Category: Football

Pitch that game: NFL Week 3, 2015

Hello everyone and welcome to America’s favorite game show that… has never actually happened before and no one has heard of it… it’s Pitch That Game!

Here’s how it works. As your host, I have one minute to pitch a sporting event to someone who is not a sports fan. If, after my pitch, they’re interested in watching, I get a point! That’s it! Why would we play such a game? Well, it’s a good way to quickly learn about a set of games to see if you’re interested in following any of them. It’s also a great way for me to learn from you about what may or may not make a sport interesting to a layperson.

Our guest for this episode is Corinne Boet-Whitaker, a farmer and instrument and furniture maker. I pitched the five NFL football games available to people in the Boston area during the second weekend of the NFL season on Sunday September 20 and Monday September 21. For my thoughts on the other games, read on below the audio player.

Enjoy the show!

Sunday, September 27, 2015 1 p.m. ET

San Diego Chargers at Minnesota Vikings

Even though the two quarterbacks in this game, Phillip Rivers for the Chargers and Teddy Bridgewater for the Vikings, are on opposite sides of their careers, they’ve played quite similarly so far this year. Each has thrown the majority of their passes quite close to the line of scrimmage. Shorter passes are safer passes. The interpretation for Bridgewater, who is near the start of his career, has been that his coaches are sheltering him from the risks that he’ll learn to take as he grows into the job. Rivers, on the other hand, has spent most of his career slinging the ball all over the place, so this newfound conservatism is puzzling. It doesn’t seem like he’s lost any arm-strength, so maybe it’s simply a tactic that he or the coaches decided would work. I’ll be watching to see which quarterback, if any, gets more aggressive in this game.

Oakland Raiders at Cleveland Browns

Fans of the Raiders and the Browns have been watching their team’s anxiously for the past decade, looking for any signs that they might soon climb out of the NFL’s cellar, where they’ve been stuck for so long. The Raiders are coming off a big win last week over the Baltimore Ravens. The Browns are coming off an equally convincing victory over the Tennessee Titans. One of these teams will take a second step up the basement stairs this weekend. The other will hit their head on the ceiling and fall back down.

Cincinnati Bengals at Baltimore Ravens

The Ravens are one of several playoff teams from last year that have started this season with two losses. Of those teams, the Ravens are the one that have engendered the least worry among fans and prognosticators. This is because they started with two road games and they have such a stable recent history of winning that it seems inevitable for them to turn things around. All that may be true, but a loss in this game to Cincinnati would really get those alarm bells ringing in Baltimore. A Bengals win is not so far-fetched. The Bengals have played like an elite team so far this year. They have a solid defense, two excellent running backs, and a couple of great pass-catchers in wide receiver A. J. Green and tight end Tyler Eifert. Even their long-mocked quarterback, Andy Dalton, has played like an all-star this season. The Ravens will have to play their best to beat the Bengals.

New Orleans Saints at Carolina Panthers

A loss to the Panthers this weekend could signal the end of an era for the New Orleans Saints. The long-time partnership between coach Sean Payton and quarterback Drew Brees seems like it’s on its last legs. Brees has been battered and ineffective so far this season. He’s suffering from a seriously bruised rotator cuff and is questionable to even play in this game. Payton just doesn’t seem like the same kind of innovative coach that he did five years ago. A Saints loss would drop the team to 0-3 and severely damage their chances of salvaging this season. Carolina is always a tough place for the Saints to play — it’s outside and the Panthers have a brutally efficient defense — but it will be even tougher this weekend because Panthers fans and players would like nothing more than to be the camel that broke the football team’s back.

Atlanta Falcons at Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys and Falcons are both 2-0 heading into this game, but the Cowboys seem to have made some kind of deal with the devil for their victories. Each win has come with a long-term injury to one of their best offensive players. Wide receiver Dez Bryant broke his foot in the team’s first victory and quarterback Tony Romo broke his collarbone in the second. If I were a superstitious Cowboys player, I might think twice about trying to win this game. I mean, really, at what cost? All jokes aside, it will be very difficult for the Cowboys to keep winning without their two best offensive players. If any offense could do it, it might be Dallas’ though, since it’s built around one of the strongest offensive lines in football. Even a relatively bad backup quarterback like Brandon Weeden should be able to complete throws if his line can keep all the defenders away from him.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Houston Texans

Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie quarterback and probable rapist Jameis Winston said this week that he was looking forward to playing against Houston Texans fearsome defensive force of nature J. J. Watt. I am looking forward to watching Watt destroy Winston and make him look foolish.

Indianapolis Colts at Tennessee Titans

The Indianapolis Colts are another 0-2 team that was in the playoffs last year. They’ve been physically dominated in their first two games by the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets. It’s unclear whether Tennessee has the oomph and the athletes to do the same to them, but if they do, they have a clear blue print to follow. My guess is that the Colts win big in this game but there’s just enough suspense and certainly enough interest for me to want to watch and see how it turns out.

Pittsburgh Steelers at St. Louis Rams

This might be my favorite game this weekend. The Pittsburgh Steelers have looked like one of the best teams in the league this year, thanks to their balanced and dynamic offense. They’ve scored 71 points so far this season!! They’re one of the best teams in the league so far at running the ball and they might be even better passing. The only thing that can slow down their type of offense is exactly where the St. Louis Rams are best — an overwhelming defensive line. The Rams have a trio of defensive linemen, Robert Quinn, Chris Long, and Aaron Donald that basically all need to be double-teamed in order to keep them from tackling the opponent’s quarterback or running back. I am truly looking forward to seeing if the chaos caused by the Rams defense is enough to throw the Steelers off their game.

