There's No Defense (for this garbage article by David Fleming)

David Fleming, senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, and frequent contributor to espn.com Page 2, once again proves that, with regards to sports, you can basically say whatever you want, no matter how insipid, no matter how unreasoned, no matter how wrong, and have it pass as legitimate writing. Nobody will call you out, except possibly a blogger with a readership in the single digits. To this end, I give you the masterpiece below. As usual, the bold comments are mine.

Five Reasons Why NFL Defenses Stink
By David Fleming

Suppose you are a slightly smarter-than-average 8th grader writing an essay with the above title for English class. Wouldn't you immediately think to provide proof, or at least some semblance of justification, that NFL defenses really do stink? You'd recognize the importance of this, right? After all, if NFL defenses don't stink then the whole exercise of providing five reasons why they stink is pretty much pointless, right? Just keep that in mind as you read.

I have always thought of Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham as one of those cool, leathery, old-school guys with great stories; a perpetually hoarse, gravelly voice; and tremendous passion for the game. But after railing against the sad state of defense in the NFL in a recent story by Tom Kowalski, Cunningham is starting to sound more like an angry, confused old guy in plaid slacks yelling at you to stay off his grass.

"Throughout the league, I've never seen offensive statistics as good, or defenses as bad," Cunningham said.

By now, Gunny should be an expert on horrific defenses. His 2-9 Lions team is ranked dead last in defense the NFL. To be fair, Detroit has been decimated by a decade of bad drafts and a rash of injuries. But this is the worst defense I've seen since, maybe, Cunningham's 2008 squad in Kansas City, which finished 31st out of 32 teams.

Wouldn't the team that finished 32nd be even worse? Just askin'.

Not that any of this is Cunningham's fault, mind you. "There's a real problem for the defensive side of the ball, and NCAA started all of this, as far as I'm concerned," Cunningham said. "I study this game and wonder why all of these things are happening, and that's my personal opinion. It's arguable, but I'd love to argue it."

OK, I'm game.

All in all, this is actually a decent start for Flem. He's calling out Cunningham for being a lousy defensive coordinator and a gibberish-talking curmudgeon, both of which seem valid. Unfortunately, the article doesn't end here.

Apparently, Gunny doesn't like all the newfangled, fancy, super spread offenses -- which is a really bad sign for Lions fans, given that he's in a profession based on change, speed and adaptability. As I wrote a year ago in an extensive cover story for ESPN The Magazine about the evolution of offense, the NFL's future doesn't belong to mammoth tackles, statuesque quarterbacks or crabby old-school coaches. It belongs to the next generation of fast-thinking thrill-seekers weaned on the Web, iPods and "Madden."

Fleming writes cover stories?! See, you can say anything and it qualifies as legitimate writing. Never mind the fact that the average weight of an NFL tackle is 318 lbs., up 13% from the late '80s. Never mind the fact that out of the top 10 quarterbacks currently in the NFL at least four of them are "statuesque" by any reasonable interpretation of the word (Manning, Brady, Favre, Warner), and two others don't move so great either (Roethlisberger and Rivers). And never mind the fact that the last sentence of the paragraph is little more than a meaningless compilation of buzz words.

Incredibly, Cunningham blames most of this mess on the fact that the NCAA allows athletes to practice for only 20 hours a week -- forcing the 99 percent of college players who will never make the NFL to do stupid stuff like, you know, study and work toward a degree.

The truth of the matter is, the NFL has no one to blame but itself for the sad state of defenses.

And here's why:

Before Fleming gets into why something is true, he really should verify that, in fact, it is true. How could one verify that NFL defenses are in a sad state? Well, one idea would be to demonstrate a rise in scoring over the years. I'll do this for Fleming.

I've consider the current year (2009), last year (2008), then 2005, then 2000, then 1995, and so on, all the way to 1960. The average team score per game in these years: 21.5, 22.0, 20.6, 20.7, 21.5, 20.1, 21.5, 20.5, 20.6, 19.3, 23.1, 21.6. Yep, defenses are so sad today that they are only doing as well as they did in 1995 and 1985, and only doing slightly better than they did in 1965. Now let's look at average yardage totals per game in these years: 336.3, 327.2, 315.9, 319.4, 328.9, 308.6, 329.4, 323.5, 308.3, 281.8, 304.5, 303.8. There is a little more variance here than with points, and there might be a small uptick after 1975, but basically the same after that.

There is absolutely no indication that defenses are any worse now than they were at any other given moment in the last fifty years, with respect to scoring, and the last thirty years, with respect to yardage. So, just using the Internet, and about 15 minutes of time, I've basically destroyed the entire premise for this article. Again, the author writes cover stories for a reputable sports publication.

Let's keep going anyway.

1. The tenets of tackling have not changed in the last 75 years. Seriously -- you can pick up a football-fundamentals book from 1933 and put it next to one published this year, and the section on tackling is nearly identical. Tackling technique has not kept pace with the rest of the game.

Sure, football players learn how to tackle from studying football-fundamental books -- peer reviewed literature, I assume.

2. One of the NFL's dirty little secrets is that, after training camp, defenders do not practice tackling ball carriers all the way down to the ground. Seriously. With worries about injuries and depth and the salary cap, there is no tackling practice in the NFL from September to February. Imagine if quarterbacks didn't practice throwing, or if receivers didn't practice catching.

That naughty NFL.

3. In 1978, the league made it illegal for defenders to "bump" receivers after they've traveled five yards downfield, clearing the way for all the underneath crossing routes that are the backbone of the West Coast offense. That same year, the league also basically legalized holding by allowing linemen to extend their arms and open their hands without being flagged. The NFL regularly legislates advantages for offenses because -- duh -- passing and scoring sell. And these two rule changes made a huge impact on the game.

And these legislated advantages have increased scoring by approximately 0.0 points on average. Seriously, why wouldn't you just do a modicum of research before you write this drivel. This is your job! This is what you do all day. For God's sake, look some shit up!

4. With respect to size and speed, linebackers have not kept up with tight ends. In 2008, the average Pro Bowl tight end had three inches and 15 pounds on the average Pro Bowl linebacker. Assuming similar speed, that's a significant momentum advantage for tight ends.

Wow, did he look at all four pro bowl tight ends in this analysis or just one conference?

5. The popularity of the Cover 2. This defense relies on outside run support from cornerbacks, the smallest guys on the field. It also uses "leveraged" tackling -- a technique in which tacklers take angles that, if they miss, funnel the ball toward the strength of the defense. It sounds good, in theory. But it actually has tacklers thinking about missing before they even attack.

I think if you talk out of your ass long enough, and nobody stops you -- on the contrary, they pay you to do it -- you just keep going. You probably even start to believe it.

That's why NFL defenses stink right now.

And have stunk for the past 50 years, apparently.

It has nothing to do with the NCAA or any other ridiculous conspiracy.

Now, who wants to volunteer to tell Gunther?

Ugh... tripe, pure tripe.

Tidbits

Watching a clip of an old football game, I wondered: where does moving the goal posts to the back of the end zone rank in the annals of no-duh moves in professional sports? It's hard to believe it took over 50 years for the league to realize that giant metal posts protruding from the field of play is not such a great idea.

In baseball news, the MVP and Cy Young award voters did a good job this year. All four winners (Joe Mauer, Albert Pujols, Zack Greinke, and Tim Lincecum) were worthy of their awards. Historically voters have been known to overvalue things that are not great indicators of an individual's worth to his team, like team victories, stolen bases, and RBIs for a batter, and wins for a pitcher. This year they got it right, especially with Greinke, who was clearly the best pitcher in baseball last season, despite having just 16 wins (the fewest of any starting pitcher to ever win the AL Cy Young award during a non-strike shortened year).

