Category: Football

What the top ten dirtiest phrases in football actually mean

If you’ve ever watched a football game on television, you know that some football phrases are a little… umm… dirty sounding? The internet is littered with websites that celebrate these phrases but very few of them actually explain what they mean in the context of football. Not to worry, here are simple explanations of the top ten dirtiest phrases in football. We want you to know what they mean so that you can feel free to giggle at them without restraint!

Illegal touching

During every football play, there are eleven players on the field for each team. Of the eleven players on the offense, only six are eligible to catch a forward pass. The other five are ineligible. Illegal touching is a penalty called against the offensive team if one of the five ineligible players catches or intentionally touches a football thrown forward by the quarterback. An eligible receiver can make himself ineligible by running out of bounds. If an eligible receiver runs out of bounds, returns to the field, and catches a pass, it’s also illegal touching.

Illegal use of the hands

Illegal use of the hands sounds dirty for the same reasons as illegal touching, but it’s a completely different penalty. Instead of mandating how a player can touch the ball (like illegal touching does), this rule mandates how players can touch each other. Mostly this means that players, with the sole exception of a player running with the ball, cannot use their hands to hit each other in the face, neck, or head.

Tight End

There’s no denying that for many, admiration of football players’ butts is a big part of the enjoyment of watching football. However, that’s not what the phrase “tight end” refers to. Tight end is a position on the offensive side of football. If you picture a football field right before a play starts, there are usually a group of big dudes on the offense lined up parallel on the line of scrimmage where the ball is. It’s customary for five of these players to be offensive linemen; the center, the guards on either side of him, and the tackles on either side of the guards. There is often a sixth man on the line. This is the tight end and he plays a hybrid position, blocking like an offensive lineman sometimes and looking to catch passes like a wide receiver at other times. They are called the tight end because they start each play as the receiver closest (tight) to either side (end) of the offensive line.

Sack

Jumping into the sack with a consenting partner should be great fun for both parties but a sack in football is only fun for one side. In football, the use of the word sack is more akin to an invading army that sacks a castle than sack referring to a bed. Defenders sack the quarterback if they tackle him to the ground while he is holding the ball. Sacks are a big deal because they are one of the few ways a defense can force the offense to start their next play with the ball farther from the end-zone they are trying to score in than where they started. As a bonus dirty sounding phrase, a strip sack is when a defender knocks the ball away from the quarterback while he is tackling him to the ground.

Penetration in the backfield

The word penetration has been falling in popular use steadily since 1982 which makes it all the more jarring when you hear it during a football game. In football, a defensive team is said to penetrate the backfield when one of their defenders pushes through the offensive line trying to block them. Like with sack, the metaphor of a castle siege is helpful. Think of the offensive line as the castle walls and the player with the ball — quarterback or running back — as the prize the defenders are trying to get. When a defensive player breaks through that wall, he has penetrated. The area behind the offensive line is called the backfield — which is why the players who start the play back there are called quarterbacks, fullbacks, running backs, and halfbacks.

Hit the hole

So far we’ve used the metaphor of a castle wall to describe a team’s offensive line. On running plays, when the offense is planning to hand the ball to a running back who then sprints towards the end zone, the offensive line transforms from a wall to a series of bulldozers. Individually and as a unit, they attempt to block, shove, push, and trick the defenders opposite them in particular, predetermined directions. Their goal is to create lanes clear of defenders for their running back to sneak through on his way down the field. From the running back’s perspective, these lanes look like openings or holes in the virtually solid mass of humanity on the field. A running back who takes advantage of one of these holes by running through it is said to have hit the hole.

Gap discipline

Calm down Prince fans, this phrase is about control but only in terms of the positioning of defenders on a football field. In our post earlier this year about identifying the mike linebacker, we learned that many terms on both sides of football are relative as opposed to absolute. That makes sense because the offense has to plan a play that’s flexible enough to adjust to whatever the defense is running and vise-versa. One way defenses do this is by labeling the space between offensive linemen, centered on the center who starts each play with the ball. The space between the center and the players on either side of him are called the A gaps. The next two spaces between offensive linemen are called B gaps and after that, C gaps. During a defensive play, a defensive player may have the responsibility of trying to get through one of these gaps to sack the quarterback or to plug one of the gaps and make sure the offensive line cannot move him to create a hole for their running back. A defender shows gap discipline when he sticks to his assignment despite seeing something that could tempt him to leave and chase another opportunity. Offenses love to trick defenders away from their assignments with clever fakes and then punish them for their lapses.

Getting stripped

Although football players do sometimes have wardrobe malfunctions during the game, getting stripped refers to a player who loses the ball, not his pants. Holding on to the football is the primary responsibility of every player who handles the ball because losing it can be an enormous mistake. A ball that is lost or fumbled is up for grabs and if the defense grabs the ball, their team gets to switch to offense on the next play.