Philadelphia Eagles at New York Jets

If you judged teams by the number of words written about them during the offseason, the Eagles would be on their way to the Super Bowl and the Jets would be winless. In fact, it looks a little bit like the opposite is true. The Jets have surprised everyone and won their first two games in solid fashion. The Eagles have barely been able to get anything started on defense and have been profoundly vulnerable on offense. The vultures have already started circling around Philidelphia coach, Chip Kelly, and a loss this weekend could conceivably cost him his job.

Sunday, September 20, 2015 4:30 p.m. ET

Chicago Bears at Seattle Seahawks

Yikes. The winless, desperate, and generally pissed off Seattle Seahawks get to host the dysfunctional Chicago Bears. To make things worse for the Bears, their starting quarterback is out with an injured hamstring, so backup Jimmy Clausen will start the game against the Seahawks stellar defense. I guess the benefit of watching this game is that it will probably be decided conclusively in the first five minutes and then you can switch to another game? I will say, if the Bears can keep the game close, each minute that goes by will increase the pressure on the Seahawks tenfold.

How can I tell what NFL football is on TV in my area?

Dear Sports Fan,

How can I tell what NFL football is on TV in my area? Each week there are a whole bunch of games on but I’m never quite sure what I’m going to be able to get at home on my television.

Thanks,
Tracy

Dear Tracy,

The NFL schedule is a tricky beast each week. If you’re a big football fan, like I am, you need to know what’s going to be on television so you can decide whether to stay home and watch, or if the best games aren’t on locally, to go to a bar where they pay to get all the games. If you’re a moderate fan of the NFL, probably the healthiest choice anyway, you need to know what your options are so you can decide what game to watch and know what channel it’s going to be on. If you’re not a fan at all, the information can still be useful if you live with a fan. Luckily, there is an amazing resource for NFL football TV schedules. It’s called 506 Sports! I am a complete and utter fanboy of their coverage of NFL television and probably go to their site four or five times a week during football season. If you become a convert, you can follow the site on Twitter or the site’s creator, JP Kirby.

During my Pitch that Game podcast last week, I tried to use 506 Sports’ NFL guide with my guest and we ended up talking for a while about exactly what each chart and map meant and how to best use them to figure out exactly what NFL football is on TV in your area each week. Here is a step by step guide.

The quick explanation for how to tell what NFL football is on TV in your area using 506 Sports

Go to the 506 Sports NFL table. Click on the correct number week to get to a set of maps. Look at your part of the country in each map. You will usually have three options, two on CBS and one on Fox or visa versa. The early game is at 1 p.m. ET. The late game is at 4:05 or 4:30 p.m. ET. To tell what time the game in the map labeled CBS Single or Fox single is, go back to the table.

How to use the 506 Sports NFL table

The first thing you’ll see when you go to 506 Sports’ NFL page is a giant table.

 

506 Sports NFL Table

This table is divided into major horizontal rows that correspond to each week in the NFL season. The weeks are labeled primarily by their number, but there’s also a helpful date which helps you identify which week you want to focus on. The date is the Sunday of the week. To make things a little easier to follow, the table alternates light and medium gray at the week level. Find the current week. We’re in Week 3 right now, so that’s the one we’ll use for our example.

It’s unintuitive, but let’s start with the three columns on the far right of the table. Each one of these columns (with a few exceptions) will have one and only one game in it. That’s because each column corresponds to a day or time when the NFL usually only schedules a single game. The first of these three columns is for the Thursday night game, the middle for the Sunday night game, and the right most for the Monday night game. All of these games are televised nationally. ESPN owns Monday night, NBC, Sunday night, and Thursday is shared by several networks, so the network is included in the box. All of these games start around 8:30 p.m.

Now we’re ready (I hope) to tackle the two columns on the left. These columns are labeled with a network name, not a day of the week. Every game in both columns starts on Sunday afternoon, either at 1 p.m. ET or 4:05 or 4:30 p.m. ET. The 1 p.m. games are referred to as early games and the 4:05/4:30 games are called late games. The early and late time slots are shown as mini-rows within the weekly row. CBS and Fox divide these games between themselves in a complex, hotly negotiated way. Luckily, we don’t need to understand that. What we do need to know are a couple basic principles. The schedule is set up so that ideally, you should be able to see three games on Fox and CBS in your area each Sunday afternoon. The stations alternate weekends so that one weekend Fox will get to show games in both time slots while CBS shows games in only one and the next weekend will be the opposite. The second principle is that each team’s home games should be shown without competition in their area of the country. This second principle can sometimes override the first and limit the options from three to two.

Okay. Now we’re ready to see the maps and figure out exactly what is happening in your part of the country.

How to use the 506 Sports NFL maps

When you click on a week’s number on the 506 Sports NFL table, you get to a page with three maps. This is where the rubber hits the road. Each map corresponds to a channel and time slot. CBS or Fox, early or late. On a weekend when CBS has the double-header, like this one, there will be a CBS Early and a CBS Late map above a third Fox Single map. The schedulers have attempted to show everyone in the country two games on CBS at 1:00 p.m. ET AND 4:05 or 4:30 p.m. ET and one on Fox at either 1 p.m. ET OR 4:05 or 4:30 p.m. ET.

Within each map, the games in that time and channel are shown in a color-coded key below the map and the areas where they will be shown on TV are filled in with the corresponding color on the map. Most of this will probably make geographic sense.

