Category: Following Sports

Cue Cards 10-21-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Tampa Bay 23, Atlanta 31 — Usually the time to fire a head coach in the NFL is during the team’s bye week (the one week in seventeen that they get the weekend off.) Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano probably kept his job through the team’s bye by assigning the blame to the quarterback who they later cut from the team. The Buccaneers play again this Thursday and my guess is that after they lose that game they will fire Schiano anyway.

Cincinnati 27, Detroit 24 — This game featured two of the best wide receivers in the NFL, Calvin Johnson of the Lions and A.J. Green of the Bengals. They put on a show, catching a combined 310 yards and three touchdowns in a closely contested and entertaining game.

Buffalo 23, Miami 21 — Stuck in the same division as the Patriots, these teams have not had much success over the past decade. This year, they have both shown flashes of goodness but their inconsistency likely dooms them to another year of not making the playoffs.

New England 27, New York Jets 30 — The Jets and Patriots are rivals so any close game between them takes on at least epic pretensions. This game went back and forth and into overtime before being decided partially on an obscure rule which will be the subject of conversation among infuriated Boston fans tomorrow. A good way to defuse the situation is to point out that their baseball team is in the World Series and the football team is 5-2.

Dallas 17, Philadelphia 3 — This game was a great example of how unpredictable football can be. Every expert, pundit, and gambler thought this was going to be a high scoring game. At half-time the game was 3-0.

Chicago 41, Washington 45 — Talking about high scoring games… even losing starting quarterback Jay Cutler to a groin injury in the first half didn’t keep the Bears from almost keeping pace with the controversially named Washington Redskins.

St. Louis 15, Carolina 30 — Carolina is unexpectedly good. If they didn’t wear teal, I think people would be taking them more seriously.

San Diego 24, Jacksonville 6 — Jacksonville’s horrible play is drawing focus from the fact that they are the only team I’ve ever seen that plays with matte helmets. I think I like it.

San Francisco 31, Tennessee 17 — This game was not as close as the score suggests. The 49ers are bigger and meaner than most of the other teams in the league and most weeks that’s all they’ll need to win.

Cleveland 13, Green Bay 31 — A few years back legitimate sports writers questioned whether the Cincinnati Bengals made a mistake because they drafted a red-headed quarterback. It seems like having the last name of Weeden should have been a red flag for Cleveland’s general managers. Alas, it wasn’t.

Houston 16, Kansas City 17 — The Chiefs squeak by the Texans to remain undefeated.

Baltimore 16, Pittsburgh 19 — The defending Super Bowl champion Ravens lose their third game out of the last for while exhibiting why people say the NFL stands for “not for long.”

Denver 33, Indianapolis 39 — The game with the best plot of the weekend saw legendary quarterback Peyton Manning returning to the city he played for for 14 seasons to face the team that released him. Indianapolis’ defense frustrated the high-flying Denver offense all night and led their team to victory. Losing this game actually makes me like Peyton Manning more — he was clearly emotional about returning to what used to be his home and it affected his play.

Should the Washington Redskins Change their Name?

Today the Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Bears in a back and forth, exciting 45 to 41 game. Although they were able to outlast the Bears in a contest with very little effective defense, the Washington professional football team may not be able to outlast their opponents in another contest. Proponents of keeping the team name, Redskins, find themselves, like their team, without an effective defense.

The Redskins began their existence in 1932 in Boston under the name of the Braves which matched the name of the Boston baseball team they shared a field with. The next year, according to Wikipedia, the team moved to Fenway park where the Boston Red Sox played (and still do,) and changed their name to Redskins to match Red Sox better. In 1937 the team moved to Washington D.C.

It’s not completely clear why a movement to change the name has picked up momentum over the past year but it has. In recent weeks there has been a flurry of comments from prominent figures about the name. Television commentator Bob Costas used his platform on Sunday Night Football to argue that the name is “an insult, a slur, no matter how benign the present day intent.” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer claimed that the team should follow the trend of common usage which suggests that most people wouldn’t use the word Redskins “because the word [is] tainted, freighted with negative connotations with which you would not want to be associated.” President Obama even said in an interview that if he were the owner he would think about changing the name.

