about him. There were more similarities than differences between the reactions of Fox and Ryan. After the touchdown run, Fox had his hands on his head, happy, but with a look of incredulity on his face. Ryan looked equally incredulous, but totally disgusted too.

But the NFL has to be loving the situation. A mediocre Denver team has somehow become must-see TV for NFL fans around the nation. Not only was the Denver stadium shaking with the chanting of the fans, but I have seldom heard the TV commentators more intrigued with the last five minutes of a 13-10 non-playoff game. They were actually laughing after Tebow scored. The whole drive was so awesome and ugly that I had to watch it twice. Make that three times.

Now, I can’t see it happening. I honestly can’t. I could see Denver winning the AFC West and perhaps even upsetting New England in the playoffs, but I can’t see them beating Pittsburgh or Baltimore. But just for the fun of it, can you imagine how utterly insane it would be, how totally nuclear the sports media would go, if Denver were to face Green Bay in the Super Bowl?

The Miracle of Tebow

I have to admit, despite my unshaken belief that he does not in any way meet the necessary qualifications, I am genuinely enjoying the unlikely career of Tim Tebow, Starting NFL Quarterback:

For most of the night, I was looking for a reason why. Why Mark Sanchez (who, for all his problems, has led the Jets to consecutive AFC Championship games) was getting nothing but shade from Plaxico Burress and hot, angry breath from offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer while Tebow, who was playing quarterback with the grace of an ice-skating Bambi, was getting the undying support of his teammates.

For the answer, go back to 3:55 remaining in the fourth quarter. Tebow, barely bothering to look upfield, cradles the ball and takes off like a Greyhound bus driven by a meth head. There on the horizon, he sees the usually unwelcoming vista that is Revis Island. And what does he do? Does he trot out of bounds and save some clock and spare himself the contact? Nope. He barrels over Revis like a hurricane, stays in bounds, and gets that much closer to the end zone.

That’s why you block for a guy like that. That’s why you run route after useless route and try to save play after broken play. That’s why, if you’re on defense, you are just trying to keep it close, just trying to ding Sanchez up enough to make him jumpy, just trying to frustrate the Jets receiver corps enough to make them give up on their game plan.

Because at the end of the game, it might just be 13-10 and you might just have a shot. You might just be 20 yards out and your quarterback might just be able to run like Mike Alstott. And with the home crowd losing their minds in the thin air, and the terrifying Jets defense on their back foot and everyone in America watching because your very average AFC West team has become the center of the football universe, your quarterback might just do the one thing he was put on Earth to do: make a perfect read on a safety who is overcommitted to the inside and take off with only one destination in mind. He might do what he said he would, what he asked you to believe he could do. He might just win the damn thing for you.

Dr. Pangloss was right. This is the best of all possible worlds. I assumed Tim Tebow would fail as a starter because he is not capable of throwing the ball at an NFL level. This was a basic failure of logic, because as Mr. Tebow has demonstrated, winning in the NFL does not actually require a quarterback successfully throwing the ball. He is literally adding a new dimension to the game, which is not merely interesting, it is awesome.

I love Tebow’s success to date for exactly the same reason I exulted in the failure of Real Madrid’s “galáctico” approach to international football. For those troglodytes who are unaware, a few years back Real Madrid spent umpty gazillion euros doing the equivalent of starting Peyton Manning (Zizou), Tom Brady (Luis Figo) and Drew Brees (David Beckham) in the same backfield, in addition to acquiring the best English striker (Michael Owen) to pair with the best Brazilian striker (Ronaldo), backed up by the best young Spanish striker (Raul). They spent $210 million just to acquire the rights to FOUR players. Everyone – and I mean almost everyone in Europe except me – assumed that Real would dominate the La Liga as well as the Champion’s League for years.

They won three titles, all of them before Beckham and Owen arrived. This compares to the four they had won in the six years that preceded the galáctico era. It was a complete failure and remains a proverbial example of the limitations of pure talent in team sports.

I still find it incredibly hard to imagine a Tebow-led NFL team winning the Super Bowl. But at this point, I can’t count it out entirely, because Tebow is all about the team rather than the talent. And that is as awesome and inspiring as it is amusing.

VPFL Week 9

87 Moundsview Meerkats (6-3-0)
48 Macau Marauders (3-5-1)

66 Greenfield Grizzlies (6-3-0)
53 GroverBeach Quixotes (4-5-0)

56 Green Reverends (5-3-1)
47 MS Swamp Spartans (4-5-0)

85 Bailout Banksters (5-3-1)
75 Bane Sidhe (4-5-0)

67 RR Redbeards (3-5-1)
55 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (3-6-0)

It is the clash of the Old School Titans! The Piranha of the Serengeti are going up against the Big Walleye and his Grizzlies for pole position heading into the home stretch.