CBS Early

For example, in the top map, the CBS Early map, we see that the New England vs. Miami game will be shown in all of New England and Florida. Likewise, the yellow Cincinnati Bengals vs. Baltimore Ravens game will be shown in two little puddles around Cincinnati and Baltimore. Some things make less sense, like the strip of land in Texas which has to suffer through the Oakland Raiders vs. Cleveland Browns game or why most of Oregon gets the Indianapolis Colts vs. Tennessee Titans game. Why? Who knows?

An important color to track on these maps is grey. In the first map, the CBS early map, New York City and its surroundings are grayed out. This means they will not get any early game on CBS, even though CBS is the channel with the double-header that day. When this happens, jump down to the bottom map, the Fox single map, and the reason should become clear. Fox has the rights to the New York Jets vs. Philadelphia Eagles game which, as we know from the table, is an early game. The second principle, that teams’ home games deserve to be shown in their area without competition, takes precedence. The Jets game must be shown on Fox at 1 p.m., so CBS cannot provide an alternative to that market. The same principle applies to the other grey areas on the first map: Dallas, Houston, and Charlotte each host early home games on Fox.

Thanks so much for reading,
Ezra Fischer

What is field goal range? How is field goal distance measured?

Dear Sports Fan,

Here’s something I’ve been wondering about. When I watch a football game, I often hear the announcer talk about a team being “in field goal range.” Sometimes they even superimpose a colored line on the field to show how close a team is to being in field goal range. When they talk about the distance of a field goal though, it doesn’t directly correspond to the yard market the team is on, which is very confusing. What is field goal range? How is field goal distance measured?

Thanks,
Ron

Dear Ron,

As a sport and a culture, football sits at the intersection between precision and chaos. There’s no sport whose plays are more carefully and complexly designed and there’s few sports whose action can become as chaotic, as quickly. Football culture glorifies precision even while success and failure often come down to luck. Field goal distance and field goal range are both measurements which seem very exact but are actually quite wishy-washy. Field goal distance purports to be a measurement of the distance between where a field goal is kicked and the goal posts the kicker is aiming at. It is expressed as a number of yards. Field goal range is a similar measurement but is hypothetical. It is the distance from goal that a team believes it can score a field goal from with a reasonable chance of success. In this post, we’ll break both of these measurements down and see how inexact they actually are.

For both of these measurements, the number quoted will not match up to the yard marker on the field. The NFL moved the uprights from where they had been, on the goal line (as one might expect from the name!) in 1974 to the back of the end zone. The end zone is ten yards deep. So, a field goal kicked from the 20 yard line is actually called a 30 yard field goal because it must travel that extra distance through the end zone. A team cannot kick a 30 yard field goal from a play that starts on the 20 yard line. In order to have time and space to kick the ball over a horde of defenders intent on blocking it, teams snap the ball backwards about seven yards before setting the ball up to be kicked. Add these seven yards to the 10 yards from the end zone and you get 17 yards, the standard figure which people talking about football add to the yard marker of the start of a play in order to get the field goal distance. So, a 30 yard field goal must be taken from the 13 yard line. A field goal kicked from a play starting on the 20 yard line is actually a 37 yard kick.

Field goal distance seems like it should therefore be an exact measurement. Add seventeen yards to where the play starts and BOOM! you’ve got an exact distance. Two considerations stop this from being true. First, there may be some variation from kicker to kicker and team to team about how far back from the line of scrimmage a kick should be set up. It’s hard for me to believe that all 32 kickers in the NFL and 200+ kickers in college all like to kick from exactly the same spot relative to the line of scrimmage. I’ve never heard an announcer take the preference of a kicker into account when calculating a field goal distance, but perhaps they should. The second is much more meaningful. Football fields are not one-dimensional! Depending on where you are side to side on the field, a field goal may need to be struck at an angle or straight on. A play in football can start from one of three places horizontally, the center, or either of the two hash mark lines that run up and down the field to the right and left of center. Kicks from the center of the field are shorter than those from the sides. This effect is magnified in college football where the hash marks are much farther apart than in the NFL. Field goal distance does not take either of these factors into account. It’s a slightly fuzzy measurement masquerading as an exact one.

Field goal range is even fuzzier. It’s an estimate of the field goal distance a kicker has a reasonable chance of success and scoring from. A kicker with a very strong leg may have a field goal range of around 50 yards. Anything over that and the chance of scoring falls to below 60%. Estimates are great! There’s nothing wrong with estimates. But football, or at least football TV announcers, in an obsession with precision simultaneously treat this estimate as if it’s an exact number and leave out an important factor. The factor they leave out is the 60% in our example. Announcers talk about field goal range as if it’s the distance from which a kicker will be able to score. It’s not! There’s no distance from which you can absolutely guarantee a kicker will score. It’s important to know what percent chance field goal range applies to. Or maybe we should talk about it as several ranges — 50-55 yards is a long-shot, 10-20% chance of scoring, 45-50 gives a 40% chance of scoring, and so on. Meanwhile, television executives treat a range like a number and superimposes a line across the field to show how far a team needs to advance the ball to be “in field goal range.” A better graphic would surely be a gradient to show the increasing chance of scoring as the team moves forward, wouldn’t it?

I guess that turned into a rant on top of a definition! Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

What does forward progress mean in NFL football?

Dear Sports Fan,

I’ve been watching a bunch of football so far this season. I’m enjoying it and learning to. I do have one question — I’m confused about where the offense gets to start their next play from? I thought it was where the person with the ball’s knee hits the ground. Sometimes it seems like they start much farther down the field. This is sometimes accompanied by the announcer saying something about forward progress. What does forward progress mean in NFL football?