A few voices have come out in defense of the name. Foremost among them is the team owner, Daniel Snyder, who wrote a public letter to fans that was reprinted in many newspapers. Snyder sites public polls that show that most people, even most Native Americans are not offended by the use of the word “Redskins” in the team name. He also takes what I consider to be an unbelievably wrong-headed tack in arguing that the name should be preserved because of its great and historic legacy during the 81 years of the team’s existence. I can’t believe that in arguing for the preservation of a name with connections to a genocidal history that anyone thinks playing to its history is a good idea. Often vilified ESPN columnist Rick Reilly makes an interesting case for the name by (after first giving himself the street cred to make this argument without being accused of being racist by name-dropping his “father-in-law, a Blackfeet Indian”) sharing stories of mostly high-school teams with similar names whose predominantly Native American population are proud and defensive of. Reilly’s best line addresses Native Americans who defend the name, “Too late. White America has spoken. You aren’t offended, so we’ll be offended for you.” This paradox is also addressed in the best article I’ve read on the issue. Published on Deadspin.com and written by a Blackfeet Indian, Gyasi Ross, the article looks at what he believes the larger issue is — the unequal treatment of Native Americans as compared to other minorities by the mainstream public. He writes, “NO non-black person has ever gone rummaging through American cities in search of a black person who’s not offended by the word “nigger,” and then held them up as proof that the word isn’t so bad. ”

Of course this controversy has stirred up some of people’s best, worst, and most comedic instincts. Design company 99 Designs ran a contest to redesign the team’s logo with three name suggestions: Griffins, Warriors, and Renegades. They received 1,887 submissions in one week. PETA shamelessly stole an idea from a Tony Kornheiser column in 1992 and suggested that the team keep their name but change their logo to the potato of the same name. The Onion put its stamp on the issue with a fictional quote: “We’ve heard the concerns of many people who have been hurt or offended by the team’s previous name, and I’m happy to say we’ve now rectified the situation once and for all,” said franchise owner Dan Snyder, adding that “Washington Redskins” will be replaced with “D.C. Redskins” on all team logos, uniforms, and apparel.”

One common reaction to the controversy from many writers, bloggers, and podcasters has been to stop using the name Washington Redskins and instead go with the awkward “Washington Professional Football team” or the euphemistic “‘skins.” This seems as likely to help the team avoid the issue as it does to force them to change it. At Dear Sports Fan we’re going to keep using the name Washington Redskins until the team changes it, which we hope they do soon. Of all cities, the capital of the United States should be the most careful when it comes to team names that send racist or violent messages. Dan Snyder should emulate the former owner of the professional basketball franchise in Washington D.C., Abe Pollin, who got rid of the name “Bullets’ because of his feelings about gun violence.

Cue Cards 10-14-2013: NFL One Liners & Bonus Baseball

clapperboardCue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Cincinnati 27, Buffalo 24 — If the Bengals needed overtime to beat the Bills, who didn’t even have their best quarterback playing, they’re not a serious playoff contender.

Detroit 31, Cleveland 17 — Lions rookie tight-end Joseph Fauria caught three touchdowns and did a different celebratory dance each time.

Oakland 7, Kansas City 24 — Kansas City continues it’s undefeated season on the strength of its defense which sacked quarterback Terrelle Pryor 10 times and intercepted him three times.

Carolina 35, Minnesota 10 — The Vikings signed deposed former Buccaneer quarterback Josh Freeman in the middle of last week. You’ll hear a lot of talk about how “distracting” that was to the Vikings.

Pittsburgh 19, New York Jets 6 — The Steelers win their first game of the season sending the Jets back to earth after a week of flying high following their big victory over the Falcons.

Philadelphia 31, Tampa Bay 20 — Eagles quarterback Michael Vick missed this game because of an injured hamstring and might never get it back after replacement Nick Foles’ four touchdown day.

Green Bay 19, Baltimore 17 — Green Bay squeaked out a victory in this matchup between two teams that have been very, very good over the last five years but are struggling to get things together this year.

St. Louis 38, Houston 13 — Talking about struggling to get things together, there’s going to be a lot of people quoting Apollo 13 after the Texans lost their fourth game in a row.

Jacksonville 19, Denver 35 — The story with this game all week was that Vegas bookmakers had set the Broncos as 28 point favorites, equalling the highest line ever. Denver won but it was much closer than expected so now the story will be about how the plucky Jaguars showed so much heart.

Tennessee 13, Seattle 20 — This game was a comedy of errors that ended in a Seahawks win which undoubtedly made their cutest fan very happy.