In other baseball news, in this week's The New Yorker, there is an article chronicling the Yankees World Series-winning season by Roger Angell titled "Daddies Win: can we love the Yankees now?". (I can't find a link on-line. It's in the Nov. 30, 2009 issue.) It's one of the more annoying pieces I have read in a while. It's seven pages of the author performing literary fellatio on the Yankees. (Although, in a periodical named after a person from New York, what does one expect?) The article highlights, glorifies even, everything people outside of the Big Apple hate about the Yankees. Here's an excerpt.

While the roses are going around, we should revisit those free-agent signings of C. C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, and A. J. Burnett last winter, whose combined contracts cost the Yankees an extra $432.5 million, and accounted for $52 million out of the team's salary total of $201 million for 2009. (The next nearest is the Mets $135 million, and the farthest is the Marlins $36 million.) Cries of unfairness and fresh tropes about the unlevel playing field, so ferocious in March, seemed fainter at the end this time, because each of those multimillionaires so clearly delivered at his job, and because the Yankees won. They will never be populist heroes, but this time it was O.K. to like them.

Huh? Doesn't the fact that their highly paid superstars produced make it less fair? Doesn't this just reinforce the reality that the Yankees have a huge economic advantage over almost every team in baseball? That, in essence, they are just outbidding the other clubs for championships? This seems like more of a reason to dislike them to me.

More from the article.

General Manager Brian Cashman, so often second-guessed by the Tampa front office and badgered at his work by the overbearing but now ancient and ailing George Steinbrenner, was the Michelangelo of this club...

The Michelangelo? Really? Yes, only the mind's eye of a true artist could have foreseen the beauty in adding Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett to a roster (not to mention readding A-Rod, for nearly $30 million a season, a year prior). No other GM in the league, nor any semi-coherent baseball fan in the country, could have imagined that bringing these pieces together would result in a good team. Cashman has the gift. Or he's a beneficiary of a broken system in which his team is one of about three or four that can afford to sign the best of the best free agents, and have money left over for quality second tier guys like Burnett. Sadly, this is what MLB has become. It's a league for the rich. There will always be a sprinkling of poorer teams with sharp management or good fortune that have a nice run with a nucleus of young talent, still under team control (late 90s - early 00s A's, '03 Marlins, '07 Rays, current Twins), and there will always be down years for the fatcats ('08 Yankees, '09 Mets), but for the most part it's going to be Yankees et al., year in and year out. That's just the way baseball is right now. That the "cries of unfairness and fresh tropes about the unlevel playing field" seem fainter now is probably because baseball fans are gradually resigning themselves to this fact.

Idiocy? You be the Judge

Clark Judge of cbssports.com offers a prime example of arriving at a probably correct conclusion with moronic reasoning. I'll use Ski's convention below: normal text is from the article, bolded text is mine. I've taken the liberty of excerpting; click the link above for the whole article.

Sorry, Colts/Saints fans ... Super Bowl highly unlikely
by Clark Judge

There are no better teams today than New Orleans and Indianapolis, so, naturally, the expectation is that they meet in the Super Bowl. Only I'm here to tell you they won't. One of them won't make it, and maybe neither gets that far.

Oh, yeah? Well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

That is not an opinion.

Ok, you got me. "Prediction" is probably more appropriate.

It's a history lesson

Um, no. There's no reasonable interpretation of the term "history lesson" for which the above qualifies.

and if you're skeptical, go back to this time last season when the best two teams were Tennessee and the New York Giants. The Titans were unbeaten. The Giants had lost once. Both were slam dunks to breeze through the playoffs, yet neither did. In fact, both bowed out after one game.

Yeah, that´s convincing. If there's one thing I've learned about sports in general and the NFL in particular, it's that things always unfold the exact same way from season to season.

An aberration? Hardly. Teams that are white-hot at midseason often lose that momentum as the season winds down, and for good reason: It's difficult, if not near-impossible, to maintain a peak level of performance -- as well as to avoid key injuries -- for four months. The season is simply too long.

Ugh, where to start? First, we've got a variation of the gambler's fallacy here. The fact that Indy and New Orleans have already been playing extremely well for two months is used as evidence that they're "due" to get cold. Second, they don't have to maintain a peak level of performance for another two months to get to Super Bowl. It's very likely that both teams will receive a first-round bye, even if they falter a little bit, so all they have to do is perform well enough (or get lucky enough) to win two games in January.

The 2007 New England team would seem to contradict that idea, only the way I see it they reinforced it. Yes, they won all 16 regular-season games, but look what happened down the stretch: They could have been beaten by Philadelphia. They should've lost to Baltimore. They should've lost to the New York Giants in the regular-season finale.

So, he's could'ved and should'ved his way into arguing that the Patriots started out white-hot, but actually lost that vital momentum going into the playoffs, while ignoring the Pats' three wins in weeks 14-16 by a combined total of 52 points. But let's accept that the virtually 13-3 Patriots stumbled their way into the playoffs. History shows us that teams that start 9-0 can't make the Super Bowl, right?

And they were taken to the wire in the AFC Championship Game by a San Diego team operating without Antonio Gates and LaDainian Tomlinson and with quarterback Philip Rivers playing on one leg.

Oh, another win in score only. Never mind that this time, San Diego never got closer than 9 points with 12 minutes or less left in the game. If Rivers had grown another leg, the Chargers would have won.

In short, they wound down as the stakes went up. So when they reached the Super Bowl they were beaten by a Giants team that, until a Dec. 23 defeat of Buffalo, wasn't sure it would qualify for the playoffs.

Since the Super Bowl was at least as close, and the Giants caught at least as many breaks as the Patriots did in any of their virtual losses, can't say the Patriots were the "should've been" champs?

My point is this: Don't get dazzled by what's going on nine games into the season. Yeah, it's terrific that Indianapolis and New Orleans haven't lost, and, no, I don't see anyone out there that is superior. But I also know there are seven weeks left in the regular season, and that's a long, long time to maintain breakneck speed.

Well, again, they don't have to "maintain breakneck speed" for the next seven weeks to reach the Super Bowl. They just have to be mediocre at worst over that stretch, then win two games in January.

Besides, I'm not sure you want to maintain anything going into the playoffs. You want clubs that improve weekly. You look for teams that catch fire in the second half, start building momentum, gain confidence and take their game to the next level for the playoffs.

Right, let's rule out the Colts and Saints, because it's impossible for them to "catch fire in the second half", given that they're already on fire. Never mind that their second halves may be just as convincing as any other teams' (hard to know given that the second half of the season has barely started).

San Diego GM A.J. Smith always says the key to any season is reaching the playoffs because anything is possible after that.

And yet, the Saints and Colts have both already all but clinched playoff spots, but it's not possible for both of them to make the Super Bowl?

And he's right. Tennessee struggled down the stretch last season, splitting their last six games. The Giants floundered, losing three of their last four. So when the second season started it really didn't matter that both clubs held home-field advantages; what mattered was that their play ... and, probably, their confidence ... had declined.

See my first remark.

That's why I urge you to start paying attention to teams that are beginning to build something -- someone, say, like Arizona or Cincinnati. They're good, they're dangerous and they're hot. So are Indianapolis and New Orleans. But how can they stay hot for five months?

Gambler's fallacy again. Also, let's look at Cincinatti. They're 7-1 since a fluky loss at Denver week one, including two wins over each Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Aren't they only slightly less "hot" than New Orleans and Indy. Should we really be higher on their chances just because they managed to drop a home game to Texas in that stretch?

I mean, everyone is supposed to peak for the playoffs, right? But when you win early and keep winning, how do you suddenly peak when you've been doing it for four long and exhausting months?