Thanks,
Joel

Dear Joel,

You’re absolutely right. Most of the time in football, when a player is tackled with the ball, their team’s offense starts their next play from the spot (end zone to end zone, not side to side) where the ball was when their knee or butt hit the ground. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Some may be obvious but easy to forget, like what happens when the offensive team scores a touchdown (they get to attempt an extra-point field goal from the 15 yard line or a two point conversion from the 2 yard line), what happens when a team fails to earn a new set of downs on a fourth down play (the other team gets the ball), or what happens when a player goes out-of-bounds (their team gets the ball wherever it was when they first touch the ground out-of-bounds with any part of their body). Another exception is what happens when a player, usually a quarterback, slides feet first. By far the most confusing exception is the one you’ve identified – the rule of forward progress.

The best way to explain forward progress is to start with a fairly absurd scenario. Suppose an offensive player is running with the ball. He gets surrounded by a group of defensive players converging on him. These defensive players wrap their arms around him to stop him from moving forwards. Then, moving in unison, they pick him up in the air and begin to carry him down the field. They eventually deposit him onto the ground in his own end-zone, where his being tackled with the ball earns the defensive team a safety and two points. The forward progress rule addresses and prevents this scenario by declaring the play to be over as soon as an offensive player who is running with the ball has his movement down the field stopped by an opponent. If the play is over as soon as forward movement ends, then what happens afterwards, often the offensive player falling or being pushed backward is no longer relevant to the game.

There is an element of judgement to this call. Each ref must decide for herself when a player’s forward movement is conclusively stopped. Most give the benefit of the doubt to the offensive player. Given how insanely athletic football players are, this makes sense. What would once and for all stop your or my forward progress (and potentially our lives) may be a momentary setback to an NFL running back or wide receiver. Generally, because of this, the way that refs actually enforce this rule is that as long as a ball-carriers legs are still moving in some facsimile of an attempt to run, they are allowed to continue to play, even if they are forced backwards. As long as this is true, refs will give the play a little bit of time to play out, almost like an advantage call in soccer. If the offensive player ends up getting tackled to the ground without ever being able to start moving forward again, the ref gives their team the ball where they originally stopped moving forward. If the offensive player is able to break out of the grasp of the defender and runs forward, the play continues until he is tackled or has his forward progress stopped again.

Like many rules in football, the enforcement of this rule is a balance between ensuring the safety of the players — the faster a ref stops a play, the less likely it is for players to get hurt struggling for an extra yard — and allowing potentially amazing and entertaining feats to happen. For an example of that, check out this run by Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber. Watch how he’s able to keep his legs running and therefore the play going as he’s forced backwards several times:

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

One line to fool them all – 9.21.15

Sports talk is frequently used as a common language but it’s far from universal. If you’re someone who doesn’t follow or even understand sports, you can find yourself at a disadvantage in common small-talk situations like in an elevator, waiting for a bus, sitting at a bar, or around the proverbial water cooler at work. Even if you are a sports fan, it’s impossible to watch everything and know everything. To help in these situations, we provide lines to use when engaged in a conversation about all of the high profile sporting events of the day, plus explanations of what they mean.

NFL Football

New England Patriots 40 at Buffalo Bills 32

Line: TYROD TAYLOR IS GOD.

What it means: That Buffalo Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who wasn’t particularly memorable as a quarterback in college, and who was the backup quarterback in Baltimore for his entire career until this year, has played much better than expected so far this year. In this game, he helped the Bills score three straight touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Despite losing to their rivals in this game, Bills fans are pretty pumped about Taylor.

Tennessee Titans 14 at Cleveland Browns 28

Line: I guess Mariota isn’t the next coming of Marino.

What it means: Marcus Mariota is the rookie quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. Last week, he was nearly perfect, passing for four touchdowns and no interceptions. This had Titans fans thinking they might have a new all-time great to root for, someone like the beloved Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marion, who played for the Dolphins in the 1980s and early 1990s. The story was different for Mariota and the Titans this weekend as they lost to the unremarkable Cleveland Browns.

Houston Texans 17 at Carolina Panthers 24

Line: In a game between two teams built on defense, go with the team that has a quarterback.

What it means: The Houston Texans and the Carolina Panthers are both examples of a relatively rare type of team in the NFL – those that emphasize defense more than offense. The biggest difference between the two teams is that the Panthers have an extremely talented and well established quarterback in Cam Newton, and the Texans have already switched between seemingly equally bad options at starting quarterback and this is only Week Two of the NFL season.

Arizona Cardinals 48 at Chicago Bears 23

Line: They are who we thought they were! And we didn’t let them off the hook.

What it means: This refers to a legendary rant from former Cardinals coach, Dennis Green, after his team lost to a Bears team. He had felt that the then undefeated Bears were beatable and his team was well on their way to proving him right before messing everything up and losing the game. This game was the polar opposite. Everyone thought the Bears were going to be terrible this year. Then they played reasonably well in a Week One loss. Not to worry, the Cardinals traveled to Chicago this weekend and showed everyone that they were right in dismissing the Bears.

San Diego Chargers 19 at Cincinnati Bengals 24

Line: Wake me up when Dalton does this in the playoffs.

What it means: Andy Dalton, the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals, has a reputation for winning during the regular season but losing during the playoffs because… well… that’s all he’s done so far in his career. In his four years as the Bengals quarterback, he’s won an average of 10 games per season (that’s very good) but lost in the first round of the playoffs each year. Even though past events don’t predict future results, it’s hard not to feel slightly bored by the Bengals consistently disappointing seasons.

Detroit Lions 16 at Minnesota Vikings 26

Line: I have no idea what happened in Week One, but the Vikings look good.

What it means: The Minnesota Vikings were many people’s pick to be the young, up-and-coming team this year. Then they went into San Francisco for their first game and played horribly. This week, they looked just like the team many people thought they would be.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 26 at New Orleans Saints 19

Line: It really looks like it’s over in New Orleans, doesn’t it.