New Orleans 27, New England 30 — In our post last week about how to negotiate with a fan in your life who wants to watch football all day, we mentioned that one of the reasons was chasing the rare game that becomes a transcendent experience. This was one of those games. Leading in the last five minutes, the Saints had two chances to win the game but failed to get a first down both times leaving Tom Brady and the Patriots with about fifty seconds to go down the field and score a touchdown… which was exactly what they did.

Arizona 20, San Francisco 32 — The Forty Niners are like the weather in San Francisco: unexpectedly fierce.

Washington 16, Dallas 31 — The good news for Washington is that their quarterback, Robert Griffin III, finally looked like he wasn’t hampered all that much by his knee which is recovering from ACL surgery. The bad news is that at 1-4 on the year, it might be too late for them this season.

Sport: Baseball
Teams: The Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox
When: Sunday, October 13
Context: Game two of the American League Championship Series, Detroit was up 1 game to zero
Result: The Red Sox won 6-5
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

  • Boston’s transcendent sports day continued into the night at Fenway park. Down 5-0, the Red Sox scored one run in the sixth and then four in the eighth when David Ortiz, known as Big Papi, hit a grand slam (a home run with three of his teammates already on base) to tie the game. The Sox then scored one in the bottom of the ninth to win the game.
  • If there’s anyone at work today from Boston, you’ll be able to tell from the big circles under their eyes and the goofy grin that keeps appearing on their faces. Last night’s game reminded Bostonians of 2004 when the Red Sox and David Ortiz seemed to do this almost every night during the playoffs on their way to winning their first world series in 86 years.

What’s Next: They play again tomorrow at 4:07 for game three of the seven game series.

Why You Shouldn't Spend All Day Watching Football

One of the joys of working on this website is that the WordPress software I run the site with tracks many of the search terms people have entered that lead them to Dear Sports Fan. Yesterday someone viewed the site after searching google for “why men shouldn’t watch NFL football every Sunday.” This is pretty exciting because it means that our core audience (non-sports fans who have important sports fans in their lives) exist and that they are curious or frustrated enough to take their questions to the internet and that once there, Dear Sports Fan’s content is relevant enough to pop up in searches and to be read! So, in honor of you, whoever you are, here are some thoughts about spending all day watching football and some tips on negotiating the topic with your favorite football fan.

Less is More

There’s different modes of football watching and one that is extremely enjoyable is the viewing of a single, important game. Watching football all day sometimes means you never really focus in on one game and enjoy it’s drama, it’s plot twists, it’s ups and downs as fully as you could. If the fan in your life has a favorite team, why not make it into a special occasion for him or her? Expressing the desire to watch with that person is likely enough to make it special but it wouldn’t hurt to add some props to the equation. Throw on some color coded clothing to support a team. Clear away distractions half an hour early. Get involved by cooking or ordering appropriate food. Football team names are often fun to play with in a themed event kind of way. When I was in college, my friends and I would throw a themed super bowl party. When the Buccaneers played the Raiders it was PIRATE BOWL. There’s no reason why you can’t steal this idea on a normal Sunday. Cook some gumbo for a Saints game, make some wings for a Bills game, or cook a corned beef (but start early) for a Patriots game. Making an occasion out of a game is a good way to make a single game the occasion.

Take a Bye Week

If the sports fan in your life has a favorite team there is at least one, probably two or three weeks during the football season where the negotiation for a football free or football light weekend will be significantly easier than others. In the NFL, every team plays 16 games over 17 weeks. The one week a team does not play is called their bye week. This is a great week to suggest that your favorite fan take a bye week too! Go away for the weekend or get some yard work done! Every team also has at least one prime-time game on Thursday, Sunday, or Monday night. These weeks are also good bets to suggest a Sunday day activity.

Plan Ahead

One of the under-appreciated elements of the sports business is how effectively is markets itself. Most of the time sporting events are generally unremarkable. Once in a while they’re drama and unpredictability make them transendent experiences for sports fans. ESPN, NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS, and the sports leagues themselves do a great job of promoting upcoming games to convince sports fans that despite all probabalistic evidence to the contrary, this game is going to defy logic and has a 100% chance of being transendent. Think of the way big food companies market desserts and then double it. By the day of the game most sports fans have been looking forward to watching particular games for days. If you want to do something else with them, talk to them about it before they’ve bought the hype.

Lose the Battle, Win the War

Sometimes, it is great to watch football all day. As bizarre as it may sound if you are not a fan, planting your butt on a couch and watching football all day is an experience many of us prize. It’s an indulgence like spending the day at a spa or an amusement park or in a casino. And like all indulgences, it’s only really enjoyable if you feel good about doing it! So give the football fan in your life the gift of support some Sundays and make them feel good about indulging themselves. Tell them you understand how they enjoy a full day of football and that you want them to choose some Sundays to have that and some Sundays to share the day with you. I’ll leave it to you and your sports fan to figure out exactly what the right ratio is.

Good luck and happy negotiating.

 

Cue Cards 10-7-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

New Orleans 26, Chicago 18 — The Saints go marching into Chicago and come out with a win. Apologies for the pun. The NFL seems to be dividing itself into good teams and teams that look like they are unstoppable video-game football teams. Chicago is a good team. New Orleans is a video-game team.

New England 6, Cincinnati 13 — Cincinnati seems to specialize in winning ugly. In a New England rainstorm, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady did not score a single touchdown for the first time in 53 games.

Detroit 9, Green Bay 22 — Talking about video games, the Lions star wide-receiver Calvin Johnson (nick-named Megatron) did not play in this game because of an injury and his team was not able to generate much offense without him.

Kansas City 26, Tennessee 17 — This game is an example of the importance of quarterbacks. The Chiefs remain undefeated behind their new quarterback this season, Alex Smith. After their quarterback, Jake Locker, sustained a hip injury last game, the Titans were forced to turn to backup quarterback and Harvard man, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and lose.

Seattle 28, Indianapolis 34 — For reasons unclear even to me, I consistently think the Seahawks are not as good as they are. Today I was right.

Jacksonville 20, St. Louis 34 — There is no better medicine this year for an ailing football team than playing the Jaguars.

Baltimore 26, Miami 23 — It’s pretty clear that both of these teams are good.

Philadelphia 36, New York Giants 21 — It’s pretty clear that both of these teams are not good.

Carolina 6, Arizona 22 — Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton played like a super-hero in his rookie year two seasons ago but seems to have wedged his cloak in a phone booth since then.

Denver 51, Dallas 48 — This game tied for the fourth highest scoring game in NFL history. Both teams played like video-game teams. Dallas’ quarterback Tony Romo has been known for always messing up at the last minute his entire career and played to type by throwing an interception in the last three minutes of the game that led to Denver’s winning field goal. Romo is the guy who does everything right, right until he stubs his toe, scratches on the eight ball, and steps on the tines of a hoe which flies up to hit him in the face.

Houston 3, San Francisco 31 — The story coming into this game was that Texans quarterback Matt Schaub had thrown an interception which the defensive team had then converted into a touchdown on that play in each of the last three games. Although that is the most destructive thing an offense can do, it’s also relatively random whether or not the defense scores once they intercept the ball. Random or not, Schaub had done it for a fourth time within the first few minutes of this game. He threw two more interceptions before being replaced by backup T.J. Yates. Fans will spend the next week talking about whether Schaub should lose his job for good.

Oakland 27, San Diego 17 — The Oakland Raiders share a stadium with the major league baseball Oakland Athletics who were hosting a playoff game Saturday night. The stadium workers needed more time to convert from baseball to football so the start time for this game was moved from 1:25 Pacific Time to 8:35 Pacific Time. We had the fourth highest scoring game ever in Dallas this weekend, this may be the latest game ever.

What's New for the '13-'14 NHL Hockey Season?

The NHL Hockey season starts tomorrow with games in Montreal, Edmonton, and Chicago. For nine out of every ten sports fans, this will have about as much impact on their lives as missing one quarter of a regular season football game because they had to run out to the store to get some pickles. The fringe popularity of hockey can be seen clearly in the low importance levels the sport receives on our daily and seven-day almanac forecasts. For the hockey fan though, it is a big day! Hockey fans have many reasons why they love hockey and the start of every season is a time when fans of all teams can be excited and optimistic about their team’s potential… even the Florida Panthers. The NHL is known to be one of the most flexible and quick-reacting leagues when it comes to tweaking the rules to fit the needs of their players, owners, and sponsors. A couple new rules this year highlight this characteristic.

No More Jersey Tucking

Not a new rule technically, the NHL has decided to start enforcing a rule against a player tucking in his jersey which has been part of the rulebook for 50 years. It doesn’t take long to realize that despite the head-fake towards explaining this rule through a ref’s easier identification of the player from behind, that this rule is all about the official sponsors of hockey. The makers of hockey pants (heavily padded) realized long ago that they could get some free advertising by putting their logo on the area that is exposed when a player tucks his jersey. No more!