Ball skills

In the last two weeks, because of Deflategate, we’ve heard enough sophomoric ball puns for a lifetime. Ball skills is a common football phrase that refers to the abilities of a wide receiver or defensive player to catch the football, even while moving at full speed through a chaotic environment. Many football players have remarkable ball skills. The greatest example of ball skills during this past season was this stunning catch from New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Quarterbacks also demonstrate their ball skills by convincingly executing fake hand offs or fake throws.

Double teamed

Double teaming in football is when two players are assigned to either attack or defend a single member of the opposing team. This could be two defenders covering a single wide receiver to prevent him from catching the ball or two offensive linemen blocking a single defensive lineman from getting to the quarterback. In any scenario, spending two of your players to deal with one player on the opposing team is risky business. It means that somewhere else on the field, your team is likely to be outnumbered. Some players like defensive lineman J.J. Watt or wide receiver Calvin Johnson are so dangerous that they get double teamed on almost every play. Not only are they frequently still able to make plays, but by forcing the other team to double team them, they make it easier for their teammates to succeed.

 

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Test your knowledge of the characters in Super Bowl XLIX

Happy Friday sports fans and sports agnostics alike! If you’ve been following along this week with our series of posts about the most compelling characters from the two Super Bowl teams, the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, then you should have no problem solving this crossword puzzle. Do it in ink! If you get stumped or would just like to review the characters in detail our posts are still available.

Learn about the New England Patriots

Learn about the Seattle Seahawks

Puzzle away

A couple notes about the puzzle. You know you’ve gotten an answer right when the words (confusingly) are highlighted in a light red. If your answer remains black text on a white background, it’s wrong. To get the answers, click on the little key icon on the top left.

Radiolab takes on football's history and future

One of the enjoyable things about the week leading up to the Super Bowl, aside from witnessing mainstream discussion of the ideal gas law and Wyatt Earp Effect, is that all sorts of wonderful writers and thinkers turn their focus on football. The two brains behind the NPR show Radiolab are Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. For years, I’ve been listening to their highly entertaining and educational shows about how the world works and why it’s interesting from colors to fetal development to epidemics to ants to certainty. Their love of learning and boundless curiosity make almost every show they do worth listening to.

The latest Radiolab episode, released just this week, is a sociological look at the history and future of football. The episode explores football’s internal contradictions between innovation and tradition, liberalism and conservatism, and violence and artistry. The episode is split into two parts. In the first half hour, they are led down an intriguing path to the very beginning of football in this country by author Sally Jenkins. She shares stories from her latest book, The Real All Americans, about how the Carlisle Indian Industrial School found football to be integral to their mission of forceful assimilation for young American Indians. Jenkins contends that Carlisle’s football team created modern football by innovating over and over again while the mainstream football powers of the day, the Ivy League schools, legislated against Carlisle’s innovation.

The second half of the show covers a topic close to my heart: football’s future. Featuring a lengthy interview with one of my favorite authors, Chuck Klosterman, this half of the show takes a look at how the future of football is currently threatened by its inability to be played without a high risk of serious brain injury. I’ve been writing about this all week in a series of posts that describe the impact of brain injuries in football, explore how and when brain injuries occur in football, explain why football needs to evolve to prevent brain injuries, and why it’s so difficult to fix with rule changes. Tomorrow I’ll be explaining the one simple change I think football could make to reduce brain injuries without changing its essential nature.

Until then, spend some time listening to Radiolab!

Why is it hard to make football safer by changing its rules?

This week, we’ve published three posts about the impact of brain injuries on football. Each post has been setting the stage for tomorrow’s post on how to fix football. The first post set the stage by establishing that brain injuries suffered by football players are severe and can be life-threatening. The second explored how, why, and when brain injuries occur during a football game. What are the factors that contribute to their frequency? In the third post we answered the seemingly rhetorical but important question of why the leaders of football and the National Football League, specifically need to take this issue seriously; that brain injuries threaten the very existence of football as we know it. Today, we’ll take a look at the history of rule changes in football and some of the factors that make finding a rule-based way of preventing brain injuries so difficult.

There are a million ways to change football to reduce or eliminate head injuries. It’s easy! In fact, there are some versions of football that we’ve been playing for years that have very few brain injuries. Why not convert the NFL to a touch football or flag football league? Or we could think outside the box and allow tackling but play on a field made of rubber, filled with water four feet deep. Technology could provide another way forward. Each player could be fitted with sensors and a virtual reality headset and then left in individual padded rooms, each 120 yards by 53 yards big. They could safely play a virtual game of football that was as athletically challenging without any risk of injury.

Of course, I’m not serious about any of these suggestions (although, I would pay a lot of money to see the football-in-a-pool game played). Each would, in its own way, be unacceptable. Brain injuries in football are a problem in part because people love football so much. If a less prized activity was damaging its participants, it would be much easier to change it or write it off completely. Our goal is to find a way to reduce or eliminate football’s brain injuries without stealing football’s essence.

In this mission we should be heartened by one element of football’s history: it’s constantly changing rules. For more than a hundred years, football organizations have changed the rules of football, sometimes quite significantly, to improve the safety of its players. Some of these rule changes are obvious in their intent, like the move in the mid-60s to shift the goalpost from on the goal line to behind the end zone. This was a protective measure to keep players from running full speed into concrete or metal goal posts. Likewise, rules like the 1962 prohibition against grabbing another player’s face mask and the 1980 rule against (I kid you not) clubbing an opponent’s head or neck with your fist, were obvious safety measures.