Well, you wouldn't be "peaking", you'd be maintaining then. Oh, yeah, I forgot, for some reason maintaining is bad. Yeah, sustained success for four months is usually an indicator of an inability to maintain that success.

Often, teams don't, and the 2008 Titans are proof. So are the 2005 Indianapolis Colts. They won their first 13, then couldn't beat Pittsburgh in the playoffs. The 2003 Kansas City Chiefs will take their place in line behind them. They won their first nine, then couldn't beat Indianapolis in the playoffs.

Three anecdotes are certainly enough to convince me. But, wait, what about about the '72 Dolphins, '85 Bears, '90 Giants, '91 Redskins and '06 Colts. They all started 9-0, and not only made the Super Bowl, but won it. Now, if I worked at CBS and had a few lackeys under me, I would actually have them calculate what percentage of 9-0 teams have gone on to play in the Super Bowl. But being a lone blogger, I'll content myself with fighting anecdote with anecdote. I have more, so I win.

(Interestingly, the '06 Colts finished the season 3-4, and lacked that vital momentum going into the playoffs. Some of those losses must have been virtual wins.)

"This is a game of confidence and momentum," said Carolina GM Marty Hurney, "whether it's teams or whether it's individual players. It's a game of confidence and momentum, and the teams that are hot at the end historically are the teams that do well in the playoffs."

Notice he didn't say the teams that are hot in September and October.

Yeah, why look at statistical evidence when you can quote a GM? And, of course, a team that is hot in September and October can't be hot at the end, because it's not possible to stay hot that long, and even if a team did, they would be maintaining and not peaking, or something.

By winning now, they can gain home-field advantage for the playoffs, and that is big. But it is not crucial. Only nine of the top 20 seeds in the past 10 years have made it to the Super Bowl, or 45 percent.

A little confusing, but I'm going to assume he meant to say "twenty top conference seeds". In that case, each top seed would need to win two games to advance to the Super Bowl. If the games were coin flips, we would expect about 25% of the top seeds to advance. I'm not sure "only" is the appropriate word here.

So there's a lesson there, and the lesson is this: While New Orleans and Indianapolis are good --- and I mean real good -- they may not be good enough to maintain their torrid paces. The last time the top two seeds entering the playoffs went to the Super Bowl it was 1993, and each had four losses. So there's a history of good teams going bad in the playoffs, and there's a history of top seeds going south. I like the Saints, and I like the Colts, and I like them a lot. But I like them now. One of them will not survive this grind, and it's not something I see in either club that tells me. It's something I see in the league's history.

Yes, it is likely that at least one of these teams fails to make the Super Bowl. The reason has nothing to do with "momentum" or "peaking", however. The reason is that to advance, each will have to beat two very good teams, and there's just not that much difference between very good and great teams in the NFL. If both the Colts and Saints have, say, a 60% chance to win each of their games (making them significant, but not overwhelming favorites), there is about a 13% chance of them meeting in the Super Bowl. But if someone offered me a million dollars if I could pick the Super Bowl participants today, I'd pick Saints-Colts in a heartbeat. It's not that likely, but it's more likely than any other possibility. The thing is, there are just a ton of possibilities. Even when the playoff field is set, there will be 36 possible matchups. Writing an article disparaging the chances of one of those possibilities is a fatuous waste of words.

Another from the Flem File

I was not planning to put up another post this week, but I saw this gem from David Fleming and could not resist. (Like before, the bold comments are mine.)

Bill Belichick Enters Another Elite Club
By David Fleming

Here's something none of us ever thought we'd see: Bill Belichick being compared to Barry Switzer.

Belichick’s career win/loss percentage: .626. Switzer’s career win/loss percentage: .633. So, they are pretty comparable there.

But that's exactly what's happening Monday after Belichick's rather odd, and uncharacteristically panicky, decision to go for it on fourth down deep in his own territory cost the Patriots a win in Indy Sunday night.

I’m not sure what was particularly panicky about it. A pointless quote might help clear things up.

Norm Chow, the offensive coordinator for UCLA, once told me: "Anybody can just say, 'Hey, let's go for it!' But real coaches get a feel for the game, their own team and the situation and they just know, instinctively, when it's the right time to take a risk."

There we go. Fleming is usually good for at least two pointless quotes per article, so I’m expecting another one. Also, I like that his authority is an assistant coach of a college team that is 5-11 in conference during his tenure.

Look, Bill Belichick is, maybe, the best coach ever in the NFL. In fact, currently, I'm not even sure there's a close second. But last night in Indy those all-important instincts that Chow was talking about? Yeah, they abandoned Belichick, big-time, instead revealing something none of us had ever seen before: his human side. Yes, on a better day Belichick probably would have sensed slight vibrations coming from Kevin Faulk’s twitching finger tips, indicating that Faulk would slightly bobble a pass thrown him, causing him to establish possession of the ball only after being driven behind the yard to gain by a defender, thus causing a turn over on downs. On a better day. Caught up in the moment, intimidated (yes, I said it) by Peyton Manning, Belichick got tunnel vision and decided, above all, he wanted to control his own destiny and keep the ball away from the Colts.

Now let me say the same thing Fleming just said, but make it sound like Belichick made the right call. “Focused on the decision at hand, fearing what might happen if the league-MVP Peyton Manning got the ball back, Belichick, always with the singular goal of winning the game in mind, decided his best move was to give his vaunted offense a chance to convert, and try to keep the ball away from the Colts.”

Bill made a boo-boo. Maybe, maybe not. A big one. Definitely not. And when you expect absolute perfection from everyone around you at all times, well, the moment you mess up you're gonna get crushed for it. And that's what's happening today. Rodney Harrison, in fact, immediately called it the worst coaching decision he had ever seen Belichick make. One thing that bothers me about football (and most other sports) is that former players are automatically assumed to be authorities on all aspects of the game. Being able to run fast and hit hard does not qualify somebody as an expert in the tactical nuances of a football game. It just doesn’t. Which tells me one thing: Rodney must have forgotten about Bill's tenure in Cleveland when he was the original version of Eric Mangini. (True story: I interviewed Belichick once under the stands at old Cleveland Municipal Stadium when most of his answers were drowned out by chants of "BILL MUST GO! BILL MUST GO!" Imagine that.)

What does this have to do with anything? Maybe Fleming is trying something new. He’s getting away from the irrelevant quote, and trying out the irrelevant anecdote. Is this going to become a trend?

"We push players beyond their limits and expectations every day," Jeff Fisher told me a few seasons ago. "Sometimes, as coaches we just have to remember to do that with our decisions too."

Nope.

As Fisher likes to say, it's not about minimizing risk -- it's about managing it.

What does this mean? It must just be more nonsense for good measure.

Here are a few other coaches who learned the hard way, that's a whole lot easier said than done:

You’ll have to read the rest of this scintillating article on your own. I’m done.

More on the Belichick Call (with a little TMQ tossed in)

In today's TMQ, he links to this article which makes the case that Belichick did the right thing in going for it. Although, in the article's analysis it's little more than a coin toss (a win probability of 80.5% by going for it versus a win probability of 79% by punting), and you could take issue with some of their assumputions, such as using probabilities with respect to average offenses, when both the Pats and Colts have above average offenses, but I think it's safe to say that it was a really close call, and it's tough to fault Belichick in either decision he makes.

TMQ takes Belichick's side to a fault. Here is my favorite blurb from his article.

Belichick correctly calculated that if he punted, the hot Indianapolis offense was likely to beat his tired defense...

Paragraphs earlier he cited an article estimating that Indianapolis' chances of winning after a Patriot punt is 21%, and now he implies that Indianapolis is likely to win in this scenario! WTF, TMQ?