If you take off mine, I’ll take of yours.

Fighting with Helmets, Visors, or None

For years the most hotly debated topic about hockey in the general media has been the place of fighting in the game. In our post, Why Do People Like Hockey, the seventh reason was “Blood (and Consent.) There are two new rules that affect how players will fight this year.

Players who fight this year, in addition to the normal five minute penalty for fighting, will be given an additional two minute penalty if they take their own helmet off. You might be wondering why a player who is about to get into a bare-knuckle fist-fight on ice would take his own helmet off. Hockey is governed by a highly ritualized set of unwritten rules. There’s a big section of this code that pertains to fighting. For instance, a fighter will not fight a player who isn’t a fighter during the normal course of play but, if a non-fighter makes a dirty play, he’s likely to be challenged by a fighter on the other team and he’s got to fight back. Players who fight a lot have more in common with fighters on other teams than they often do with the skill players on their team. So it’s probably no surprise that they don’t wear visors because a visor is likely to break the hand of whoever is fighting against them.

This year is the first year under a new collective bargained agreement between players and owners that requires new players to wear visors on their helmets that protect their eyes. Joe Haggerty explains that while this rule is meant to protect injuries, it may also cause some injuries for players who are determined to fight:

“Guys have been fighting long enough and punching enough guys in the helmet that your hand is a big, calloused club. You’re used to that. Even when guys don’t have visors on, you’re still hitting a lot of helmet. It takes more area away from the face where you can make contact, so it will be a learning curve.”

The solution? Until the league outlaws fighting all-together, the players will find their own solutions. In the preseason, Krys Barch and Brett Gallant found their own solution. They took each other’s helmets off before beginning to throw punches! David Singer of hockeyfights.com (yes, that exists) commented that this was “Victorian era honor. The Code. A ridiculous loophole on display.” Which is more ridiculous though, the response or the rule? There’s a set of hockey players that make their living partially through fighting. Unbroken hands are a job requirement and punching a visor or helmet too hard is a good way to lose a place on the team; one that, once gone, may never be regained.

Cue Cards 9-30-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Baltimore 20, Buffalo 23 — A great example of how the NFL is the least predictable league. The Bills were 6-10 last year and the Ravens were 10-6 and played in the Super Bowl. This year they are as close as can be; playing a close game that came down to the last few minutes and both having a 2-2 record after four games.

Cincinnati 6, Cleveland 17 — Cleveland won their second straight game after losing their starting quarterback to injury and trading their starting running back to the Colts.

Chicago 32, Detroit 40 — Detroit won this game by scoring 27 points in the second quarter, a feat more suited for a video game than a divisional game versus the Chicago Bears.

New York Giants 7, Kansas City 31 — The Giants are 0-4 and have been outscored 69-7 in the last two games. Coach Tom Coughlin’s job, despite his two Super Bowl wins with the team, may be in serious jeopardy.

Pittsburgh 27, Minnesota 34 — One of two games this year to be played in England, the players in this one put on quite a show in a game that was more likely to determine the team with the worst record at the end of the year than the best.

Arizona 13, Tampa Bay 10 — The Cardinals scored all 13 of their points in the fourth quarter to steal the victory from the floundering Buccaneers.

Indianapolis 37, Jacksonville 3 — Two years ago the Colts went 2-11 and selected quarterback, Andrew Luck, with the first pick of the draft. Jacksonville’s best bet this season and probably their only choice is to lose all their games and hope for the first pick in next year’s draft.

Seattle 23, Houston 20 — The Texans dominated this game in the first half, 20-3, but the Seahawks managed to wriggle back into the game, push it to overtime, and win it there with a field goal.

New York Jets 13, Tennessee 38 — The Titans continue to surprise the league with their strong play but may have to adjust to losing their starting quarterback, Jake Locker, to a hip injury.

Philadelphia 20, Denver 52 — Denver seems completely unbeatable right now. They’ve scored 179 points in four games, more than 5o points higher than the second highest scoring team.

Washington 24, Oakland 14 — The nation needed this outcome so that the inhabitants of Washington D.C. can take a few days off from their football crisis and concentrate on that whole government shut-down crisis.

Dallas 21, San Diego 30 — Although the Cowboys loss makes their record only 2-2, that’s still good enough for first place in the NFC East division. The NFC East is always the highest rated and most talked about division in the NFL but this year, the four teams have a combined 4-12 record.