The problem that we face today is that many of the safety measures introduced since 1906 sought to make football safer by reducing the time players spent literally engaged with each other. The theory seems to have been that players running in space were safer than players grappling and wrestling with each other. As we know from our coverage of how brain injuries happen in football, as sound as this logic sounds, it runs almost totally counter to the truth when it comes to brain injuries. The more space there is for players to run, the faster they go, and the faster they go, the worse the collisions with other players are for their brains. Let’s take a quick trip through the history of football rule changes. Note how each safety measure encourages less close grappling and more running freely around the field.

In 1906 a rules committee was brought together to save football. In the past five years, 45 people had died playing football, 18 in 1905 alone. Political pressure, coming from as far up as President Theodore Roosevelt, was sending a strong message: “Make the game safer or face it being outlawed.” The two biggest changes the committee made were to legalize the forward pass and change the distance required for a first down from five yards to 10 yards. These may not seem like safety measures but before then, without the forward pass and needing only to get five yards to earn a first down, football resembled nothing more than hand-to-hand combat. The play was packed into a small space where kicking, punching, tearing, and gouging could leave players with broken ribs, necks, or skulls. Spreading the game out was meant to prevent these types of injuries.

This idea has continued into modern football. In 1974, a rule was created to limit defenders to touching a wide receiver only once when more than three yards from the line of scrimmage. In 1978, this was extended to five yards. Also that year, offensive linemen were allowed to block with their arms extended instead of having to be body-to-body with the defender they were trying to block. In 1979 the NFL got more particular about how players could block each other, eliminating blocking below the waist on kicking plays. In 1987 offensive linemen were protected from having one player dive at their knees while another engaged them higher up. In 1989 defensive players with a clear path to the quarterback were prohibited from hitting them in the knees. In 1992 defenders got a little protection when offensive blocking below the thigh was made illegal. In 1995 the chop block and lure blocking techniques were prohibited. In 1999 blocking from behind was prohibited. It wasn’t quite a rule change, but in 2004 refs were instructed to begin actually enforcing illegal contact, pass interference, and defensive holding rules. In 2007 the penalty for blocking a wide receiver below the waist was expanded from 5 to 15 yards.

Over more than 100 years, the way that football players engage each other has moved from fighting to grappling to tackling to hitting and now to colliding. Every rule that has limited the times and places that players can make contact with each other has contributed to giving players more time and space. For an athlete, time and space equal speed. Speed makes for an exciting game but it also makes for more explosive collisions when players do meet up.

Even as we acknowledge that historic rule changes, even those put in place for player safety, have made the game more dangerous, it’s hard to imagine undoing them. Sure, it’s better to break an ankle than bruise a brain, but would we really make the dangerous practice of blocking below the thigh legal again? In an era that is so concerned about player safety, changing the rules of football to legalize more brutal but less damaging forms of violence does not seem like a good way forward.

The problem is that continuing to add prohibitive rules to football might not work either. There are two problems with continuing along the path of outlawing more and more different forms of hitting. First, given the freedom and athleticism of offensive players, defenders are reaching a limit. They simply don’t have time to get their bodies into a position to hit someone the right way all the time. The defender is moving at high speed, the running back or wide receiver is moving equally fast. Penalties, fines, and suspensions won’t prevent all the dangerous hits in the game, much less the subconcussive injuries caused by the offensive and defensive lines clashing, or the fluke injuries that result from the game’s chaos. These types of prohibitive safety rules are also unpopular among football players and fans. Central to the popularity of football is a culture of toughness. There’s no sport that is more reliant on its players to sublimate their bodies, thoughts, and desires to the team. No football play works thanks to one player, each play is the product of eleven players moving in lockstep. Even the greatest football player in the most important position is relatively unimportant compared to a great player in another sport. Wide receivers cannot catch passes thrown poorly and quarterbacks cannot throw if they don’t get good blocking. The violence of football is important to its culture because it reinforces the core truth football teaches, that no single person is as important as a team.

If we cannot undo the decades of well-intentioned, safety-first rules that have counterintuitively made football into an even more dangerous sport for its players’ long-term health and we cannot protect them by continuing to prohibit even more forms of violence, then what can we do to save football? Tomorrow I’ll suggest a single, small change that would unilaterally make football safer without changing the essential nature of the game. We can save football.

Ten things to watch if you're going to watch Super Bowl XLIX

One third of the people in the United States will sit down on Sunday and watch the Super Bowl. Sure, there’s lots to enjoy beyond the game. The commercials are sometimes fun, the food should be great, and the half-time show has mostly recovered from its post-Timberlake/Jackson malaise. Still, if you want to have a really great time on Sunday, it’s a good idea to prepare yourself to enjoy the football game itself. I invited my friend Brendan to record a podcast with me about ten things to watch for if you’re going to watch the Super Bowl.

This podcast should be informative for football fans and casual viewers alike. I hope you enjoy it! You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Joint Health

Seahawks defensive backs Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas were both injured in the last Seahawks game. Sherman hyperextended his elbow and Thomas separated his shoulder. Both players stayed in the game despite being in fairly obvious and serious pain. Both also say that their injuries have healed completely and will not be an issue in this game but are they telling the truth?

Vince Wilfork

Vince Wilfork’s job as the Patriots defensive tackle is to use his enormous body and unlikely athleticism to push offensive linemen back towards the quarterback and to plug gaps in the defense so running backs have no where to go. Watch for #75 when the Patriots are on defense. If he moves forwards, the Patriots are in good shape. If the Seahawks can push him backwards, they are in control.

Bill Belichick’s brain vs. Russell Wilson’s brain

Bill Belichick has made his name as a coach largely on his ability to confound quarterbacks by confronting them with exotic defensive formations and tactics that they don’t know how to deal with. Russell Wilson is highly accomplished but he’s still early on in his career. Can Belicheck fool him or will Wilson be able to decipher whatever the Patriots throw at him?

Marshawn Lynch

There’s no more divisive or important figure in this game than Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch. He’s been constantly in the news lately for his strange behavior. He’s refused to say anything more than a single phrase to the media during recent press conferences and has been grabbing his crotch after scoring touchdowns. The NFL has fined him for both issues but is he being defiant or disturbed? What’s really going on with him? And what if he scores a touchdown in this game?

Which running back will we see from the Patriots?

More than other teams, the Patriots create a game plan specifically designed each week to attack the opposing team’s weaknesses. One way to tell whether they think they can overpower the other team or whether they think they need to outsmart them is which running back they choose to feature. If LeGarrette Blount is out there, that means they think they can bully and bludgeon the Seahawks to a victory. If Shane Vereen is featured, it means they’ll need to trick their way to a win.

Who is covering Rob Gronkowski?

Rob Gronkowski is the only truly remarkable athlete the Patriots have on offense. He’s big, fast, strong, good at catching the ball, and neigh unstoppable once he starts running towards the end-zone. The Seahawks don’t like to modify what they normally do on defense to accommodate an opponent but can they afford not to do plan something special for stopping the Gonk?

Freak on freak

Seattle’s quarterback, Russell Wilson, and running back Marshawn Lynch are both freakishly athletic. Can Patriots linebacker Jamie Collins have a break out performance and neutralize either or both of the Seahawks best athletes?

Who is spying Russell Wilson?

One way to neutralize a quarterback who is capable of running the ball in addition to throwing it is to assign a defender to “spy” him by mimicking his side-to-side movements and tackling him if he tries to run forward. Will the Patriots use this tactic? If so, who will they assign to do it?

Who else?

We’ve talked a lot about some of the biggest stars in this game but the Super Bowl often is decided by a big game from an unexpected source. If it’s not Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch, or Rob Gronkowski, who will it be? Could Seattle get a big game from tight end Luke Willson or backup running back Robert Turbin? Might Brandon LaFell or Julian Edelman take the Patriots to the promised land?

The Arrogance Bowl

Both head coaches, Bill Belichick for New England and Pete Carroll for Seattle, are brilliant coaches for whom almost everything has gone right during this year’s playoffs. They both like to try to outsmart and out-coach the other team. If either are going to end up being tragic heroes, it’s pretty clear that their tragic flaw will be arrogance. Will one try something a little too smart for their own good in this game and will it backfire on them?

Super Bowl XLIX: Meet the Seattle Seahawks defense

In the week leading up to Super Bowl XLIX, we’re profiling the important characters of the game. We’ve already run posts on Seattle’s coach, Pete Carroll, quarterback, Russell Wilson, and the rest of the Seattle Seahawks offense. Now it’s time to learn a little about the Seattle Seahawks defense.

Michael Bennett, Defensive End

I’m a pretty big football fan and I write about sports close to full time but I didn’t know much about Michael Bennett before this year’s playoffs. Now, he’s one of my favorite characters in the league. Bennett was initially signed out of college as a free agent by the Seattle Seahawks in 2009. He was released before ever playing a game and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed him. He played there for four years and improved every year. During the offseason before last season, the Seahawks signed him to a one year contract and, after they won the Super Bowl, re-signed him for another four years. He grew up in Texas and has a brother who also plays in the NFL, Martellus Bennett. Martellus has been a well-known jokester for a while now, having given himself the nickname, “The Black Unicorn” in 2013. Michael Bennett has been letting his humorous side show this year too. After the Seahawks win over the Green Bay Packers, Bennett commandeered a police bicycle and rode around the field:

During media day this Tuesday, Bennett had a series of great lines, including comments about his wife’s booty and great beards of history as well as doing imitations of some of his more famous teammates.