What it means: Starting the season after Hurricane Katrina, quarterback Drew Brees, coach Sean Peyton, and the whole Saints franchise have had a magical decade. Behind a prolific offense, they won the Super Bowl after the 2009 season. After two straight losses to start this season, including this weekend’s dreadful loss versus divisional opponent Tampa Bay, who themselves were coming off an embarrassing loss, Saints fans have to be worried that their run has come to an end.

Atlanta Falcons 24 at New York Giants 20

Line: Ooooph. I can’t wait to see the New York Post’s headline after this one.

What it means: For the second week in a row, the New York Giants lost a game that they seemed to have comfortably won. This time, they were up 20-10 over the Falcons in the fourth quarter. The New York Post enjoys nothing more than when a New York team loses in ignominious fashion so that they can make fun of them, usually with a giant (get it) bad pun on their back page.

San Francisco 49ers 18 at Pittsburgh Steelers 43

Line: I wouldn’t take too much from this game. The 49ers were on short rest and had to fly east for an early game while the Steelers had 10 days to prepare.

What it means: There are a few scheduling quirks that people who follow football think are significant to the outcome of games. Nearly every one of them was present in this game and they were all slanted against the 49ers. Since the 49ers played last Monday night, they had one fewer day to prepare for this game than is normally the case. The Steelers, on the other hand, having played the previous Thursday, had an extra three days. Lastly, people believe that west coast teams have trouble playing on the east coast when the game begins at 1 p.m. because the players’ internal clocks still think it’s 10 a.m. – time for pancakes, not football.

St. Louis Rams 10 at Washington Redskins 24

Line: Classic let-down by the Rams after their big Week One victory over the Seahawks.

What it means: Despite football being a job, people still think that football teams are driven by emotion roughly the way high-school sports teams are. Win a big and emotional game in one week, like the St. Louis Rams against the Seattle Seahawks last week, and people expect to see an emotional let-down, often accompanied by a loss in the following week. The fact that the Rams lost this week to a team most people feel they should have beaten lends credence to that line of thought.

Baltimore Ravens 33 at Oakland Raiders 37

Line: I think the Cowboys vs. Eagles game went through some kind of worm-hole and came out in Oakland. With different teams.

What it means: Everyone, including Las Vegas bookmakers, expected the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles to be an exciting, high-scoring game. Instead, that game was relatively boring and ugly while this game, which most people thought was going to be a pedestrian Ravens win, turned into the best game of the day.

Dallas Cowboys 20 at Philadelphia Eagles 10

Line: I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but I feel bad for Cowboys fans.

What it means: The Dallas Cowboys have won both their games so far this year, but things are distinctly gloomy for their fans. Their star wide receiver broke a bone in his foot during their first game and their quarterback broke his collar bone in this one. It’s hard to imagine they’ll win many of their next eight games or so, while their two best offensive players are out.

Seattle Seahawks 17 at Green Bay Packers 27

Line: I’m glad Green Bay got some small measure of revenge.

What it means: The Green Bay Packers played the Seattle Seahawks in last year’s NFC Championship. Win, and they would have gone to the Super Bowl. They were winning for most of the game but then collapsed in the fourth quarter and lost in heart-breaking fashion. Winning this game was a small measure of revenge for the Packers. It will make them feel better but not good.

Pitch that game: NFL Week 2, 2015

Hello everyone and welcome to America’s favorite game show that… has never actually happened before and no one has heard of it… it’s Pitch That Game!

Here’s how it works. As your host, I have one minute to pitch a sporting event to someone who is not a sports fan. If, after my pitch, they’re interested in watching, I get a point! That’s it! Why would we play such a game? Well, it’s a good way to quickly learn about a set of games to see if you’re interested in following any of them. It’s also a great way for me to learn from you about what may or may not make a sport interesting to a layperson.

Our guest for this episode is Sonja Boet-Whitaker, a graduate student in City Planning, accomplished baker, aspiring driver, and also my partner. I pitched the five NFL football games available to people in the Boston area during the second weekend of the NFL season on Sunday September 20 and Monday September 21. For my thoughts on the other games, read on below the audio player.

Enjoy the show!

Sunday, September 20, 2015 1 p.m. ET

Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings

Ah, the Lions and the Vikings. Both of these franchises have proud histories, but you have to be over the age of 35 to remember them. For the past twenty years or so, both teams have been lovable at times and laughable at times but always, always, losers. Sure enough, both teams lost in embarrassing fashion in the first week of the season. The Lions gave up 30 straight points in their loss to the San Diego Chargers and the Vikings were embarrassed against the San Francisco 49ers on national television. A win in this game will give their fans hope that this season might be different. A loss, and it’s going to feel like the same old shi…..ndig.

Arizona Cardinals at Chicago Bears

This game has all the makings of a win for the Cardinals. Arizona’s very good offense against Chicago’s bad defense and Chicago’s talented but questionable offense against Arizona’s potentially dominating defense. That said, even if things worked out that way, it could be a highly entertaining game. Chicago has enough talent and pride and desperation having lost their first home game to the Green Bay Packers, to fight for this one tooth, nail, claw, and fur — they are Bears, after all.

Tennessee Titans at Cleveland Browns

This game is going to be the second game in Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota’s career. It will also be the second game in a row that he’s faced a heisman trophy winning quarterback. Mariota won the heisman trophy, given to college football’s best player, last year. A worthy candidate on the field, his record was augmented by the fact that he seems to be a good person off the field. That’s different from the previous year’s winner, Tampa Bay quarterback Jameis Winston, who has been accused of sexual assault and it’s different from Cleveland Browns quarterback Jonny Manziel whose problems with alcohol have been well documented. Mariota looked amazing in last week’s big win over Winston and the Buccaneers, and it should be fun to root for him again against Manziel and the Browns.