Did MJD Make the Right Call?

Bill Belichick was not the only one making unconventional moves on Sunday. With a little over 1:30 left in the Jaguars/Jets game, Jags running back Maurice Jones-Drew took a knee on the Jets 1 yard line instead of scoring. His team was down 21-22 to the Jets at the time, and the Jets had no timeouts left. On PTI today, Tony Kornheiser said it was the wrong move. I believe he even called it "crazy". (His rationale was that the Jags were behind at the time, so they have to take the points.) So, did MJD make right move? My educated guess: an emphatic "absolutely".

By taking a knee, MJD put everything on one kick for the Jags: make it you win, miss it you lose. The kick was essentially an extra point (one yard shorter, in fact). The career conversion percentage of Jags kicker Josh Scobee on extra points: 98.3%. So, MJD almost guaranteed victory by taking a knee. If he scores a touchdown, the Jets have enough time to counter with a touchdown of their own. It is unlikely the Jets can pull it off -- there is only 1:30 left and they have no timeouts -- but I'm gonna go ahead and say it's not even close to 1.7% unlikely. It's probably closer to five, maybe even ten times this. That's the point here. There is Decision A and Decision B. Decision A wins more often than Decision B, so it's the right move. End of. I really don't see how anybody who watches a fair amount of football, let alone hosts a show in which it is featured, could think MJD made a crazy move.

Did Bill Belichick Make the Right Move?

In one of the most entertaining football games I have seen in a while, Bill Belichick made a very unconventional move. He elected to go for it from his own 28 with 2:08 left in the game and his Patriots leading the Colts 34-28. The attempt failed and the Colts went on to score a touchdown and win the game by a point. Belichick is probably the only coach in the league with the balls to go for it in that situation. The second-guessing is going to be relentless. So, was it the right move? My educated guess: an emphatic "probably not... but then again...".

Let's say a) going for it is a 55-45 proposition in favor of converting, b) converting means a win, c) a punt means Indy gets the ball on their own 30, d) not converting gives the Colts the ball on the Pats 30.* Under these conditions, going for it is the right move if the Colts scoring a touchdown, with two minutes left and one time out, from the Pats 30 is less than 2.2 times as likely as scoring a touchdown from their own 30 under similar circumstances. Is this the case? I don't think so, but who knows? In order to answer this with confidence I would need much more time and data than I have currently. My off-the-cuff expert estimation (watching just about every NFL game of the season qualifies me as an expert, in my mind) is that punting is the right move, but if Belichick felt his defense was particularly beaten down, or that his offense is exceptionally good at picking up two yards, then going for it might have been a good move.

This situation is precisely the time when a "Game Management Coach" could come in handy. NFL teams should hire people to crunch a bunch of data, so that they have good estimations of probabilities for a swath of scenarios. They should then pick the one who is the fastest on his or her feet and proclaim them the Game Management Coach. Their job is to follow the head coach around and tell him what to do. It is a great idea, but the chances of it happening anytime soon are probably pretty low. (By the way, this is the same basic idea put forth by Bill Simmons in this column's "Great Call of the Week". Although I disagree with his take on the "down by two scores in the final two minutes" conundrum. I also don't think Madden is the best NFL football game simulator, given that I once threw 8 TD passes to Terrell Owens in a game against a friend. Still, the larger point is a good one.)

*These seem reasonble because a) two yards is what is needed on a 2-point conversion and the success rate for them has been around 50% in recent years (this guy backs that up), but the Patriots have an above average offense, so I put it at 55%, b) the Pats can essentially run out the clock if they convert, c) a 42 yard net punt is reasonable, d) the 30 is a good round yard line.

TMQ's Asinine Take on the Compensation of College Athletes

Below is an excerpt from this week's TMQ column concerning the compensation of college basketball players.

Last winter, Richard Vedder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, what we call in Washington a "boutique" think tank (it's really small), argued in the Wall Street Journal that college sports stars "receive compensation that amounts to only a very small percentage of what they would have earned if they sold their services in a competitive market." Vedder noted that Kevin Durant got about $33,000 in "compensation," in the form of tuition and expenses, in his year at the University of Texas, then jumped to $3.5 million a year when he entered the NBA. Colleges are keeping the money that basketball stars generated, Vedder contends, and therefore college athletes should form unions and demand pay.

Many, including TMQ reader Nasr Abdul-Mujeeb of Detroit, also think Division I football and men's basketball players should be paid: "The NCAA is using a free-labor system that lines the pockets of coaches, ADs and NCAA administrators, but provides little benefit to players, many of whom don't get a college education anyway." (Under "one and done," a college basketball player can attend classes in the fall, and then pay much less attention to classes in the spring, continuing to perform for that college while maintaining eligibility based on fall credits.) Surely if one considers only star players such a [Kevin] Durant, the NCAA is indeed benefiting from a free-labor system. But is that the way we should look at matters?

During Durant's college season, 2006-07, there were 343 Division I men's basketball teams, each awarding 13 full scholarships, and 270 Division II basketball teams, each awarding 10 full scholarships, for a total of 7,159 men's basketball scholarships. (The numbers are now slightly different.) The following season, Durant's rookie year, there were 55 NBA players who had just left college, either early or as seniors. Since 55 from that college season advanced to the NBA, we can roughly judge that 55 of the 7,159 major-program basketball players that year were being exploited financially, while the other 7,104 were not. The other 7,104 players were coming out way ahead financially, as they were receiving free college educations -- if they had enough sense to go to class -- plus experiences that might help them in later life, especially in the business world. ("Wow, you played basketball at Boston College?")

Divide 7,159 by 55, and get 130. So each player from Durant's college season who might have been earning an NBA salary was supporting the college educations of another 130 players. This is the key thought missing from free-labor complaints about college basketball. Yes, the tiny fraction of players capable of advancing to the NBA do perform for far less than their market price, but they create economic value that lets large numbers of others go to college on scholarship. Assume the typical basketball scholarship is worth $33,000, which sounds a little low. (Full cost at the University of Texas for out-of-state students is currently $40,426) Those 7,159 scholarships are worth $236 million. So it's not pure exploitation -- $236 million is going to the players who make the college basketball system possible. It's up to those players to have the good sense to attend class and study -- what you accomplish in life is ultimately always up to you. But the scholarships created by the "free" play of NBA-capable collegians are the key consideration. In Durant's college year, he essentially donated 130 scholarships to other basketball players, worth $4.3 million. So actually his "compensation" was more than the $3.5 million he received the following season in the NBA. It's just that the compensation was not money in his pocket, it was the admirable act of financing other people's educations.

This is an embarrassingly weak defense of the status quo. The main reason lies in the sentences I put in bold. TMQ assumes that any college player who cannot play in the NBA is not being financially exploited, and will come out "way ahead." This assumption is completely unsupported, and in my estimation probably very untrue, especially for players in the power conferences (Pac-10, Big-10, ACC, Southeastern, Big East, Big 12). Even if a college hoopster does not play in the NBA, they are still providing a service for their university, and one off of which the university often makes a lot of money. They have worth to the university. (TMQ apparently disagrees, as he seems to think all scholarships are earned by future NBA players, and then "donated" to everybody else.*) I don't think it's at all appropriate to use what a college player will make in the NBA ($0 for almost all players, as TMQ points out) to establish their worth because they are not playing NBA basketball. Their worth should be determined by the college basketball market. But there is no real college basketball market, and that's exactly the point.