Bobby Wagner, Linebacker

The Seahawks defense is full of brash characters who talk as brashly as they play. Wagner is the exception. He’s an undersized, soft-spoken middle linebacker who helps the rest of the defense when they gamble to make a spectacular play by using his speed to cover for them. He’s the defensive signal caller which means his helmet has a green dot on the back, the symbol for a helmet with a radio receiver in it. Wagner gets the defensive play calls from a coach and then relays them to his teammates. Wagner will have his hands full trying to counter Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s offensive creativity. Since Wagner came back from an early season injury, the Seahawks have not lost a game.

Richard Sherman, Cornerback

Richard Sherman is now more famous for being controversial than he is actually controversial. It all started a year ago when the Seahawks beat the San Francisco 49ers and Sherman was interviewed on the field after the game by reporter Erin Andrews. Sherman said that he was the best player at his position (an audacious claim, but he is certainly in the top handful of players and, like a surgeon, don’t you want him to think he’s the best?) and then, in answering a question about the last play of the game, when he cliched the win for the Seahawks with an interception, he said that was the result the other team should expect when they tried to throw the ball to a “sorry receiver” like the one he was covering. Nothing there seems all that controversial but it set off weeks of commentary on Sherman and who or what he represents. What he represents in this game, is an extraordinary defender who will probably be able to prevent whichever wide receiver he’s covering from catching the ball. If Tom Brady is brave enough to challenge him by throwing in Sherman’s direction, watch for Sherman to make a play on the ball and try to catch it himself.

Kam Chancellor, Safety

Let’s let our last character, Richard Sherman describe his teammate Kam Chancellor and his role in the Seahawks defense. This comes from Robert Mays‘ Grantland profile of Chancellor: “He just brings that menacing force,” Sherman says. “We’re a bunch of wild dogs, and a pack of wild dogs is pretty dangerous. But a lion running with a pack of wild dogs … that’s something.” Chancellor’s athletic play has inspired a bunch of nicknames. He’s known as Bam Bam Kam, Kamtrak, and The Commissioner. Chancellor was the guy who kept leaping over the offensive line to try to block a field goal a few weeks ago. In this game, if the Seahawks choose to change their defensive strategy to focus on Patriots Tight End, Rob Gronkowski, Chancellor would likely be the one to get the assignment of taking him out of the game.

Earl Thomas, Safety

Earl Thomas rounds out the Seahawks group of wildly successful defensive misfits. At 5’10”, he’s way too short to be as good at his position as he is. But he is. He was drafted in the first round of the 2010 NFL draft by Seattle and has yet to miss a single game. As opposed to his safety partner, Kam Chancellor, Thomas is more likely to go after interceptions than knock-out hits. Off-the-field, Thomas is a conundrum. Seattle Times columnist, Larry Stone described Thomas as the most “paradoxical” of the Seahawks and commented that “after an interview, you don’t want to shake his hand so much as engage in a group hug.” Thomas separated his shoulder in the Seahawks last game but tweeted recently that his shoulder is completely recovered. In what could not have been a coincidence, the NFL blood tested him soon after the tweet.

Prepare for the Super Bowl with Dear Sports Fan. We will be running special features all week to help everyone from the die-hard football fan to the most casual observer enjoy the game. So far we’ve profiled Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, the Seattle Seahawks secondary offensive characters, and the New England Patriots defense. If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter or either of our Football 101 or 201 courses, do it today!

Super Bowl XLIX: Meet the New England Patriots defense

In the week leading up to Super Bowl XLIX, we’re profiling the important characters of the game. We’ve already run posts on New England’s coach, Bill Belichick, quarterback, Tom Brady, and the rest of the New England Patriots offense. Now it’s time to learn a little about the New England Patriots defense.

Vince Wilfork, Defensive Tackle

Vince Wilfork is the giant heart of the New England defense. He plays nose tackle, which means he uses his enormous weight (listed at 325 lbs but looks more like 365 lbs) and athletic ability (he claims he can still dunk a basketball) to fight against double-teams from opposing offensive linemen to get to the quarterback or running back. He’s an elder statesman of the Patriots, at the age of 33 and having been a part of the team since he was drafted in 2004. As much as you can tell from watching someone on television who is usually wearing a helmet, Wilfork seems like a really awesome guy. He’s often smiling and joking on the sidelines. He apparently had a practice of finding the Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, and his wife Myra, before games and kissing them each on the cheek. After Myra died of cancer in 2011, Wilfork took to kissing Robert Kraft on both cheeks to keep up the tradition. In the Super Bowl, Wilfork will be an important part of the Patriots defense against the Seahawks strength on offense — running the ball. Find the enormous man wearing #75 for the Patriots and watch him. If he’s driven backwards, it’s bad news for the Patriots and good news for the Seahawks.

Chandler Jones, Defensive End

One of the ways the Patriots have managed to continuously stock their team with great players despite almost never picking at the top of the draft is that they look for hidden gems. Chandler Jones was a gem, partially hidden in the 2012 NFL draft because of a hip injury that caused him to miss half of his last college season at Syracuse. No matter, the Patriots swooped him up with the 21st pick of the draft. 6’5″ and 265 lbs, Jones is an incredible athlete from an athletic family. Of his two brothers, one is also in the NFL and the other is a champion mixed martial artist. Jones is at his best when he is aggressively attacking the quarterback. The Seahawks might try to use that against him by either running the ball right at him or by running read-option plays towards his side. During a read-option play, the quarterback can punish an over-aggressive defensive end by suckering him into trying to tackle him and then handing the ball to a running back who runs around the defensive end. Jones will have to balance his aggressive play with needing to make sure no one with the ball gets around him by mistake.