Houston Texans at Carolina Panthers

The quarterback of the Carolina Panthers, Cam Newton, is 6’5″ tall, 250 pounds, and such an incredible athlete that he’s simultaneously the team’s best quarterback and best running back. Even he may not be able to survive the onslaught of the Houston Texan’s defensive line. The leader of that line is J.J. Watt — who’s such a force that his nickname is simply J.J. Watt — and he’s supported by underachieving but still full of potential Jadaveon Clowney and long-time Patriots defensive leader Vince Wilfork. I, for one, will be tuning in hoping to see the three of them harass Newton throughout the afternoon.

San Francisco 49ers at Pittsburgh Steelers

It wasn’t just the fact that the 49ers won their first game, that made it the single most surprising part of the NFL’s first weekend, it was the way they won. Everyone was expecting the 49ers to be a shell of their former selves this year after losing their head coach, two best linebackers, best defensive end, best wide receiver, long-time running back, and two members of their offensive line over the summer. Turns out that doubt can be a powerfully motivating factor. The 49ers came out and physically dominated their opponents in their first game. Whether that same formula will work against the Pittsburgh Steelers who lost their first game to the defending champion Patriots, is another story.

San Diego Chargers at Cincinnati Bengals

If Phillip Rivers, quarterback of the San Diego Chargers, had the type of skilled players surrounding him at the running back and wide receiver positions that his counterpart on the Cincinnati Bengals, Andy Dalton has, the Chargers might never lose another game. On the other hand, if the Bengals had a quarterback three quarters as good as Rivers, they might never lose another game. This matchup provides a clear example of a perennial problem. If you can’t have a great quarterback and great players surrounding him, which do you choose?

St. Louis Rams at Washington Redskins

This game has a wonderful plot. Three years ago, the Washington Redskins traded a slew of draft picks to the St. Louis Rams in order to move up in the draft and choose a player when the Rams ordinarily would have. That pick was quarterback Robert Griffin the third, who has not worked out for the Redskins. Since that time, the Rams coaches and players have seemed to live only to beat the Redskins, to show them that team matters more than a single star player. It’s a nice message, and one that continues to provide motivation for the Rams, even long after anyone would argue that the Redskins got the better of the deal.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints

It’s the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and I recently read a wonderful article by Wright Thompson about the city’s efforts to recover and how important a role the Saints played. If that weren’t enough to have me rooting for them, their opponent in this game is the Buccaneers, a hapless franchise that gave away its lovable loser element when it drafted Jameis Winston, who was accused of and is almost definitely guilty of rape. Go Saints.

Sunday, September 20, 2015 4:30 p.m. ET

Baltimore Ravens at Oakland Raiders

The Ravens are who the Raiders should aspire to be. They are a defense first, highly adaptable team that seems to be able to continue to win no matter what players they lose because of free agency or injury. Unfortunately, the Raiders insist on trying to be the Raiders — a team that takes risks on other team’s cast-away players and tries to throw the ball way down the field more than any other team. It’s a formula that worked in the early 1980s but it hasn’t worked in this millennia and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be working any time soon.

Miami Dolphins at Jacksonville Jaguars

Football “experts” have all been assuming that Miami was a team on the rise and Jacksonville a team on the… well, I guess you’d say the float? A terrible team that’s not getting much better. Miami won their first game and Jacksonville lost, which you’d think would confirm that suspicion, but Miami looked so bad in winning and Jacksonville showed just enough oomph, even in a losing effort, that the so called experts will be on the edge of their seats to watch this one. If you like chaos and comeuppance, root for the Jaguars.

Should I play daily fantasy sports (DFS)?

Dear Sports Fan,

Yesterday you wrote a post explaining how daily fantasy sports work. Thanks! My question is, should I play daily fantasy sports (DFS)? I love fantasy football, so it seems tempting.

Thanks,
Fred (who isn’t me just lobbing a question back at myself. No, really)

Dear Fred,

No. You should not play daily fantasy sports (DFS).

Daily fantasy sports are a hot topic these days. If you watched football at all during the first weekend of the NFL season, you were inundated by ads for the two major daily fantasy sports companies, DraftKings and FanDuel. The two spent more than $27 million combined on television advertising during that period! In the days following that media blitz, there’s been a quick backlash against the industry. This wave was led by Joshua Brustein and Ira Boudway of Bloomberg Business, whose article, You Aren’t Good Enough to Win Money Playing Daily Fantasy Football described a landscape full of predatory professional gamblers armed with advanced statistics and personally designed spreadsheets. Their well researched and convincing argument was picked up by a horde of other newspapers and blogs, all quick to jump on the bandwagon and point out to their readers that they shouldn’t play daily fantasy sports because they won’t win. It was an important article, because it pierced through the advertising campaigns that suggest easy money is just around the corner. But, with apologies to Brustein and Boudway and the many people who agree with them, they are missing the point when it comes to deciding whether or not you should play. Gambling can be fun, as long as you don’t risk more than you can afford to lose. Long odds are not a sufficient argument against daily fantasy sports. The reason why you shouldn’t play daily fantasy sports isn’t because you’re almost certain to lose money, it’s because it’s not fun.

Daily fantasy football takes virtually every element of traditional fantasy football that’s fun and strips it from the game.