The basic argument for exploitation goes something like this. If a big name college basketball program had to pay their players, how much would they pay per year for a full squad? Is it safe to say $1.4 million? I think that's an underestimate, probably even a ridiculous underestimate, considering how much schools are willing to pay their coaches ($1.2 million per year for the power conference teams in the 2008 NCAA tournament) , not too mention how much competitive bidding for talent would drive up player compensation. Even using the modest estimate of $1.4 million per year, that's double what colleges pay their players now, assuming $40,000 (to be conservative I use this figure instead of TMQ's $33,000) per player per year. For better or worse, colleges are almost certainly paying their players a very small fraction of what they would be making under a free market. Players are getting a small slice of a big pie that they largely baked. To many, this is exploitation. If college players were paid market value, Kevin Durant probably would not have to "donate" scholarships to other players. They would be earning them outright, and then some.

*This is truly an asinine notion. Each year, there are hundreds of good college basketball players, who are key parts on good teams, who help draw fans and bring in money, that never crack the NBA. Why should their scholarships be considered donated?

Tim McCarver Quote

A quote from Tim McCarver: "[They say] lead off walks always score. And it's amazing how right they are."

I might have to start watching the World Series a little more closely. I think McCarver could be the source of some good material.

Are Luck and Favorable Variation the Same Thing?

Recently, I attended a conference at which there were several talks analyzing aspects of competitive games. In one of them, the speaker contended that the qualifying mechanisms for the PGA Tour were not very good -- particularly Q-school. His basic argument was, due to natural variations in golfers' scores, the limited number of rounds in Q-school, and the ratio of qualifiers to participants, there was a decent probability that some relatively weak golfers would make the Q-school cut at the expense of more deserving golfers. (He backed this up with a statistical analysis using empirical data.) I don't remember the exact figure, but I think he estimated about a 20% probability that Phil Mickelson would fail to make the final Q-school cut, which is quite high considering he's probably one of the top ten golfers in the entire world, let alone those trying to qualify for the PGA Tour.

In explaining his work, the speaker kept using some form of the word "luck", as in, "given a large number of golfers it's almost inevitable that some of them are going to get lucky and beat people who are better than them." About halfway through the talk somebody in the audience stopped him and said, "I don't buy your premise that this is luck. I've played a lot of golf and watched a lot of golf. You don't luck your way through multiple rounds, you have to outplay people, so I'm not buying it." A somewhat contentious, back-and-forth ensued, before the speaker conceded the point and said, "fine, we have a disagreement on the definition of luck, so I'll just use the term 'favorable variation', from now on." This seemed to placate the man in the audience.

It made me think. Are luck and favorable variation the same thing? As an example, consider poker, a game in which luck and skill are both large factors. There are two basic ways a poker player can beat a superior opponent. The first is they get really lucky, in the conventional sense of the word. Their opponent completely outplays them, but through total chance, they hit their cards and win (think flushes and full houses on the river). This is obviously not sustainable (see the law of large numbers or this Mark Knopfler title). The second way is that the inferior opponent experiences favorable variation. They outplay their opponent on that particular occasion. Maybe they notice an aberrant betting tendency by their opponent and exploit it, or maybe they are just "in the zone", and they make all the right reads, while their opponent makes the wrong reads. This is not sustainable either, because their opponent is better and eventually will adapt, and the tides will turn, but is this luck? On the one hand, you might say "no", it's skill, the usually inferior player just played better. There is nothing lucky about it. On the other hand, you might say "yes". It is a deviation from the expectation that favored the inferior player, and in this sense it's indistinguishable from the first scenario.Whatever the answer, it's an interesting question.

He's just upset

A quote from Maurice Jones-Drew running back for the Jacksonville Jaguars expressing his discontent about not getting the ball enough and the offense in general during a loss to the Seattle Seahawks

I'm very frustrated. We're not consistent with anything. We had, what, 13 running plays last week? We weren't behind the whole game.

True, it was 0-0 for first drives of the game. The Seahawks scored on their second drive and went on to win 41-0.

Week 4: TMQ Tidbit

Tidbit from this week's TMQ.

At the endgame, Green Bay faced a tactical dilemma TMQ thinks most coaches play wrongly. Down 30-20, facing a fourth-and-6 on the Minnesota 14 with one minute remaining, Green Bay kicked a field goal, then tried an onside kick. NFL coaches in this situation almost always take the field goal, then the onside kick. You need a touchdown and a field goal. If you take the field goal and then recover the onside kick, you are at least 50 yards from a touchdown. Before the field goal, Green Bay was only 14 yards from a touchdown. The Packers' chance of converting a fourth-and-6 and getting the touchdown from close range was greater than their chance of kicking a field goal and then scoring a touchdown from long range. Score the touchdown first, and if you recover the onside kick you're only 20 yards from the field goal attempt. TMQ thinks coaches almost always take the field goal in this situation because what they're really doing is playing to make the final score closer.

The bold font was added by me, because it's typical TMQ. Where does this statement come from? Is this just his guess? Does he actually have an estimate for the probability of winning in each scenario? The statement might very well be true, but it's by no means obvious. Sure, the Packers are closer than they would be after an on-side kick recovery, but it's 4th down. After the recovery it would be 1st down. This is a crucial point that he neglects to take into account. Let's say it was 4th and goal from the 14, instead of 4th and 6. Would TMQ still advocate going for it, under the same rationale: the Packers are only 14 yards away from the endzone, as opposed to the 50+ they would be after an on-side kick recovery? What about if it was 4th and 20 from the 25?

Also, I don't agree with his thought in the last sentence. I don't think that NFL coaches are playing to make the final score closer. I think NFL coaches are trying to win, but as I've mentioned before, I think they often equate putting off a loss with going for a win. If the Packers go for it, there is a decent chance they fail, and it's basically game over. If they kick there is a very good chance they make it, and they still have a slim hope of winning. Kicking might be the wrong move, but it's the move that has the highest probability of extending the game. And in scenarios like the one at hand, the move that has the highest probability of extending the game seems to be the one many NFL coaches prefer.

Stupid Like A Fox!

John Fox, my junior high science teacher, who once challenged a kid to a fight during class, probably could have done a better job managing the Panther offense than did John Fox, the Panther's head coach, during the Monday night game against the Cowboys.

With 5:07 left, down by two touchdowns, the Panthers took over at their own 20. At the two minute warning they had the ball at the Dallas 40. Needing two touchdowns, they used over 60% of the remaining clock to get halfway to the end zone once. (A few plays later they turned the ball over on a fumble.) They had two timeouts and inexplicably never called one during the drive. I guess John "stupid like a" Fox was saving them. After all, it's pretty important to use your last timeout, down 14, when the other team has the ball, 1st down, with 46 seconds left. Making the opposing quarterback take a knee twice instead of once, in that situation, is huge.

Not only did the Panthers not use their timeouts, they never took a serious shot down field during their last drive. (This might be more the fault of quarterback Jake Delhomme than John Fox, though.) Their longest pass was 12 yards on a running back dump off. You have to start going for some high risk / high reward plays in that instance. Especially, if you have a game-breaker like Steve Smith and two big, physical jump ball targets like Muhsin Muhammed and Dante Rosario. There is no excuse for being so conservative in that situation. If you turn the ball over taking a shot, so be it. Putting off a loss is not the same thing as going for a win. I don't think most NFL coaches understand this.

One From the Fleming File

Here's a sweet article by David Fleming posted on ESPN Page 2. The bold statements are mine.

BUT HERE'S THE CATCH....

By David Fleming

You know something is totally messed up in the NFL when Oakland Raiders fans start making sense.

But since Week 1 of the season, when officials overturned what looked like a certain 19-yard touchdown catch by Raiders receiver Louis Murphy -- a four-point swing in a 24-20 loss to the underwhelming Chargers -- I've listened to all those howling, confused voices from the Black Hole, and I gotta say, for once, I agree.

The key phrase here is “looked like”.

In fact, I've just finished reviewing the following: Murphy's drop, Jacoby Jones' touchdown bomb in Houston's win over the Titans and Carolina wideout Dante Rosario's 11-yard TD catch against the Falcons. Honestly, I'm convinced the touchdowns were drops and the drop was a clear touchdown.

I'm not the only one who's confused. I conducted this forensic investigation during the Colts-Dolphins game Monday night when Jon Gruden, a man we can all agree is something of a football savant, shouted this line after an apparent interception during the second half: "That's a catch -- whoops -- no it isn't."

Now there’s a convincing quote. Might as well stop the article here, case closed.

Actually, I think that may be the subheading of Article 3, "Completed or Intercepted Pass," on Page 50 of the NFL rulebook. That passage also includes the so-called explanation of the noncatch on Murphy's Call.

"A player is in possession when he is in firm grip and control of the ball inbounds. To gain possession of a loose ball that has been caught, intercepted or recovered, a player must have complete control of the ball and have both feet completely on the ground inbounds or any other part of his body, other than his hands, on the ground inbounds. If the player loses the ball while simultaneously touching both feet or any other part of his body to the ground or if there is any doubt that the acts were simultaneous, there is no possession. This rule applies to the field of play and in the end zone."

A bit technical, but it makes sense to me. And this doesn’t explain Murphy’s noncatch, because he was “going to the ground.” Read on.

This Byzantine blather is proceeded by an even more confusing "Note 1," known as the "going-to-the-ground" clause. The G2G states, "A player who goes to the ground in the process of attempting to secure possession of a loose ball [with or without contact by a defender] must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, there is no possession. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, it is a catch, interception or recovery."

Again, a bit technical, but it makes sense. And this is the relevant clause to Murphy’s noncatch.

Yes, according to this confusing, circular, contradictory 200-freakin' word explanation, I suppose you could argue that the officials made the correct call. (I don’t know where the circularities or contradictions are, but he’s pretty close on the number of words.) It seems simple, at first. In the act of possessing a pass, if a player is going to the ground and the ball touches said turf, it may not move more than slightly -- or it's an incompletion. I get it. Not the actual rule, mind you, but the genius behind the NFL Rubric, I mean, rulebook. (Good one.) You see the NFL has created a set of rules so arcane and open to interpretation that, no matter what the officials call on Sunday, the following week the league office can prove they were 100 percent correct.

Actually, the NFL and its referees frequently admit mistakes and apologize. Here are two notable examples. In fact, I’m not positive about this, but I think the NFL reviews each game and sends letters of admission to teams they believe were on the wrong end of incorrect calls. So, basically they do the exact opposite of what Fleming suggests.

I don't expect the calls to be perfect. Human frailty is part of sports, a part most of us actually enjoy and appreciate. (Really? You enjoy and appreciate bad calls? I don’t. When the Seahawks lost a playoff spot because a ref mistook Vinny Testaverde’s white helmet crossing the goal line as the brown ball, I was pretty pissed off.) This is more about the growing confusion over the same kinds of plays constantly getting different calls because the rules are too weird to understand. For example: Did you know that the NFL actually sees a clear difference between the terms "simultaneous catch" and "joint catch"? (No, I didn’t, and without any further elaboration or context, I can comfortably conclude that it’s absolutely ridiculous.)

The NFL cannot continue to develop into a passing league when something as simple and basic as the definition of catching the football takes two full pages of text, three officials, hyper-slo-mo viewing, a panel of astrophysicists and a room full of lawyers and linguists.

You know why Fleming doesn’t offer a simpler definition of a catch here? My guess is because he doesn’t have one.

In other words, you can't have a passing league in which the definition of a catch is more difficult to understand than Einstein's theory of relativity or, say, the appeal of the Kardashian sisters.

Oh wait, I take that back, my guess is because he was setting up a hilarious joke and didn’t want to ruin the flow.

Everyone other than stat geeks, Dungeons & Dragons aficionados and conspiracy theorists was confused by Murphy's Call. (WTF?) He caught it. Placed his left foot on the turf. Check. Held the ball. Check. Then placed his right foot on the turf. Check. Held the ball some more. Check. Then landed on the ground while still in possession of the ball. Check. Ball touches the ground as he's falling to the turf. Check. (Funny how he left this one out.)

By the way, should we talk about the G2G clause you mentioned early? It sounds like the relevant rule here. No. Okay.

Incomplete pass. What?

By the way, should we talk about the G2G clause you mentioned early? It sounds like the relevant rule here. No. Okay.

If the simplest definition tends to be the correct one (generally, the actual definition tends to be the correct one), it sure looked, felt and seemed like a catch to me. Ditto to Murph. "That's like winning the lottery and them taking it back from you," he said after the game. "The ultimate high, then the ultimate low."

Now there’s a relevant quote. Might as well stop the article here, case closed.

It was only after the play was allowed to be unwound by loopholes of logic (Look out Zeno of Elea!) and super hi-def slo-mo that the touchdown was reversed. And don't even get me started on slo-mo. First of all, the games aren't played in slow motion. The rules weren't written in slow motion. And yet this technology is allowed to splice every part of the game down to its molecular core -- frame by frame, pixel by pixel, atom by atom -- to the infinitesimal point where, shoot, I'm no longer 100 percent sure Murphy was even on the field that day.

Just so you know what a sentence written in slow motion looks like, I’ll write one. This sentence was written in slow motion. There you go.

If NFL Films videotapes a tree falling in the forest and then replays it in ultra-super-mega slo-mo, did it really fall down, or did it just lean, slightly, inevitably, into the Earth's rotation? (Speaking of incompletions, reread that last sentence.) Ya know, every time these rules and this technology are used to change a call that the human eye determined was a no-brainer, I wonder, how many of the 20 all-time greatest catches in NFL history would be overturned using the league's current system? Half? A third? (My honest guess, none.)

Reading the last two paragraphs, I think I can sum up Fleming’s argument against slo-mo replay: it serves it purpose.

The biggest problem I have is that the rules contradict themselves. A player going to the ground needs to maintain possession of the ball. OK, but at the same time, the rules also suggest that once a player has controlled the ball with two feet in bounds, he has caught the ball, and therefore you could argue that it's already been declared a catch before he starts going to the ground. (It's almost as if a special clause in the rules is needed to deal specifically with players “going to the ground” while making a catch.) "When they overturned it, I started asking, 'What's the rule, what's the rule, what's the rule?'" Murph says. "Everybody told me two feet down and once you land it's OK, but then I found out in meetings today the rule is even if you fall with two feet down, you still have to control it, which I thought I did."

So “Murph” seems to understand the rule perfectly, but disagrees with the ref’s judgment of control. This supports Fleming’s case how? Look, out of all the passes attempted each week, the overwhelming majority are either obvious completions or obvious incompletions, and called as such. Out of the remaining attempts, the vast majority become obvious, one way or the other, once reviewed in slo-mo replay. But, you are always going to have a small subset of attempts that are so close that they aren’t ever obvious, so the ref makes the call. That’s just how it goes. I saw Murph's noncatch, and honestly I wouldn't have overturned the call on the field of catch, but the ball does touch the ground, and it just wasn't obvious whether or not he had position. It was so close that neither side had much of a case if it didn't go their way.

Again, the rules say if a player is going to the ground, he must maintain control of the ball. But they also say it's OK if the ball touches the ground as long as you don't lose control of it, and that "slight movement" of the ball is fine once the ball is caught. But what does slight mean? A twist? A full turn? A shift? A bobble? A shake? A gink? (I made that up, but still.) Riddle me this: If the ball's touching the ground during a catch does not constitute possession, you could argue, in theory, that every time someone is tackled and the ball touches the ground, the runner is not in "possession" of the ball and it's a fumble.