Jamie Collins, Linebacker

In addition to looking for hidden gems, the Patriots favor versatility over almost everything. Jamie Collins is one of the most versatile defensive players in the NFL. He played at all three levels of defense (defensive line, linebacker, and defensive back) in college for the Southern Miss Golden Eagles. On the Patriots, he mostly plays linebacker, the position behind the big guys up front on the line of scrimmage but in front of the small guys in the defensive backfield. From this position he can use the full range of his wide skill set. On some plays he’s sent to attack the quarterback, on others he will cover a tight end or wide receiver. He’s one of the main candidates for players to “spy” Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson. This means he would be assigned the task of following Wilson around as he moves from side to side to make sure that if Wilson decides to run with the ball instead of throw it, he doesn’t get very far.

Brandon Browner, Cornerback

Brandon Browner is an interesting figure in this particular Super Bowl matchup. He was a member of Seattle’s so-called Legion of Boom defensive backfield for the previous three years before being signed this past Summer by the Patriots. In some ways, he still fits more with that group than with the tight-lipped Patriots. Browner is extremely tall for a cornerback, at 6’4″ and physical, sometimes to the point of taking unnecessary penalties. He has had a history of performance enhancing drug and substance abuse suspensions and actually missed playing in last year’s Super Bowl because of a suspension. He made a little bit of news this past week when he told the media that the Patriots should and would be targeting the injured joints of two of his ex-Seattle teammates.

Darrelle Revis, Cornerback

Darrelle Revis is one of the premier cornerbacks in the league. You may have heard the phrase, “Revis Island” and if you haven’t, you probably will this Sunday. That phrase, which Revis has apparently trademarked, expresses both the plight of the wide receiver that Revis is covering and his value to the Patriots. Revis is usually asked to cover the best wide receiver on the opposing team and unlike most other corners, he rarely has the safety net of another defensive player helping him with the assignment. Being assigned to cover someone one on one is a like being out on an island by yourself — you’re exposed, with no one to help you if you get into trouble. Revis is so good at it though, that the effect is often to make the wide receiver feel like he is on an island with no connection to the rest of his team and no way off. Quarterbacks often choose to ignore the receiver Revis is covering rather than challenge him by trying to throw to that receiver.

Prepare for the Super Bowl with Dear Sports Fan. We will be running special features all week to help everyone from the die-hard football fan to the most casual observer enjoy the game. So far we’ve profiled Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, the New England Patriots secondary offensive characters, and the Seattle Seahawks secondary offensive characters. If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter or either of our Football 101 or 201 courses, do it today!

Why should football care about brain injuries?

In our first two posts on brain injuries and football we covered the consequences of brain injuries and how and when they happen during a football game. Today, we’ll answer the question of why people who care about, participate in, or own and run football teams should care about brain injuries. We’ll focus on the National Football League (NFL) in particular. The question may seem almost rhetorical to anyone who has a heart and has seen first (or even second) hand the terrible effect of brain injuries on a person but it’s not. Think about it this way. The cigarette and alcohol industries are still going strong and those products are usually harmful and sometimes fatal to their consumers. Football is only usually harmful and sometimes fatal to its workforce!

The first reason for why football should care about the damage it does to its workforce is the most obvious one: it’s unethical to employ people to do something as dangerous and unnecessary as football. Football is an entertainment product. If Hollywood actors were disproportionately suffering from early onset dementia and dying premature deaths, you can bet that Paramount pictures executives would be stumbling over themselves trying to solve the problem. Football is no different. That said, it’s probably unrealistic to expect that real change could come from this reason alone. There are too many convenient and legitimate rationalizations available to football decision makers: the science is unclear, players know what they’re getting into, life-changing salaries are a good enough reward to offset the risk, etc. We need more persuasive reasons.

If hitting football in the heart isn’t enough to create change, how about the wallet? This process has already begun. In the fall of 2013, the NFL settled in a class action lawsuit with 25,000 retired players and 9,000 relatives of deceased players. As part of the settlement, the NFL agreed to spend $765 million dollars on health care and compensation for retired players with any signs of dementia. That’s a lot of money and it may not be over. Just this week, Sports Illustrated ran a story about a group of around 220 retired players and their families who have opted out of the settlement. Why would they do that? According to Michael McCann, who wrote the story, the potential benefit is that “the NFL might offer improved settlement terms as a way of inducing the players to drop their new lawsuits. Or, should these lawsuits go to trial and juries hold the NFL liable, the potential damages assessed by jurors could be massive and far eclipse settlement payments.” The NFL is a powerful organization with an immense ability to represent themselves in all aspects of legal and political conflict but as long as these concussion lawsuits continue, they are vulnerable. Brain injuries are expensive.

Facing a threat from one end of the football spectrum, retired players, the NFL cannot lose sight of an equal threat from the other end: youth players. Unlike professional soccer teams in Europe, the NFL does not get most of its players through team-run youth academies. Instead, they rely on the many youth football leagues, like Pop Warner and American Youth, to get young football players started on the path to the NFL. Later, academic institutions take over as kids go through high school football and then through the virtually semi-professional ranks of major college football. This all costs a lot of money and the NFL doesn’t have to spend any of it. Using ESPN’s remarkable collection of expenses from major college football programs in 2008, we know that the top 119 college football teams cost a total of 5.4 billion dollars. Of course, they make almost that much in revenue today but the NFL could not expect that side of things to stay the same if they ran college football as a minor league developmental program. Youth football programs find great football players, train great football players, and they make celebrities out of them and the NFL benefits from all of this without paying the players or the organizations a single cent. Brain injuries are a real threat to all of this free player development that the NFL relies on.

In the past few years, lots of very public figures, influenced by the news about brain injuries, have stated that they would not let their sons play football: President Obama in 2014, sports writer Michael Wilbon in 2010, hall of fame NFL player and coach (and SNL subject) Mike Ditka in 2015. Even some NFL players have gone on record saying they wouldn’t let their kids play football. This has begun to have an effect. Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada reported for ESPN that “The nation’s largest youth football program, Pop Warner, saw participation drop 9.5 percent between 2010-12, a sign that the concussion crisis that began in the NFL is having a dramatic impact at the lowest rungs of the sport.” When the well starts to run dry, you bet the barons are going to worry about what’s stealing their oil.

The last reason why the NFL should care about brain injuries is purely speculative and far more anticipated than observed. Eventually, people will tire of watching the NFL if nothing is done to fix its brain injury issues. So far, television ratings do not support this thesis one bit but it’s hard to imagine that the popularity of football could continue forever without being damaged in some way by the growing popular understanding of the damage the game does to its players. The court of public opinion sometimes has a long appeal process but eventually the jury’s ruling will sink in if nothing can be done to fix football’s brain injury problem.

Tomorrow we’ll continue our series of posts on how to fix football with a discussion of the NFL’s history of rule changes and which elements of the game are most or least open to future changes. If you want to read more on today’s subject, I recommend Kevin Greir and Tyler Cowen’s essay in Grantland called “What would the end of football look like?”

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Super Bowl XLIX: Meet the rest of New England's offense

In the week leading up to Super Bowl XLIX, we’re profiling the important characters of the game. We’ve already run posts on New England’s coach, Bill Belichick and quarterback, Tom Brady. Now it’s time to learn a little about the rest of the New England Patriots offense.

LeGarrette Blount, Running Back

The Patriots are a little different from every other football team in the league. As a result, there are some players who just seem to play well for them but poorly for everyone else. LeGarrette Blount is one of those players. He’s had a long and checkered past with other teams, from college to professional, but he’s only ever truly thrived in New England. He’s a big, powerful runner who seems to get better as the game goes on, especially if he’s utilized by coach Bill Belichick as a hammer, punishing opposing defenders. If the Patriots start out giving him the ball 25-35% of the time, it’s a good sign that they think they can with the Super Bowl by beating up Seattle’s defense.

Shane Vereen, Running Back

If LeGarrette Blount is the Patriots hammer, Shane Vereen is their Swiss army knife. He catches the ball a lot for a running back and he is at least as good a receiver as a runner. This season, he ran the ball 96 times for 391 yards and caught the ball 52 times for 447 yards. The opponents know what he’s good at too, so when he’s on the field, they know to look out for a pass. For that reason, he’s another good canary in the coal mine to watch. If he’s on the field for more than 50% of the snaps that have a running back on the field, it’s a good sign the Patriots are going to try to win by passing the ball a lot.

Julian Edelman, Wide Receiver

No one on the Patriots epitomizes coach Bill Belichick’s love for versatile players more than Julian Edelman. Edelman played quarterback in college at the College of San Mateo and Kent State. The Patriots drafted him to play primarily as a wide receiver but in his six seasons with the team, he’s also returned kicks and punts, played sporadically as a defensive back, and has been used as a runner and even a couple of times to throw passes. He’s slightly under-sized for a wide receiver at six foot and 200 lbs (and it’s always good to be suspicious that round numbers like those are inflated) but he’s quick and tough and has more than proven himself as an NFL contributor.

Brandon LaFell, Wide Receiver

Brandon LaFell played for his first four years in the NFL on the Carolina Panthers. He improved every year, which is probably what the Patriots were counting on when they signed him during the last offseason. He’s has the most prototypical stature of all the Patriots pass catchers, he’s tall, lanky, and fast. He’s not quite enough of an athletic freak to be considered a true threat to catch deep passes but that is the role he plays on the Patriots. Two facts about him that might be of interest: apparently his nickname is “Jo Jo” and Tom Brady called him the “toughest guy” he’s ever played with.