This is your weekly NFL open thread.

We are… Ped State

Let’s face it, it was inevitable.  For crying out loud, Sandusky’s autobiography is entitled Touched.  You can’t tell me he wasn’t flipping off the entire world with a title like that.  Last year, before the NCAA football season started, a guy in the Nebraska football program contacted me and asked me to translate a few things into Italian for their pre-season team video.  I don’t know if he still reads this blog, but I shall be VERY surprised and a little disappointed if there aren’t a number of variations on this theme in the Cornhusker section at Saturday’s game.

The clueless Pedo State students who rioted over Joe Paterno’s dismissal obviously need to have their noses rubbed in the institutional shame, the full extent of which is not yet apparent, until they realize that Paterno is not the victim here.

Joe Paterno is no hero

On the other hand, he’s not a criminal either. It’s a sad ending to an epic career, but in the end, Joe Paterno definitely had to go. Now. The truly problematic thing isn’t that he only fulfilled his legal obligations in 2002 when a homosexual pedophile was raping boys in the Penn State football facilities, but that he didn’t demand an investigation of Sandusky back in 1998 when the police, the local media, and the Penn State administration all knew about his criminal proclivities. If you read between the lines of the former defensive coordinator’s retirement after the 1999 Alamo Bowl, it is clear that the Penn State hierarchy, including Paterno, knew there was something seriously wrong with Sandusky’s behavior. Regardless of who should have done what after the man was seen raping the boy in 2002, Sandusky should never have been in a position to do anything of the sort in the first place, given what was clearly already known about him.

However, I think it is incorrect to seriously condemn either Paterno or McQueary for failing to run to the police. They both did exactly what they were supposed to do, exactly what the law required them to do. Saying that they should have run to the police doesn’t even make any sense; the police are not some sort of magic panacea in this situation for the obvious reason that Penn State has its own police force. In a university town like Penn State, going to the university administration is going to the police. It’s rather like complaining someone reported a crime to the DA rather than the receptionist at the police station.

Now, should Paterno and McQueary have spoken out afterwards given the failure of the administration to do anything? Yes, I believe so. But a failure to do the optimal thing is not synonymous with doing the wrong thing. To compare them, as some have, to Sandusky himself, or even to the administrators responsible for taking action, is both unfair and incorrect. It would have been heroic for either man to speak out and confront both Sandusky and the Penn State administration, but the reality is that most men are not cut out for such heroism. However, Paterno’s fame, combined with his willingness to take on the university administration in his own interest – they wanted him to retire years ago – versus his unwillingness to do so on behalf of the boys being raped by his former assistant, is an indelible stain on both his reputation and his moral character.

I think it is totally irrelevant that Paterno didn’t go to the campus police because I see no reason to believe they would have investigated the manner any more seriously, or been less inclined to cover up the matter, than the Penn State administration. They report to the administration after all, and more importantly, they already knew about Sandusky. From CFT: “An extensive police report exists from as far back as 1998, documenting Sandusky inappropriately touching a young boy.” Moreover, consider the way police forces around the country cover up most of the crime, including rape, that occurs on college campuses. Still, if Paterno shouldn’t have gone to the Penn State police, he absolutely should have gone public and spoken to the media after it became clear that the university administration intended to sweep Sandusky under the carpet as they and the police had done previously. Paterno should have threatened to resign then, but failing that, he should have resigned immediately once the media storm began. In fact, I have some serious questions about this story erupting so soon after Paterno broke the all-time coaching wins record, as it appears someone with links to Penn State was waiting until that happened before going public about Sandusky. There will be more nasty revelations coming, that is almost guaranteed.

However, don’t kid yourself into thinking that the gay rape scandal at Penn State is the least bit unusual. Most, not many, but most, such offenses are swept under the table by organizations from the Roman Catholic Church to your local high school. The sub-optimal, self-interested behavior of men like McQueary and Paterno is the norm. And the police forces of the USA have swept far more wrongdoing under the carpet than most people would like to believe. There are very, very few individuals who are willing to risk their jobs and reputations when the organization decides to handle a crime of this sort “internally”.

I’m not saying this to defend Paterno or McQueary. If it is still deemed appropriate to fire men and women from their jobs for moral failings, then they should certainly be fired. However, I am not sure that this is presently the case in the modern USA, given that one cannot deny employment to a homosexual, an adulterer, or a murderer of unborn children for their proven moral failings. Regardless, it is wildly naive to pretend that most people would have behaved much differently when faced with that situation. Some would, but most demonstrably would not. If heroism and strong moral character are necessary aspects of retaining one’s job, the unemployment rate will soon be well north of 75 percent.

UPDATE – My suspicions were correct. “The VP who heard the grad assistant’s claim was in charge of the campus police. He did nothing. Paterno got the witness to the head of the campus law enforcement agency who was supposed to know that a crime was being reported to him.” In other words, Paterno did tell the police, who then did nothing.

UPDATE II – And the next phase of the scandal looks as if it will go well beyond the university’s football program:
“Madden stated that two “prominent columnists” are currently investigating a rumor that Jerry Sandusky’s Second Mile Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed to serve underprivileged youths, was “pimping out young boys to rich (Penn State) donors.” Madden went on to say that Jerry Sandusky was told by those running the show at Penn State football that Sandusky had to retire after allegations made in 1998 that the defensive coordinator was guilty of “improper conduct with an underage male.” Sandusky, thought by some to be Joe Paterno’s successor at the time, abruptly and somewhat shockingly retired from coaching in 1999. It actually gets worse. Madden went on to say “When Sandusky quit, everybody knew; not just at Penn State. It was a very poorly kept secret around college football, in general. That is why he never coached in college football again and retired at the relatively young age of 55, young for a coach.””

This scandal is going to end up being about a lot more than one record-setting football coach. And don’t imagine that Penn State is the only place where the gay mafia is doing this sort of thing; homosexual pedophiles are more than 14 times more likely to be caught abusing boys than heterosexual pedophiles are caught abusing girls. Watch for the predictable and nonsensical attempts to claim that men who like to rape boys are not homosexual.

VPFL Week 9

86 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (3-5-0)
77 Greenfield Grizzlies (5-3-0)

49 GroverBeach Quixotes (4-4-0)
46 Moundsview Meerkats (5-3-0)

64 Green Reverends (4-3-1)
61 RR Redbeards (2-5-1)

67 MS Swamp Spartans (4-4-0)
61 Bailout Banksters (4-3-1)

86 Bane Sidhe (4-4-0)
80 Macau Marauders (3-4-1)

That was disappointing. I’d given up on Week 8 before the season even started, given that 4 of my starters were on a bye week. But a good performance from Foster and Turner and a solid one from Christian Ponder substituting for Aaron Rodgers would have sufficed to do the trick… if the doggone Dallas kicker had scored more than one of the 10 points projected. C’est le NFL.

That sums it up

A quote from a Denver Broncos fan: “Tebow needs to switch to tight end, fullback or safety. Great kid, awesome person, horrible NFL QB.”

I like Tebow and admire the way he has handled his fame and success, but after watching his two starts this year, I have no problem stating that he simply cannot play quarterback in the NFL. I respect willpower and a hard work ethic as much as anyone, but watching Tebow try to play quarterback is like watching a guy who runs a 14-second 100 meter dash try to play wide receiver or a guy who weighs 220 pounds try to play offensive lineman. It would take a literal miracle for him to even reach the “competent starter” level, forget All-Pro, much less Super Bowl-winning superstar. If Richard Dawkins followed NFL football, he would readily admit that Tim Tebow becoming an All-Pro quarterback and leading Denver to victory in the Super Bowl would qualify as proof of the existence of the Christian God.

None of this is Tebow’s fault. He didn’t ask to be drafted in the first round. No one, not even his worst critics, have so much as hinted at any failure to work hard. But he has the complete lack of package at the position: weak arm, slow wind-up, inability to read defenses, and inability to go through his progressions and find the open receiver. (Okay, perhaps not quite complete, I doubt his Wonderlic score is in the single digits.) The difference between watching Cam Newton and Christian Ponder – both rookies – and then watching Tebow, in his second year, rendered the conclusion unavoidable. That is not an NFL quarterback.

I have no doubt Tebow will be extraordinarily successful at something. But it won’t be as an NFL quarterback. It’s not a question of overcoming doubts, it’s a question of overcoming undeniable facts.

VPFL Week 8

99 Moundsview Meerkats (5-2-0)
60 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (2-5-0)

99 Greenfield Grizzlies (5-2-0)
62 Green Reverends (3-3-1)

52 Bailout Banksters (4-2-1)
41 RR Redbeards (2-4-1)

70 Bane Sidhe (3-4-0)
49 MS Swamp Spartans (3-4-0)

73 GroverBeach Quixotes (3-4-0)
49 Macau Marauders (3-3-1)

And the Old School triumphed over all. It was a bit of a pity to leave DeMarco Murray’s big day sitting on the bench, but when Arian Foster goes for 28, who needs another 253 yards rushing. I’d given up Week 8 for lost before the season even started, as four of my starters are on bye weeks this week, but thanks to some solid pickups, I should be all right if Christian Ponder can manage to throw for 200+2 against a weak Carolina passing defense in the absence of Aaron Rodgers.