The italics are mine. And I think the first sentence of his “riddle” should read, “If the ball touching the ground during a catch constitutes a non-possession…”, as it actually makes sense this way. His point is still completely inane, but it makes sense.

The result of all this technology, nomenclature and atom splitting is that although the officials in Oakland were able to determine the most infinitesimal movement of the ball as it contacted the ground, the guys in Tennessee didn't see anything wrong with the ball's leaving a large divot in the grass after Jones secured it with what looked like nothing more than his left butt cheek. On the other hand, Rosario's catch against the Falcons was allowed because the ref said the tight end, and I quote, "completed the catch, performed a second act, reaching for the goal line, penetrated the goal line, and the result of the play is a touchdown." (This makes perfect sense, and it’s a complete different scenario than the previous one.) That tells me the refs in Oakland and the league office do not consider planting both feet on the turf -- like, say, while throwing, running a route or kicking a field goal -- to be an actual football move. (No, it means they were following the going-to-the-ground clause, which they should have been because Murphy was going to the ground.)

Confused?

Should I be?

That's OK. You should be.

Oh.

The problem is so are the refs, the players, the coaches and the league office.

That's why an obvious drop in Nashville is a game- (maybe, season-) changing touchdown, but what our eyes tells us is the clean catch in Oakland is little more than an incomplete pass.

Another allusion to the the-problem-with-instant-replay-is-it-works argument.

Don't worry, though. I vow to clear up all this the next time the NFL's rules committee meets during the offseason at its usual unknown tropical island location.

One question: Anyone know how to open The Hatch?

Oh, a “Lost” reference... ha ha ha ha ha... I get it.

Week 2: Is that Wilson or Wade?

'80s pop duo Wilson Phillips probably could have managed the clock better than Cowboys coach Wade Phillips at the end of Sunday night's Giants/Cowboys game. On the final possession of the game, with Dallas up by one and New York driving, despite holding three timeouts, Phillips never used one in an attempt to preserve some clock for a quick counter-drive, in case New York scored. The result was a game-winning field goal for the Giants on the final play of the game. Taking a page out of the book of irrelevant tactics, Phillips did, however, "put the pressure" on Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes by icing him with a timeout. Why icing the kicker is still fashionable among NFL coaches is beyond me. (My favorite icing-the-kicker moment is when Joe Gibbs tried to "double ice" Rian Lindell leading to a 15-yard penalty, and a 36-yard attempt instead of a 51-yard attempt.)

Let's examine the final drive a little more closely. The Giants have the ball 1st down at the Cowboys 47 with a little over 1:20 remaining and the clock ticking. The Giants have 2 timeouts, the Cowboys 3. The Cowboys should now be stopping the clock every chance they can. There is no way the Giants are running out of time. They are either turning the ball over or scoring. There is almost no downside for the Cowboys to try to preserve the clock. The upside is a chance for a quick counter-strike if the Giants score. This is obviously an enormous contrast with a certain loss if the Giants score. Now, it's quite possible the Giant's are able to get into field goal range and run down the clock, even if the Cowboys do use their timeouts, but why give it to them? It was incredibly stupid for the Cowboys to let the clock run.

I can understand why most NFL coaches aren't able to managed the clock correctly. Maybe they just aren't good at it, maybe they have to pay too much attention to the on-field action to worry about it. What I can't understand is why they don't hire somebody to stand on the sidelines to do it for them. They have assistant coaches, under assistant coaches to prepare for the game, why not a "time management" coach to give their team the best chance to win during the game?

(On a related note, I was happy to see, my team, the Seattle Seahawks using all their timeouts on defense, down by 13, with a little over 5 minutes left. They at least gave themselves a realistic chance to get the ball back, score, get an on-side kick, and score again. Nothing but the first step of this sequence happened, but this was due to on-field execution, not clock management. It's encouring to see good time management from the Hawks head coach. It's not encouring to see them give up two 70+ yard TD runs to Frank Gore, or to see their starting QB go down with a possibly serious injury, but that's another story.)

Week 1: TMQ Already in Mid-season Form

I largely agree with TMQ's crusade against conservative coaching decisions in the NFL, and his general questioning of accepted football "wisdom". However, I really don't get how a guy who devotes swathes of a column ostensibly about football to discussions of budgets, bailouts and stimuli seems to think that a bunch of anecdotes (Stop Me Before I Blitz Again!) are an acceptable substitute for statistical evidence. He also shows a tendency to overstate his case a bit. Example:

Trailing 31-7, Carolina faced fourth-and-goal on the Philadelphia 4 with 1:45 remaining before intermission. That can't be the field goal unit! You can't be serious! A touchdown here is the only hope of getting back into the game! If you're going to kick you might as well quit and go have blueberry-almond martinis. Carolina kicked, and went on to a 38-10 defeat.

A touchdown is the only hope of getting back in the game? A touchdown with extra point puts you down 17 points (three scores), with a little over a half to go. A field goal puts you down 21 points (also three scores). So the deficit-closable-in-a-half cutoff is somewhere between 17 and 21 points? Not too obvious to me. And how did Philly manage to build a 24-point lead in under a half of play?

I'm not saying that TMQ is necessarily wrong here. This article indicates that going for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal is the better decision if the chance of converting is at least 18%. It also states that a fourth-and-goal from the 2-yard line is coverted about 43% of time. I don't have data on the odds for fourth-and-goal from the 4, but let's suppose it's about a 30% chance of conversion (I think I'm being generous here). That would seem to indicate that going for it is the right decision. However, a big part of the advantage of going for a TD is sticking the opponent with bad field position if you fail. With 1:45 left in the half, that's not such a benefit, especially if the Panthers happened to have two or fewer timeouts left. If I were coaching the Panthers, I would probably also have taken the three points if I had one or no timeouts. Either way, winning this game is a long shot, and it's odd that TMQ seems to think his choice is vindicated by the 38-10 final score.

James, Burress, Stallworth and Vick (which of these things is not like the other)

With the regular football season kicking-off tonight I wanted to update this blog. Before I talk about football though, I wanted to comment on LeBron James. I heard an interview with him yesterday on "Fresh Air" and while listening to it I decided that LeBron has the potential to become the Yogi Berra of the NBA. He seems like an intelligent and funny individual (at least by professional athlete standards), but he's constantly mixing methaphors and misusing words. For example, he refered to his mother as being, "calm and collective." In a different interview, I once heard him repeatedly use the word "sustain" as a synonym for "repel" as in (paraphrase), "they kept trying to comeback on us, but we were able to sustain them." If LeBron gets a little nuttier as he ages and loses some of his youthful bravado, I'm predicting some great Yogi-esque quotes from him.

Listening to the interview, I was also reminded about how much hype surrounded James as a teenager (including a Sports Illustrated cover dubbing him the "Choosen One"). It's easy to forget that, because now he's just an NBA superstar doing NBA superstar things. He's completely lived up to the hype. It seems like we are constantly hearing about the next "Choosen One" in sports and occassionally they bust (e. g., Michelle Wie and Todd Maranovich), but often they really are the "Choosen One" or at least a close approximation of it. Other than James, Wayne Gretzky, Ken Griffey Jr., A-Rod and Tiger Woods are all examples.

Anyway, on to football...

Bill Simmons has a story up today, about how crazy and unpredictable the NFL is. One of his reasons:

Former Giants receiver Plaxico Burress (who accidentally shot himself in the leg while illegally carrying a handgun in public) was given a prison sentence 30 times longer than that of Browns receiver Donte' Stallworth (who killed a pedestrian while driving drunk and high). Not only weird, but perplexing.