Rob Gronkowski, Tight End

Ah, Rob Gronkowski. What can I write to describe him? In a league full of bros, he is the bro-iest. In a league full of dudes, he is the most dude-like. He’s a 6’6″, 265 lbs, 25 year-old millionaire who likes to party (almost? maybe more?) as much as he loves to play football. When he’s healthy, which he hasn’t been for the past three years but is now, he’s the most unstoppable force on a football field you’re likely to see. He can catch, he can block, he can run, and when he scores, he spikes the ball with more raw enthusiasm than anyone else. He’s often photographed dancing with his shirt off, in various states of undress with porn stars, or with clumps of college students surrounding him. During this year’s Super Bowl media day Gronkowski sang Katy Perry songs and read an excerpt from a pornographic novel written about him!

Nate Solder, Left Tackle

Nate Solder scored his first touchdown in the NFL during the Patriots last game. It was his first NFL touchdown. He’s an offensive lineman and they don’t often score touchdowns. So, clearly, he and his teammates were excited. This is how excited they were:

Prepare for the Super Bowl with Dear Sports Fan. We will be running special features all week to help everyone from the die-hard football fan to the most casual observer enjoy the game. So far we’ve profiled Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, and the Seattle Seahawks secondary offensive characters. If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter or either of our Football 101 or 201 courses, do it today!

Super Bowl XLIX: Meet the rest of Seattle's offense

In the week leading up to Super Bowl XLIX, we’re profiling the important characters of the game. We’ve already run posts on Seattle’s coach, Pete Carroll and quarterback, Russell Wilson. Now it’s time to learn a little about the rest of the Seattle offense.

Marshawn Lynch, Running Back

Marshawn Lynch is a powerful running back whose specialty is bouncing off tacklers or hitting them before they hit him. His nickname is Beastmode. He has a penchant for skittles, not talking to the media, and grabbing his own crotch when he scores. Some view his behavior as fun antics, others as serious infringements, still others are concerned about his mental health.

Doug Baldwin, Wide Receiver

Doug Baldwin is the leader of Seattle’s mostly unknown receiving core. He played college football at Stanford, overlapping with Seahawks defensive back Richard Sherman. Baldwin was an unheralded player, and was not even drafted after his college years. Seattle signed him as a free agent in 2011 and Baldwin went on to lead the team in receptions and receiving yardage that year. Perhaps because of his undrafted status, Baldwin loves to play the “No one believes in us” card. Just last week, after the Seahawks amazing comeback win over Green Bay, Baldwin went off on a rant against reporters who “didn’t believe in” the Seahawks. It’s amazing that a member of a defending Super Bowl champion team can twist himself into believing this motivational thought, but Baldwin does. During the Super Bowl, he expects to be covered by Patriots cornerback Darrelle Revis, who is known for shutting receivers out entirely.

Jermaine Kearse, Wide Receiver

Jermaine Kearse is a Washington man, through and through. He grew up in Lakewood Washington, played college football at the University of Washington, and was signed, like his teammate Doug Baldwin, as an undrafted free agent by the Seattle Seahawks, where he’s played his whole career. Kearse had perhaps the weirdest game ever for a wide receiver in the Seahawks win over the Packers. Four of the first five passes that were sent his way ended up as interceptions for the Packers. Two bounced off his hands before being caught by the other team. That’s a devastating day for anyone in any football game, much less a professional in the NFC Championship game. In overtime, Kearse got one more chance when quarterback Russell Wilson threw his way on a long pass down the middle. Kearse converted it into a 35 yard, game-winning touchdown. He’d surely like to be the hero again but I’m guessing he’d be happy with just a more consistent performance in the Super Bowl.

Luke Willson, Tight End

Other than sharing (almost) a last name with quarterback Russell Wilson, Luke Willson is a relatively unknown quantity. He took over as the starting tight end early this year when Zach Miller got knocked out for the season with an ankle injury. Willson is not a remarkable player but he’s certainly proved himself this year. In week 16 against Arizona, he had 139 yards and two touchdowns. That’s pretty good! He played an important role in the Seahawks win over the Packers when he caught the miraculous two-point conversion that put Seattle up by three points. Also, he’s Canadian.

Russell Okung, Left Tackle

With all the unheralded players on the Seattle offense that we’ve profiled so far, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Seahawks don’t have any top draft picks on offense. Not true! As is often the case these days in the NFL, their Left Tackle was drafted very, very high. Russell Okung, 6’5, 310 lbs, was drafted number six overall by Seattle in the 2010 NFL draft. A star in college, at Oklahoma State University, Okung has struggled with injuries in the NFL. He’s missed 21 games over his first five seasons but when he is healthy, he’s one of the best players at his position. He’s healthy now, and although the Patriots have some good pass rushers to go against Okung, I expect him to win most of those battles.

Prepare for the Super Bowl with Dear Sports Fan. We will be running special features all week to help everyone from the die-hard football fan to the most casual observer enjoy the game. So far we’ve profiled Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, and Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter or either of our Football 101 or 201 courses, do it today!