As always, this is your open NFL thread. In addition to discovering if the Vikings have a real quarterback, it will be certainly interesting to see how the Christian survives the Lions.

Positivity and Ender’s game

Some readers complain, not without reason, that this blog tends to be rather negative. And yet, as most regulars know, I am not a negative or pessimistic individual. As a matter of fact, I quite enjoy my daily life and I am thankful every single day for the small joys that fill them.

One of them was today. The last three soccer seasons have been rough on Ender, as our small, but successful club merged with two larger ones, he had to learn how to play for coaches to whom he was not related, (and more problematic, were considerably less disciplined and brilliant), he was injured, he was ill, and finally, he transferred clubs. His injuries cost him an entire season, which set him back badly, and the preference for giant adult-sized goalies meant that he had no choice but to move to a position on the field for which he was ill-prepared if he wanted to continue to play soccer.

But he has stubbornly persevered throughout. Last year, he made the change from third-string goalie who wasn’t on the game squad to utility midfielder who only got to play in one indoor tournament and one friendly. This year, thanks to the short-term ineligibility of a starting midfielder, he was named to the game squad and brought in as a defensive substitute at halftime of the first game. He made many mistakes, but even so, managed to completely shut down the opponent’s star striker, who had scored three goals in the first half.

After a long, post-game family lecture on the concept of “contingency” utilizing the white board – a defender must mark his man until a more imminent threat to goal presents itself, at which point the defender must immediately leave his man in order to attack the threat – he improved enough in the second half of the second game to merit starting the third one. After each game, we reviewed his mistakes and successes, then discussed how those mistakes could be avoided in the next game.

By the fourth game, he was not only starting, but returning in the second half to play central defense when the defensive captain needed a break. There were, of course, ups and downs as the season progressed, such the frenetic and ultimately disastrous melee in front of goal that inspired this in-game dialogue.

Vox: “You’re panicking under pressure. Look where you clear the ball, don’t just kick it. You have to calm down.”

Ender: “You’re not HELPING!”

But despite a few setbacks, Ender’s performance improved to the point that the opponents began to focus their attack down the other side and he began being able to start moving forward to support the attack. On more than one occasion, he managed to take the ball from the opposing attacker, beat a midfielder, then hit a friendly attacker with a long pass leading to a corner kick or a goal. By the end of the first half of the season, he was not only starting on the defense’s left side, but playing most of the second half as well, being recognized as the team’s second-best defender.

Still, things did not look good for his team leading up to the last game in the championship. They had lost two games in a row to the first- and second-place teams, and the defensive captain first got into a fight with Ender, then got into a (very foolhardy) fight with the (very oversized) first-string goalie before being thrown out of the last practice by the coach, who also happened to be his father.

But the final game of the autumn half got off to a good start today as Jet, the team’s best player, uncharacteristically managed to finish cleanly in the first minute of the game. The opponents came right back, however, and attacked down the right side, passing the ball past the outnumbered central defender to a striker running onto the ball. The striker had a very good angle to beat the goalie and took a hard shot… only to have it blocked by Ender coming off his man at exactly the right moment.

Ten minutes later, his team had scored twice more and the game was all but over. At one point, a speedy attacker beat him around the left side, the defensive captain moved over to help, and Ender immediately peeled off to cover the captain’s vacant position in the center. The captain won the ball, passed the ball up the field, and the two boys smoothly switched positions again. The coach just shook his head.

“Those two don’t like each other, but they sure play well together.”

Over the course of the game, Ender created two goals and three corners with his passing, and more importantly, shut down nearly every attack attempted down the left side. (This is significant in youth soccer, since most kids are right-footed and it’s much harder for them to score if they can’t attack from what is their right.) The final score was 12-0, which meant that his team not only finished the first half of the championship on a positive note, but in fourth place as well. They may not be able to compete with the two best teams, but they are in no danger of relegation and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they claimed third place by the end of the season.

It is a warm and sunny autumn day. Ender is happy and proud of himself. I am proud of him too, not just because he played well, but because of the character he has shown in overcoming adversity. These may be small joys, they may be small and trivial successes, but they are no less joyful for all of that. And I am no less grateful to God for the opportunity to see and share them.