Michael Vick defenders have pointed out a similar disparity between Vick's punishment and Stallworth's, but like Simmons, they always leave out a key point. Stallworth didn't mean to kill anybody. The result of Stallworth's actions were worse, but not the intent. Vick knowingly lead a criminal life for years, during which time he committed or oversaw many cruel and disturbing, violent acts. Then he lied about it. This is so different from Stallworth's case that I don't think the two are comparable. Burress' crime is more comparable, but Burress illegally owned a handgun, which is very much a premeditated act, not a temporary lapse in judgement.

Stallworth messed up when he drove intoxicated (and his insistance during his 911 call that the "man ran in front of his car" is terrible), but, unless Stallworth has a history of this, you can legitimately argue that he just "made a mistake". For the case of Vick and Burress this is much more difficult argument to make. Further, the fact that Stallworth killed somebody and Plaxico only hurt himself is basically just the luck of the draw. It could have very easily been the other way around.

I'm definitely not defending Stallworth by any means and maybe he deserves worse or Vick or Burress deserve better. I am just making the point that you have to take into consideration the intent along with the results when considering their cases, something it doesn't seem anybody is doing.

A-Rod is a Weasel (but he might have one point)

I feel like piling on.

At his press conference earlier this week, concerning his failed drug test from 2003, Alex Rodriguez attempted to achieve the self-contradictory goal of admitting a grave wrongdoing while implying he did very little wrong. This was a chance for him to gain a modicum of public respect by simply saying what everybody already knows. It would have taken three sentences.

"From 2001 to 2003, while a member of the Texas Rangers, I routinely injected myself with a steroid, because I thought it would help me be a better player. I knew that this substance was almost certainly on baseball's banned list, but I took it anyway because improving my game was more important than respecting the rules. I am only before you now admitting this because I got caught and I'd rather come away from this ordeal looking like Andy Pettitte than Roger Clemens."

But instead he used weasel words (this is an actual term) . He Bushed-it. He tried to claim youthful ignorance for stupid things he did when he wasn't young. In 2001 A-Rod turned 26, in 2003 he turned 28 (not 24-25 as he said during the press conference, by the way). I'm not sure when the cut off is for youthful ignorance, but it is way before 26. If he were 15 or 16, okay. Maybe even 19 or 20, but 26? Give me a break. (Although he's not as bad as Dubya who used it as an excuse for things he did in his mid-30s.)

He was evasive. When asked if he considered what he did to be cheating he said, "That's not for me to decide..." Actually, A-Rod, it's exactly for you to decide. In fact, you are the only person in the entire world who can decide this.

But, A-Rod might have one point. He claimed during his interview with Peter Gammons, that his best years were when he was not on steroids, specifically he cited his 1996 and 2007 years. In fact, in terms of runs created per game his best three years were 2007, 2005 and 1996. In terms of adjusted batting runs (like runs created, but adjusted for park and league factors and considered relative to league average), his two best years were 2007 and 2005, by far. Overall, his runs created per season with Seattle, Texas and New York were 8.14, 8.97, and 8.58, respectively, while his adjusted batting runs per season were 37.54, 51.26, and 55.44, respectively (the lower mark from his Seattle years is due in part to missing time due to injury). So, if you believe that A-Rod is being honest about the time frame of his steroid use then it's pretty clear that they did not help his performance much, if at all. He's been equally awesome throughout his career, at least on the field. During press conferences he's embarrassingly bad.

TMQ Tidbit

Here is a tidbit from Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column:

Television announcers tend to talk exclusively about sacks, but offensive holding penalties are every bit as good.

This is a common maneuver by Easterbrook in his TMQ column. He makes a claim, as if it is a great insight, then completely fails to give it a basis, or he does so in an erroroneous manner. Often times it is something small like the claim above, but even then, the aggregate affect can be very annoying. This is especially true since Easterbrook's TMQ column has an I'm-the-smartest-guy-in-the-room feel to it. That's a fine feeling to convey if you are the smartest guy in the room, but the more I read Easterbrook's column the more I'm finding that he probably isn't.

With that said, how exactly is an offensive holding penalty "every bit as good" as a sack? The average sack might result in a smaller loss than the average offensive holding penalty, but a sack has the obvious advantage that the offense loses the down. In fact, my preliminary research (this website) indicates that the average sack (about a 5 yard loss, loss of down) is more valuable for the defense than the average offensive holding penalty (about a 10 yard loss, replay the down) . For instance, on 3rd and 15 the chances of converting a first down is around 20%, on 2nd and 20 its around 30%. So, on 2nd and 10, the average sack is 10% better than the average offensive holding penalty in terms of first down conversion likelihood.

At best Easterbrook's claim is completely unfounded, at worst it's simply not true (which is the likely case, in my estimation).

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Addendum: One other thing. "Television announcers tend to talk exclusively about sacks..." Huh? Have you ever witnessed an offensive holding penalty that the TV announcers didn't talk about? In the Super Bowl Mike Gandy had several big offensive holding penalties that thwarted Arizona drives. I know this not because I chart holding penalties throughout the game (or because I read Easterbrook's column a few days later), but because the announcers talked about it.

Line Men

This is not really about sports, but it is about a commercial aired several times during the Super Bowl, so I figure it is fair game. Apparently the TV show "Chuck" (I have never seen it) is doing an episode in 3-D. In the commercial for it they show two of the characters and then talk about how it is going to be in 3-D and then the characters morph into what you think will be some sort of 3-D rendering of themselves, but instead is a flat rendering. The characters look like cardboard cutouts. Then one of the characters says something to the effect of, "c'mon, we're suppose to be in 3-D, not 1-D." Huh... 1-D? Does nobody who worked on this commercial, which aired on the biggest stage possible, have even a vague concept of spatial dimensions? They have obviously never read Edwin Abbott's novella "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions."

Conditional Probability

If there exists a subject called anti-probability, then watching Wilbon and Kornheiser play "odds maker" on PTI is like watching a graduate-level lecture in it. I only wish there was a casino at which they set the lines. I would never have to work an honesty day in my life.

On today's show they were asked: what are the chances that Sam Bradford will win two Heisman trophies in his collegiate career? Tony went first and said something reasonable -- I can't remember the exact figure, somewhere around 20%, I think -- and he mentioned that 74 Heisman trophies have been awarded and only once has there been a repeat winner. Wilbon, showing supreme mathematical cunning, used Kornheiser's "own argument against [him]" and said that the chances are 1 / 74, 1.35%. Mr. Wilbon, I recommend a stats 100 textbook, read the section on conditional probability. Sam Bradford won the Heisman last year as a sophomore. He has already announced he is returning to Oklahoma next season. He will have at least one, possibly two more cracks at a second Heisman. He is one of the best and most famous players in college football. Barring a complete downfall, he will be in the Heisman discussion his entire collegiate career. If $10 future contacts of Sam Bradford winning two Heismans were selling for $.14, I would buy at least 100 of them ASAP.

The First Post

Let me begin by saying that I like Pardon The Interruption. I like the show, I like Michael Wilbon and I like Tony Kornheiser (mostly). I even like some of the guest hosts (like Dan LeBatard) and I like Tony Reali (although an episode of Around the Horn can be tough to stomach). However, I also like the name of this blog. And let's be honest, Wilbon and Kornheiser are entertaining, but when it comes to serious sports analyis, they say some pretty idiotic things. But so do a lot of people in sports. And a lot of people in sports do idiotic things (see 90% of NFL coaches). The purpose of this blog is to expose all these idiotic things. In other words, the purpose is to be a nitpicky asshole. This blog is inspired by the now defunct www.firejoemorgan.com. I imagine it will be just like it minus the side-splitting humor. Enjoy.