New England 30, Atlanta 23 — The more things change, the more they stay the same. Quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick continue their 13 year run of success.

Cue Cards 9-23-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

New England 23, Tampa Bay 3 — Despite having put Boston in a constant state of crisis for the past three weeks, the Patriots are 3-o and it’s the Buccaneers who are lost at sea.

Indianapolis 27, San Francisco 7 — Colts quarterback Andrew Luck beat his college coach Jim Harbaugh, now head coach of the 49ers, whose team and quarterback specifically have looked confused while losing the past two games.

Cincinnati 34, Green Bay 30 — In the most entertaining game of the day, the upstart Bengals beat the Packers in the type of shoot-out game that the Packers were designed to win. The winning score came as the result of a fumbled fumble recovery returned for a touchdown. The football!

Carolina 38, New York Giants 0 — The Giants are known for slow starts but losing their first three games and getting shut out against the previously winless Panthers may be taking things too far.

Detroit 27, Washington 20 — Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III looked more like himself today than in previous games this season. Unfortunately the Washington defense continued to look exactly like themselves.

Miami 27, Atlanta 23 — This game is a great example of how unstable the fortunes of most NFL teams are from year to year. Last year the Miami were 7-9, this year they are 3-0. Last year the Falcons were 13-3, this year they are 1-2.

Baltimore 30, Houston 9 — Missing their star running back, Ray Rice (RUTGERS!!), the Ravens won this game due to the strength of their defense and special teams units.

New Orleans 31, Arizona 7 — Saints keep their perfect record going and look like one of the strongest teams in the NFL.

Cleveland 31, Minnesota 27 — Cleveland played without their starting running back (who they traded to Indianapolis this past week) and their injured starting quarterback and still managed to score more points against the Vikings than they had in their two previous games combined.

San Diego 17, Tennessee 20 — The Titans scored 10 straight points in the fourth quarter including a touchdown with 15 seconds remaining to beat the Chargers.

Dallas 31, St. Louis 7 — Believe it or not, this game was not as close as the score would suggest. The Cowboys dominated the Rams from start to finish.

Chicago 40, Pittsburgh 23 — Pittsburgh has pride and tradition but not much of an offensive line. Those guys are important.

Plot in Football: A Case Study

Sports fans watch sports more like fans of dramas, sitcoms, or soap operas than one might expect. Sure, the sporting contest itself is interesting, but there is a whole lot of interest driven by plot and character. The NFL football game tonight between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles is a particularly good example of this. As is most often the case with football, the most visible and compelling characters are the head coaches and the quarterbacks. Here’s a description of who they are and the plot that intertwines them.

Before this year, Andy Reid, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, had spent the last 13 years as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. During that time, he led the team to five NFC Championship games (basically the semifinals of the NFL) and one Super Bowl but never won the championship. For the NFL, this is a notably long tenure and a very successful one, only partially marred by a sense that he was responsible for some of the failure to win “it all.” His last few years were saddened by the death of his son from a drug overdose. It’s unclear whether his death was intentional or not. The gravity of that situation and the way Reid handled it[1], his long history with the team, and his close relationship with the owner made his firing at the end of last year surprising despite the flagging success of the Eagles over the last few seasons.

Reid was hired soon after the season as head coach of the Chiefs and has won his first two games this season.

Chip Kelly, head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles and the man who took over for Andy Reid, is a polarizing figure. Before this season, he was head coach at the University of Oregon. While there, he developed an offense that has become known as the “blur” offense because it emphasizes speed in all ways. He likes his players fast, and he has them run plays on offense as frequently as possible. Where most offenses may run a play every 25 or 30 seconds, Kelly’s teams aim for 10 to 15 seconds in an attempt to exhaust the opposing defense. Kelly does this by reducing the amount of thinking his players have to do between plays and increasing it during the play. Instead of calling a play with a voice command, Kelly’s teams use some still unbroken code involving hand gestures and large cardboard cut-outs. During the play, his quarterbacks often choose between handing the ball to the running back, running it themselves, or throwing it to a wide-reciever. Because the quarterback is supposed to make this decision based on what the defense is trying to do, this strategy is called the “read-option.” One of the big stories coming into this NFL season was whether this combination of speed and read would work as well in the pros as it did in college. So far it seems to be working although the Eagles are only 1 and 1.

The plot surrounding the two starting quarterbacks in the game is one of great heights, a great fall, and potential redemption but in very different ways.

The Eagles quarterback, Michael Vick, has prodigious physical talents. I once ran across Vick in an airport and I watched as a man went up to him and said, “Michael Vick??! I love playing with you in [the video game] Madden!” Vick’s talents were rewarded with great fame and fortune until he was charged and convicted for running a dog-fighting ring. He served over a year in prison and returned to the NFL when Andy Reid and the Eagles took a big PR gamble and signed him. His personal redemption has been successful, but he hasn’t reached the playing heights in Philadelphia that he did before his incarceration. Perhaps Chip Kelly can help him get there.

The Chiefs quarterback is Alex Smith. Smith was the first pick in the 2005 draft by the San Fransisco 49ers. Although he showed some promise in San Fransisco, he mostly struggled until last year. Last year it seemed he had finally put it together and was not only playing the best football of his career but also as one of the best quarterbacks, as judged by statistics, in the league through the first half of the season. That’s when Smith got a concussion and had to miss a couple of games. The backup quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, stepped in and played so well that Smith never got back on the field. The 49ers went to the Super Bowl. Alex Smith was sent to Kansas City where he will try, under Andy Reid, to prove that last year’s first eight games were no fluke.

Will the notoriously nasty Philadelphia fans boo Andy Reid when he walks onto the field tonight? Will the new whiz kid Chip Kelly stump the old maestro Andy Reid? Which quarterback will continue on his path to redemption? Tune in tonight at 8:30 to find out. Sports!

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. Reid did not miss a game↵

Cue Cards 9-15-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Panthers 23, Bills 24 — Buffalo Bills win dramatically on a touchdown pass thrown by rookie quarterback EJ Manuel with two seconds left in the game; wonder how many games the coach of the Panthers has left before he is fired?
Vikings 30, Bears 31 — Our second game that went down to the wire. This time the Bears got a touchdown with 10 seconds remaining to win the game. Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder left pondering what could have been if his name wasn’t Ponder. Ponder.
Redskins 20, Packers 38 — Maybe the Redskins’ poor start shouldn’t be surprising considering their quarterback, Robert Griffin III, tore his ACL less than 9 months ago; or maybe Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are really good at offensive football.
Dolphins 24, Colts 20 — Colts quarterback Andrew Luck could not create a dramatic comeback against the surprisingly 2-0 Miami Dolphins.
Rams 24, Falcons 31 — The Rams are seemingly on a quest to become a team like the Falcons; close, but no cigar.
Browns 6, Ravens 14 — Defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens rebound from a bad first week loss with a win against a bad team.
Cowboys 16, Chiefs 17 — Long-time former Eagles coach Andy Reid, now coaching the Chiefs, has the ability to beat old Eagles Rival, Dallas Cowboys, in his muscle memory.
Titans 24, Texans 30 — NFL games barely ever go to overtime, but this one did.
Chargers 33, Eagles 30 — The Eagles are supposed to have a revolutionary, fast moving offense, and they do, but today the Chargers out-paced and out-scored them.
Lions 21, Cardinals 25 — It’s a little hard to say this early in the season but it seems like the Cardinals are a good bad team and the Lions are a bad good team. Today the good bad team beat the bad good team. Go figure.
Saints 16, Buccaneers 14 — The Buccaneers spent all week acting like a bad reality show with feuding between coach and players but they were still able to almost beat the Saints. Who will get kicked off the island in this next week’s episode of The Buccaneers? Could be quarterback Josh Freeman.
Broncos 41, Giants 23 — Called the “Manning Bowl” because the quarterbacks of the teams are brothers Peyton and Eli Manning, this was a victory for older brothers everywhere. (Hey Jess!)
Jaguars 9, Raiders 19 — The team that everyone thought would be the worst team in the league before the year started beat the team everyone now thinks is the worst in the league.
49ers 3, Seahawks 29 — This was the most anticipated game of the weekend but it turned out to be a dud. Between the hour-long lightning delay filled with inane chatter and the lopsided score… I need to see Colin Kaepernick without an eyebrow to be happy.

The Good and the Ugly of Fantasy Football

Players that fantasy owners will be grouching about — Colin Kaepernick,  Maurice Jones-Drew, Frank Gore, and Larry Fitzgerald.

Players that fantasy owners will be crowing about — Marshawn Lynch, Michael Vick, Knowshown Moreno, and Pierre Garcon.