  • In traditional fantasy football, you play against your friends. Last weekend I beat my friend Brian in our fantasy league. This weekend, I face a tough game against my friend and old boss, Jack. In my only foray into daily fantasy sports, I came in 158,247 place out of 331,428 entries in a contest for $100,000. Who won? I have no idea, but it certainly didn’t contribute to any friendships. Traditional fantasy football leagues provide a way for distant friends to stay connected and close friends to get even closer.
  • Traditional fantasy football creates lasting ties to players. One of the arguments against getting involved in traditional fantasy football is that it changes a fan’s focus from their favorite team to the set of players who are on their team. Daily fantasy goes even farther in divorcing your rooting interest from the sport itself. In daily fantasy sports, you pick players for your team and discard them the next day. There’s no time to build lasting affection, like I have for some players who I’ve had for full seasons or more on my traditional fantasy team. For example, I might not know that Brandon Marshall is a mental health advocate if I hadn’t been following him carefully because he was on my fantasy team. Daily fantasy sports wouldn’t inspire me to celebrate when one of the young players who I’ve stashed on my bench for weeks gets an opportunity in the starting lineup or feel sad when an elder statesman loses his job.
  • Traditional fantasy sports encourages interaction between people and teaches basic negotiating skills. In a traditional fantasy league, if you want to improve your team during a season, you need to trade with another owner in your league. You need to look at her team and think about what she needs compared to what you need. Most trades happen when one person identifies something the other person needs and offers it to them for something they have a surplus of. It’s not about tricking the other person, it’s about analysis and negotiation. Daily fantasy sports are between you and your computer and that’s it.

So yes, you shouldn’t play fantasy sports because it’s a money pit, but so is taking up ice hockey, owning a boat, or having kids. At least those three things are fun!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

How does DFS or daily fantasy sports football work?

Dear Sports Fan,

I keep seeing ads for DraftKings and FanDuel, two daily fantasy sports (DFS) websites. How does DFS or Daily Fantasy Sports football work?

Thanks,
Ted

Dear Ted,

In the football version of daily fantasy sports also known by its abbreviation, DFS, your job is to predict the combination of real world football players who are going to generate the best statistics in the coming week of games.

You are given a set amount of fake money to build your team with. In DraftKings, this is $50,000. In FanDuel, it’s $60,000. (I have half a mind to set up a competitive DFS site called CamelCaps.) The websites set fictional prices for each real-life NFL football player each week depending on how well they think those players are likely to do. A very well-regarded player in what looks like an easy matchup will be on the expensive end of the spectrum. A relatively unknown player or an unexciting player facing a difficult opposition will be on the cheaper side. Your job is to select nine NFL players (really eight players and one team’s defense) whose cumulative salary is less than or equal to the fictional pot of money you begin with.

Then, you sit back and watch the weekend’s NFL games play out. Just like in traditional fantasy football, your success as a fantasy owner corresponds directly to the success of the real players in their real games that you’ve selected to be a part of your imaginary team. At the end of the weekend, the imaginary team that has accumulated the most points from their players’ real-life performances, wins.

How is daily fantasy sports different from traditional fantasy sports?

If you want a primer on how traditional fantasy football works, read our post on the subject.

One key difference between traditional fantasy sports and daily fantasy sports is that in the daily game, your selections have no bearing on anyone else’s. If everyone in the world decided they wanted Eli Manning on their roster one weekend, they could all have him. In traditional fantasy sports, once a player has been selected by an owner, he is unavailable to everyone else. Traditional fantasy sports are a zero sum game. Daily are not.

This non-zero-sum nature enables DFS to involve far more people than a traditional fantasy league. By the time you’ve reached 14 to 16 people in a traditional league, it gets very difficult to find players who generate enough statistics to be worth using on your team. Think you know football pretty well? Talk to some 16 team (or deep) fantasy football owners and see how many of them are conversant with the fourth wide receiver on each of the 32 NFL teams! In DFS, your choice to have Eddie Lacy on your team doesn’t inhibit my choice to put him on my team, so there’s no upper limit to the number of owners who can compete against one another. Indeed, the competitions we hear the most about in television commercials – the ones that “guarantee a prize” of over a million dollars – have tens of thousands of teams competing directly for that prize. Notice the word “team” instead of person. In a traditional fantasy league, those two terms should be synonymous. In DFS, a single person is allowed up to 500 teams or entries in a single contest.

This brings us to the final key difference between traditional and daily fantasy sports – the stakes and the presence of professionals. Traditional fantasy sports are a bad bet for professional gamblers. First of all, they take a long time to pay out. Compared to a bet on a single game, which will pay out within hours of the game ending, tying your capital up in a proposition that will take 16 weeks (for football and longer for other sports) is virtually a non-starter for someone who wants to use their money to make more money. It’s just too slow. Daily fantasy sports speed up the process so that it is more attractive for professional gamblers. Likewise, the amount of money involved is much higher. Many traditional fantasy leagues have each owner risking $100 for the season. That may seem like a lot, and certainly winning $500 to $1,000 if you win a league is no joke, but spread out over the whole season, that’s only $6.25 a week. That’s less than going out to a movie! That’s less than just the popcorn at some movie theaters. Daily fantasy sports, with its multiple entries per contest and many potential contests per week, facilitate much higher stakes.

Are there Super Bowl rematches every week this NFL season?

Dear Sports Fan,

Is it true there will be a rematch of a prior Super Bowl every week this season?

Thanks,
OmitsWordsByAccident

Dear OmitsWordsByAccident,

Not quite every week, but there are a surprising number of them. In all, there are 19 Super Bowl rematches this season, but not every week has one. The large number of rematches is no coincidence, it’s part of the NFL’s promotional campaign to promote this year’s Super Bowl, the league’s 50th. The exact number of the Super Bowl is always a little confusing. For one thing, the league insists on labeling the game with Roman Numerals instead of numbers. Since most of us were not educated in late 19th century elite prep schools, a number like XLVIII (48) is not intuitively obvious. This year, for the 50th, they are going with the number “50” and not just “L”. For a second level of obfuscation, the Super Bowl for each calendar-year season occurs in the next calendar year. When I was writing a series of posts describing what was special about each NFL team, I was never sure whether to refer to a Super Bowl by the year it was in or the year of the regular season it crowned the champion of. Lastly, the numbering is tricky because it’s hard to remember when the first Super Bowl was.

The NFL is much older than 50 years. It’s first year of competition was in 1920, and by 1930, five of today’s teams: the Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, and Detroit Lions were in existence. The reason why the Super Bowl is not 95 years old instead of 50, is that it began specifically as an end-of-season competition between the NFL and a competing league, the American Football League. The American Football League was founded in 1959 and began play in 1960 in direct competition to the NFL. By 1970, the two leagues had merged. So, if you count back 49 from 2016, you should get one of those years – 1960 or 1970 – right? Nope – you get 1967, a year that hasn’t popped up in conversation yet. Why? The NFL and AFL actually agreed on and announced their merger in 1966, it just took four years for them to merge the operations of the leagues and begin playing as one. The one major element of merging that they decided to act on immediately was the creation of what they called the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game“. It wasn’t until the third such game, in 1969 that the game became known as the Super Bowl.

Celebrating past Super Bowls by inserting rematches into this year’s schedule is a nice idea (although it must have been a tricky scheduling feat). Here, taken directly from the Super Bowl 50 website, with my links, are the games:

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Why aren't football players arrested when they break the rules?

Dear Sports Fan;

Football is a rough sport, I get it, players get hurt in normal competition. But why isn’t someone like Pacman Jone criminally charged after wrestling an opponents helmet off and then slamming his head into it?

Is a fine or even a suspension (which it appears he will not be subject to) enough?

Thanks,
Al

Dear Al,

You pose a good question, and one that I’ve addressed before on this site, but it’s worth thinking about again. Why is a violent act, which would be worthy of a criminal charge in other contexts, not illegal in the context of a sport? Why aren’t football players arrested when they break the rules?

First, let’s take a look at the incident:

Jones is the player on the Cincinnati Bengals, wearing white and orange, who tears the helmet off of Oakland Raiders rookie wide receiver Amari Cooker and then jams Coopers head back into his own helmet. Cooper’s teammates quickly come to his defense and a bit of pushing and shoving follows as the referees throw their yellow penalty flags to show that a foul has been committed.

Jones’ act is clearly against the rules of football. It would just as clearly be defined as assault if it happened outside of the context of football.

 

The rules of any sport describe a set of expected behaviors that fall on both sides of the line between allowed and not allowed. Fist fighting is illegal in ice hockey and golf, but you can get a good sense about which sport expects their players to fight by looking at the two rule books. Ice hockey has a clear rule about fighting – players who fight are given matching five-minute penalties. Golf doesn’t have a rule at all. A hockey player who fights is very unlikely to be prosecuted. A golfer… may just be in cuffs by the end of the day. Why the difference? A reasonable hockey player assumes the risk of being confronted with violence, legal and illegal, when he or she steps onto the ice. A golfer doesn’t. Even though fighting isn’t as prevalent in football as it is in hockey, it is a violent sport and its players reasonably assume the risk of being confronted with violence when they play. Athletes in contact sports have implicitly consented to violence.

Even if a player or an authority did try to prosecute a player like Jones, who goes to far, it would be a hard case to argue. Consider how difficult it would be from an outsider’s perspective to compare legal and illegal forms of violence. Here’s another incident which happened during this year’s preseason, in a game between the San Francisco 49ers and San Diego Chargers:

In this film, former rugby star Jarryd Hayne finishes a run by lowering his shoulder into a defender’s chest and knocking him to the ground. Let’s apply the same two tests to it: it would clearly be considered assault if it happened on the street but in the context of football, it’s not only legal, it’s deeply admired. I’m not a legal scholar, or a practicing lawyer, or even the fiancée of Vinny Gambini, but I feel like it would be very difficult to convict someone of assault for one incident on a football field if opposing counsel could show equally violent or even more violent acts that are explicitly allowed in the context of football. And I don’t think the legal system cares very much about whether an act is strictly allowed or not allowed by a sports league.

Aside from being flagrantly against the rules of football, what quality would one use to argue that Jones’ act is more worthy of prosecution than others? It’s not more damaging – earlier in the day, a New York Jets player was taken off on a stretcher and hospitalized during a legal play. Other injuries from just yesterday’s action included a torn Achilles tendon, a broken bone in a foot, several strained or torn knee ligaments, and several other concussions. Cooper, on the other hand, seems to be fine. How about force? Jones certainly didn’t use as much force on Cooper in that video than he would in a normal tackle.

This doesn’t mean that within the context of a sport, anything could and should be allowed to happen. For example, a player who snuck a knife onto the field and attacked an opponent would surely be prosecuted. No one assumes the risk of being stabbed during a sporting event. (Except fencing accidents, I suppose.) Our attitudes on this issue may also change – may even be in the process of changing already. Not so long ago, the law held that a married woman assumed the risk of being raped by her husband by entering into a marriage contract. That’s no longer the case and the world is a better place for it. With what we now know about the damaging effects of brain injuries on athletes, it’s possible that we are moving towards a world where flagrant and intentional violence toward a player’s head will be subject to legal charges.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer