What's up with the 2015 NWSL championship game?

The 2015 NWSL championship game between the Seattle Reign and FC Kansas City is tonight, Thursday, October 1 at 9:30 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1. Here’s everything you need to know about the game.

What’s the plot?

This is not just a single elimination championship game, it’s also a rematch. These two teams met last year in the 2014 NWSL Championship game, which FC Kansas City won 2-1. The Reign came back better than ever this year and have been at the top of the standings basically all year. During the 20 game regular season, the Reign only lost three games. They won 13 of the other 17, tying the other four. This record put them head and shoulders above the rest of the league. Of the other eight teams, not a single one was able to break double-digits and win even ten games. FC Kansas City came in third place this year, the lowest showing ever for this freakishly consistent team, but did have the second highest tally of wins with nine.

Both teams are built around strong defensive play. Both teams have excellent goalies and strong, cohesive defensive units. Of the eight defenders in the NWSL honored by being selected to the league’s Best XI or Second XI (imaginary starting lineups voted on by NWSL journalists, club officials, and players), a whopping six of them will be playing in this game, three from each team. It’s from the midfield up that the teams start to differ. The Reign’s offense is driven by an overwhelmingly talented group of individual stars in the midfield who have found a wonderful balance playing together. FC Kansas City is a more traditional offensive team built around a wonderful partnership between a playmaking midfielder and an opportunistic striker.

Neither team was challenged very much in their semifinal matches. Although the Washington Spirit were able to hold the Reign to a 0-0 tie for the first three quarters of their match, this was mostly thanks to an incredible effort on the part of their goalie. The Spirit never really threatened to score and eventually the Reign broke through their bunker. Once they scored once, they just started scoring, and it was 3-0 when the game ended. FC Kansas City also won their semifinal by that same score. They jumped on the Chicago Red Stars early, thanks to an unforgivable blunder by the Red Stars keeper. This changed the dynamic of the game and ended whatever chance the Red Stars might have had to play the game on their terms. Kansas City never let up and won in comfortable fashion.

The Seattle Reign are looking for revenge for last year’s championship loss to Kansas City and simultaneously expecting a coronation after being the best team in the league all season. FC Kansas City will be playing for their teammate, Lauren Holiday, who is retiring after today’s game. She wants to go out with a victory and her teammates want her too even more.

Who are the players we know from the U.S. women’s national team?

The Seattle Reign have two familiar faces:

  • Hope Solo, who prowls the Reign’s goal with exactly the same amount of authority as she does the USWNT’s.
  • Megan Rapinoe, who unlike many of her teammates, plays virtually the same role on her club team as she did on the national team. This is vital for the Reign because Rapinoe is at her best when she’s essentially a supremely talented freelancer on one side of the midfield. Forcing Rapinoe into a more central (literally and figuratively) role reduces her impact on the game, so it’s good for Seattle that they don’t need to do this.

FC Kansas City has four players from the USWNT:

  • Becky Sauerbrunn, the rock of the national team’s defense, is the same unflappable power for FC Kansas City. She won the NWSL’s Defensive Player of the Year award for the third time in a row this year. Since this is the third season of the NWSL’s existence, that means no one else has ever won it. They should just name the award after her and get it over with.
  • Amy Rodriguez was a complementary player on the national team but she’s a star for FC Kansas City. She is their Alex Morgan, their number nine, (even though she wears number eight on her jersey.) She’s the best bet to score for Kansas City in this game.
  • Lauren Holiday will be playing her last game of professional soccer today. It’s somewhat fitting that she goes out playing for her club team rather than the national team because, at least in recent years, only with her club team has she been able to play soccer the way she wants. Her best position is the one Carli Lloyd plays at the national team level – central attacking midfielder. Holiday is only a hair behind Lloyd at this position, but that hair was enough to push her into a less comfortable position during the World Cup. If you’ve only seen her play in recent national team games, you’ll be surprised at how dominant she can be.
  • Heather O’Reilly only played in one game during the 2015 World Cup but she should start this game for the Kansas City team. She’s a capable and veteran midfielder.

Who are some other players worth knowing about?

On the Seattle Reign:

  • Kim Little is considered the best player in the world not to make the World Cup. There’s a contingent of people who would claim she’s the best player in the world, period. The Scottish attacking midfielder will certainly be the most dangerous player on the field in this game. She can score from virtually any spot on the field and she’s not afraid to run by or around defenders as well.
  • Jess Fishlock is another player who suffers because Great Britain competes in soccer tournaments in its component nations. Since she is Welsh, that means she has an uphill battle to qualify for the World Cup or Olympics. Fishlock is a strong two-way midfielder whose play stands out on the field even though she is sometimes confused for Megan Rapinoe because of her hairstyle.
  • Merritt Mathias played in last year’s final for FC Kansas City. A striker on a midfield dominant team, she does the often thankless task of harrying opposing defenders and opening up space for her teammates with long, tiring runs.

On FC Kansas City

  • Nicole Barnhardt was Hope Solo’s backup goalie for many years before being overtaken by two younger goalkeepers in the lead-up to the 2015 World Cup. At the age of 33, she truly has not lost a step. Her presence on the field virtually negates the advantage in goal that Seattle usually has.
  • Jen Buczkowski hopes to be the answer to Kim Little. Buczkowski is a shut-down defensive midfielder who will shadow Little all over the field. She’ll look to frustrate Little by denying her the ball and punish her with professional fouls when she gets it. Much of FC Kansas City’s hopes rest on how well Buczowski can perform this monumental task.

What happened last time?

FC Kansas City won thanks to goals resulting from two incredible combinations between midfielder Lauren Holiday and striker Amy Rodriguez.

Look at the angle Rodriguez chooses to run into space between defenders without going offside. Holiday does a great job getting her the ball but Rodriguez should get the lion’s share of credit for this goal.

The second goal involves the same two players but is a different story. Lauren Holiday breaks off just an insane series of brilliant dribbling moves to create this goal. Watch her slalom between defenders before dropping the ball for Rodriguez to easily slot into the net.

Seattle fought back, and did eventually score, but it was too little, too late to catch FC Kansas City.

What else can I learn about the game?

Read Liviu Bird’s championship preview for Sports Illustrated’s Planet Futbol and Lauren Barker’s similar but even more comprehensive article for SB Nation. Graham Hays has five key things to watch for in the game, which he shares with us on ESPNW. Equalizer Soccer brings us a blog post by goaltender Hope Solo in which she describes and thanks each of her Seattle Reign teammates. Finally, listen to Five Thirty Eight’s Hot Takedown podcast. They bring on soccer fan and expert Alison McCann to talk about the current state and future potential of the NWSL.

What’s going to happen this time?

First of all, it’s going to be a great game. Most NWSL matches frankly don’t reach the heights of a World Cup match, but this one will. These two teams are packed with talent and have played together for longer than most national teams get to. They are supremely determined to win. My guess is that this is a scoreless game going into the 75th minute of play. At that point, with the tension ratcheted up as far as it can go and player’s legs starting to get tired, it will come down to which team makes the first mistake and which team can capitalize on it. FC Kansas City and the Holiday to Rodriguez combination is great, but the Reign simply has more options; more ways to score and win. The Seattle Reign comes out on top, 1-0.

Sports reads: Experiencing football

Each fall, football colonizes the minds and hearts of sports fans around the country. Football is simultaneously one of the most compelling and confusing sports. It has so many different layers – the player experience, the coaching experience, the television or in person viewer experience, the gambler’s experience, the fantasy football experience, and more. Today we’re featuring three stories that peel away a few layers of football and examine one in great and exciting detail.

The Oral History of Joe Theismann’s Broken Leg

by Luke Mullins for Washingtonian

The breaking of Joe Theismann’s leg, which happened during a nationally televised football game 30 years ago, is one of the most famous sports injuries ever. This oral history covers not just the ordinary gruesome fascination but also some behind-the-scenes and after-the-fact areas that are completely new.

“From the day I got hurt, people have always come up to me and asked me about the injury. All the time. They ask, ‘How’s the leg?’ And I say, ‘It’s a little crooked, it’s a little short, but I’m able to use it.’ And whenever someone suffers a severe leg injury in sports, I always get phone calls from reporters to discuss it… What the injury did for me, it basically became my identity. I’m basically the godfather of broken legs. “If somebody breaks a leg, I usually get a phone call from the media. And by remaining relevant in this way, it gives me a chance to hopefully help people through a very difficult time. Doctors will clear you when your body is physically ready to go, but then you have to clear yourself through the mental hurdles. And that’s really where I try to offer assistance if I can.

The Comprehensive Illusion of Football

by Nicholas Dawidoff for The New Yorker

Dawidoff spent a year researching his book on one of the least accessible layers of football – the one coaches obsess over, which virtually only they have access to. He gives us a tiny fascinating hint of it in this article.

Football on television is an entity unto itself: the comprehensive illusion of football, far from the full picture. As a result, there may be no activity that draws closer public scrutiny that the public knows less about.

To see the full truth of a football game, you’d have to enter an N.F.L. facility on Monday morning and watch the game film along with the coaches. Coaching film has no audio and is shot from end zone and sideline angles at sufficient depth that coaches can see what all twenty-two players are doing. Football involves large, fast men navigating a limited patch of land over and over again, with a map designed for each one of these brief excursions. The coaches have made the maps, and they spend their film sessions scrutinizing every player’s every movement, assessing what worked, what didn’t, and why.

My Fantasy Football Nightmare

by Jason Gay for The Wall Street Journal

I’ve written a lot about fantasy football and I hope I’ve been able to make it more understandable but I imagine it’s still a subject of curiosity for most non-fantasy football owners. In this article, Jason Gay, a long-time sports columnist, describes his first experience with fantasy football with humor and a great deal of insight.

And see this is another thing: Fantasy Football makes you do crazy stuff. You now have a stake in meaningless contests you’d never consider watching in the past. That Vikings-Niners game was about as entertaining as watching a goat take a nap. And yet there I was, as the clock pushed midnight, because it suddenly mattered. Sort of. Even worse, I am irrationally mad at Torrey Smith for giving me no fantasy points Monday night. Until now I had no beef with Torrey Smith. Sorry Torrey!

(Fantasy has also lent clarity to a lot of NFL coverage. In the past, I didn’t realize why things like Dez Bryant’s busted foot got covered like a mission to the Moon. But now I know: because there are a bazillion fantasy players who want to know exactly how Dez Bryant’s injury impacts their fantasy team—if they, you know, need to swing a deal for Jerry Lee Pasadena. One week on fantasy has lent great clarity as to why Adam Schefter is now more powerful in this country than the Supreme Court.)

 

One Thing: Aaron Rodgers meta NFL master

The Green Bay Packers won their game last night against the Kansas City Chiefs 38 to 28. A 10 point victory is not considered a blow-out in the NFL but this game in particular was more conclusive than most 10 point wins. It was the way that the Packers beat the Chiefs that was so impressive. It looked like they were playing football an a whole other level than the Chiefs were — almost like they were playing a different game. They were. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is playing at such a high level that it sometimes seems like he’s playing at a different level than everyone else. While everyone else is playing football, he’s playing meta-football. There were three plays, when the Packers were on offense, that stuck out as examples of this.

One thing is a series of posts that examine a small part of a sporting event to explain and explore its meaning in a way that’s accessible to sports fans and laypeople alike.

Two of the three meta-plays from last night were offensive plays that resulted in penalties called on the Chiefs for having too many men on the field when the ball was snapped. When the offense snaps the ball, signaling the start of that play, each team is only allowed to have 11 players on the field. This is rarely a problem. Football players are pretty good at counting! The fact that it happened twice yesterday isn’t due to any deficiency on the part of the Chiefs but rather an intentional act of trickery by Rodgers. When the defense makes a substitution, one player runs onto the field while another player runs off to their team’s sideline. This isn’t an inconsiderable distance, especially when the play is starting on the far side of the field from where the defensive team’s bench is. Defensive players have been doing this for most of their lives though, and they have a good internal clock which tells them how much time they have to exit the field before the snap. What they’re not accounting for is Rodgers’ meta game. Rodgers notices when an opposing defensive player, particularly a bigger, slower lineman is substituting, and then rushes his team to the line and tries to snap the ball immediately. He speeds up the offensive process so that he can start the play before that defensive player makes it off the field.

This benefits his team in three ways: one straightforward, one sneaky, and one demoralizing. The straightforward advantage is that the refs will call a penalty on the defensive team, in this case the Chiefs. The penalty moves the ball five yards down the field, after which the Packers get to start their offensive play again. The penalty doesn’t automatically give the Packers a first down, but if moving those five yards would have otherwise, the penalty yardage will. The sneaky benefit is that this foul call doesn’t take effect immediately. The play will continue and at the end of it, the Packers get to choose whether they want the five yard penalty or the result of the play. Because Rodgers knows he can retroactively make that choice, he’s going to use the “free play” to try to advance the ball as far as possible in one play. It gives him the freedom to take a risk he might not ordinarily take, like throwing the ball into the end zone even if his targeted receiver is well covered, because he knows that if the other team does something great, like intercept the ball, the Packers can just choose to accept the penalty and the other team’s great play will be wiped away. (For advanced readers, note that 12 men on the field IS a reviewable call, so even if the refs miss it, the Packers will still have a good chance of backing the play out if they need to.) The third and lasting benefit is to frustrate and demoralize the opposing team. It’s hard enough to play against a team that’s as great as the Packers but it’s even harder to play against a quarterback who is masterfully manipulating the rules of football against you.

The other meta play from last night’s game is a similar trick that Rodgers plays. In this one, he tricks the opposing defense to come across the line of scrimmage before the center snaps the ball. Called “drawing the other team offside,” this is a common tactic that quarterbacks try but few are as good at it as Rodgers is. Check out the video of a touchdown that the Packers scored on the “free play” resulting from Rodgers’ tricky meta-game. The player to watch is number 91 in white and red. His name is Tamba Hali and a he’s one of the most fearsome pass rushers in the league. When he jumps offside, he not only gives the Packers a free play, with which Rodgers is liberated to throw the ball into the end-zone with no possible negative consequences, but, when he realizes he’s been caught offside and bamboozled, he stops briefly. This natural human reaction adds to the benefit of the play to the Packers. Not only do they have a consequence-free play but they get to run it with a half-ineffective Tamba Hali!

Thanks for reading. I’ll keep my eye out for more interesting plays to write about.
Ezra Fischer

How does an onside kick work in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

What are the rules for an onside kick? When do teams try them? What are they trying to gain from it? How does an onside kick work in football?

Thanks,
Jacky

Dear Jacky,

Onside kicks are chaotic, happen rarely, and are often quite confusing, even to football fans. The first step in understanding and making sense out of the onside kick is to categorize it as a tactic, not a special type of play that has special rules. The onside kick is a tactical option during any kickoff play for the team kicking off. A team that chooses to execute an onside kick is hoping to retain (or regain) possession of the ball instead of giving it to the other team as is normal on a kickoff.

A kickoff happens at the start of the game, the start of the second half, and after any scoring play — although touchdowns are followed by an extra point or two-point conversion attempt and then a kickoff. All kickoffs have the same rules. The team kicking off must line up with no less than four players on either side of the ball and with all its players behind or even with the ball when it is kicked. The receiving team must line up on their side of where the ball is. Once the ball is kicked, it is free for either team to take possession of once it has traveled 10 yards down the field OR been touched by a member of the receiving team. If the ball goes out of bounds on the sidelines, the receiving team automatically takes possession of the ball at their own 30 yard line or wherever the ball went out of bounds; whichever is best for the receiving team. If the ball goes out the back of the end zone or is taken by a player on the receiving team in the end zone who subsequently kneels, this is called a touchback and the receiving team gets the ball on its own 20 yard line.

An onside kick is a tactic that tries to manipulate the situation of the kickoff so that the team kicking the ball ends up with possession of the ball. The most common approach to an onside kick is for the kicker to try to kick the ball to one side of the field so that it’s about eight feet above the ground and ten to twelve yards down the field from where it was kicked at exactly the time that six players on the kicking team who are sprinting up the field reach that spot. If all that happens as planned, the sprinting players on the kicking team can leap into the air and try to catch the ball or smash into the receiving team’s players and hope to cause enough fear, uncertainty, and doubt that one of them tries to catch the ball but isn’t able to secure it. This can be a spectacularly violent play with players throwing themselves at each other and at the ball. A more subtle approach is to kick the ball on the ground either at a receiving player with the hope that it might bounce off of them and be free for the kicking team to corral or at an empty spot between receiving players with the hope that a quick player on the kicking team can reach that spot before the receiving team responds.

The kicking team only successfully regained the ball on only 36% of attempts in the NFL in 2014. The reason why we don’t see them happen more frequently is that when the kicking team doesn’t get the ball back, the receiving team gets to start their offensive possession wherever they got the ball, which, since onside kicks generally only travel about 10 to 15 yards, is quite advantageous to the receiving team. A 36% chance of getting the ball back simply isn’t worth a 64% chance of giving the other team the ball on your side of the field. At least, an onside kick isn’t worth it most of the time. At the end of games, when one team is trailing, it could be quite worth it, in fact, it’s often the only chance a trailing team has. The reason why the logic tilts so much is that once a team has possession of the ball, it is able to run time off the game clock by running plays (or kneeling, which is kind of a simulation of a play) that keep the clock moving. It’s often the case that a trailing team knows that it will lose if the leading team gets possession of the ball. In this case, since it doesn’t matter where the other team gets the ball, trying an onside kick becomes an obvious choice.

The downside of attempting to retain the ball on a kickoff in that situation is that the other team knows what’s coming. The receiving team reacts by putting a “hands team” of players out there, all of whom practice receiving onside kicks as a unit. The rate of success for onside kicks when the other team knows its coming is less than 20%. The overall success rate of 36% includes times when a team decides to try an onside kick in a non-obvious situation. These surprise onside kicks – executed at a time when the other team is not expecting it and does not have their hands team on the field – are successful 60% of the time! It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy that’s most often used by teams that feel they are out-matched and need to find some edge to get ahead.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

How to plan for the week of Sept 28 – Oct 4, 2015

If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.

This does not include MLB baseball games. There are so many of those every day that another approach is needed. That approach is our special Daily MLB Forecast. Same deal, for the most part, with NFL football games. For those, see our NFL Forecast.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Football rules the day. Spend the morning talking about the weekend’s NFL action. Spend the afternoon enjoying a mid-table British Premier League soccer match between Everton and West Brom. Spend the evening watching an excellent NFL football game, the last of the weekend, between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs.

Tuesday: The UEFA Champions League match between Barcelona and Beyer Leverkusen will be the first Barcelona has played since losing its star player, its heart and soul, Lionel Messi. This may actually make it a more interesting game to watch, both because it should give Beyer Leverkusen a better chance of winning, but also because it gives us a chance to see how Barcelona plays without Messi. In the evening, its game three of the Eastern Conference finals between the WNBA’s New York Liberty and Indiana Fever. Since the WNBA plays best two out of three game series in their playoffs, this is a single elimination game with a finals berth on the line.

Wednesday: The Italian soccer team Juventus is having a funny year. Runners up in last year’s Champions League, you would expect that they are one of the top teams in the world. This doesn’t seem to be true. They’re way down in the Italian Serie A standings. A win against the Spanish side, Sevilla, may give them some confidence to take back to domestic league play. As the weather gets colder, baseball fans start thinking about the playoffs. Today’s featured game, between the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, could easily be a preview of an upcoming playoff matchup.

Thursday: The NFL has made a strong bid to own Thursday nights, and this week’s game between the rival Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers should be a physical, intriguing game. The Ravens are without a win so far this year and the Steelers will be without their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, because of a knee injury. Nonetheless, the biggest game of the night is in the NWSL. It’s the championship game on Fox Sports 1 between FC Kansas City and Seattle Reign FC. This is a rematch of last year’s title game, which Kansas City won 2-1. It will feature a slew of players we saw in the World Cup, including Americans Becky Sauerbrunn, Amy Rodriguez, Heather O’Reilly, and Lauren Holiday, as well as Australian international, Katrina Gorry on Kansas City and USA goalie Hope Solo and midfielder Megan Rapinoe on Seattle. My guess is that Seattle wins this one. They’ve looked near-unbeatable for most of the season.

Friday: Date night! Relive your college days with a college volleyball rivalry between Duke and UNC on ESPN U at 6 p.m. ET and then get all prepped up for an Ivy League soccer game between Princeton and Columbia at 7 p.m.

Saturday: There’s a slew of good college football games between top 25 ranked teams, the biggest of which may be a newly vulnerable-looking Alabama vs. Georgia. We also have a somewhat parallel game in British soccer between up-and-coming Southampton, and a similarly vulnerable former champion, Chelsea. The most exciting match of the day isn’t in either form of football, it’s in Rubgy where England plays Australia in the Rugby World Cup. If you’re in the Boston area, come watch it with the Dear Sports Fan Viewing Party Meetup group and me!!

Sunday: An American football game invades London to start today’s sporting schedule. For perhaps (?) the first time, the NFL has sent a divisional game to England. The Miami Dolphins and New York Jets are both coming off disappointing losses and will both be determined to win in London before taking the next week off. In British British football, Arsenal vs. Manchester City is about as big of a game as you could get. Combine these two events with the first game of the WNBA finals, the AAA 400 in NASCAR, and a West Coast MLS showdown between Los Angeles and Seattle, and we’ve got another excellent and full Sunday of sports.

Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.

One line to fool them all – 9.28.15

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

Cincinnati Bengals 28 at Baltimore Ravens 24

Line: Win the Raven, nevermore.

What it means: The Baltimore Ravens were actually named after Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, The Raven. This may not completely excuse your mangling of Poe for the purpose of rubbing a little salt in your Baltimore fan friend’s wounds after the Ravens lost their third game in a row, but do it anyway. At 0-3, the playoffs seem like an unlikely possibility at this point for the Ravens, particularly because this most recent loss came at the hands of their divisional opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals, who are 3-0.

New Orleans Saints 22 at Carolina Panthers 27

Line: The Saints almost did it without Brees, but they didn’t quite have enough.

What it means: The New Orleans Saints were one of several teams facing an 0-3 start and one of a few teams playing without their starting quarterback. Virtually no one expected them to be able to play competitively with the Carolina Panthers, much less win, but they were surprisingly good. In the end, the Panthers, with their start quarterback Cam Newton who played extremely well, were too much for the Saints to contend with.

Oakland Raiders 27 at Cleveland Browns 20

Line: Let’s hold up on the parade for the Raiders – their wins have come against the 0-3 Ravens and 1-2 Browns.

What it means: Oakland Raiders fans and unaffiliated football observers might get excited by the Raiders first two-game win streak in more than three seasons. Although it’s never wrong to celebrate, it might be wrong to conclude that the Raiders are a good football team, because their two wins have come against teams that seem not to be very good themselves. With the pitiful Chicago Bears coming up for the Raiders next week, it might be another couple weeks before we find out more about how good the Raiders actually are.

Atlanta Falcons 39 at Dallas Cowboys 28

Line: Don’t think the lesson is that the Cowboys can score with Weeden. The lesson is that the Falcons can’t stop anyone.

What it means: After losing starting quarterback Tony Romo, to a broken collarbone last week, the Dallas Cowboys have been forced to go with backup quarterback Brandon Weeden this week and for the forceable future. Without Romo (and star wide receiver Dez Bryant) many feared the Cowboys wouldn’t have enough skill on offense to play competitively. Some Cowboys fans might be comforted by having watched the team score 28 points in today’s losing effort, but I think that’s more of a reflection of how bad the Falcons defense is than anything about the Cowboys offense with Weeden.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9 at Houston Texans 19

Line: Neither of these teams is going anywhere this season but the Bucs are traveling nowhere faster.

What it means: In honor of Yogi Berra, who died this week, that’s my best Berra-esque comment about this game. The Buccaneers are worse than the Texans but both teams are bad enough that casual fans can stop paying them any attention.

San Diego Chargers 14 at Minnesota Vikings 31

Line: I wonder how much of the Charger’s issue this year is Los Angeles hanging over their heads?

What it means: The San Diego Chargers are one of a few teams that are rumored to be candidates for relocation to Los Angeles after this season. A move could be distracting to any team, but particularly one whose veteran quarterback has vocally opposed the move in the press. Connecting the team’s slow start to the relocation issue is not obvious, so get some football knowledge points by suggesting its possibility.

Jacksonville Jaguars 17 at New England Patriots 51

Line: The way the Patriots are playing, bye week can’t come soon enough for the rest of the league.

What it means: During an NFL season, each team gets one week off. That week, called a bye week, is next week for the New England Patriots. This will come as a relief to the other teams in the league, because the Patriots have been unbelievably good so far this year, winning their first three games easily and scoring 119 points (which is a lot!)

Philadelphia Eagles 24 at New York Jets 17

Line: This game is the classic lesson about jumping to conclusions after the first two weeks.

What it means: Coming into this game, the Philadelphia Eagles were 0-2 and people were already talking about firing the coach. The New York Jets were 2-0 and some of their fans might have quietly Googled this year’s Super Bowl, just to see where it was… just in case. After today’s game, both sides are quietly moderating their early conclusions about their teams.

Pittsburgh Steelers 12 at St. Louis Rams 6

Line: What’s the latest on Big Ben’s knee?

What it means: The Pittsburgh Steelers lost their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger (nicknamed Big Ben after because of his stature and the existence of the British clock, Big Ben), to a knee injury during this game. The injury happened when a defensive player tripped and slid into Roethlisberger’s legs. There was immediate speculation that Roethlisberger could have a serious injury, which might force him to miss the rest of the season. Although the next round of rumors was more positive, we won’t know for sure until the results of the inevitable MRI are leaked/shared tomorrow.

Indianapolis Colts 35 at Tennessee Titans 33

Line:  Eh. I’m not impressed. Win or not, needing heroics to beat the Titans does not show the Colts in a positive light.

What it means: The Indianapolis Colts have been one of the biggest disappointments so far this year. They avoided a 0-3 start by beating the Tennessee Titans, but if quarterback Andrew Luck and the rest of his team want to restore confidence of their being a clear playoff team, they’ll have to beat a stronger team than the Titans. As disheartening as this weekend’s loss must be for the Titans, this season is all about the development of rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota, and he continued his promising start in this game.

San Francisco 49ers 7 at Arizona Cardinals 47

Line: We have our answer now, the 49ers are terrible.

What it means: The San Francisco 49ers were expected to be awful this year. Then they won their first game in convincing fashion. That confused most people’s ideas about what kind of team they were going to be this year. Even after a loss last week, people weren’t sure. Now, they are. The 49ers are bad, bad, bad.

Buffalo Bills 41 at Miami Dolphins 14

Line: Is there a more disappointing free agent signing than Ndamukong Suh?

What it means: Coming off a promising season last year, the Miami Dolphins made one of the biggest splashes during the offseason by agreeing to a contract with Ndamukong Suh, the controversial but undeniably talented defensive lineman. So far this season, he’s been a bust in Miami. The Dolphins can’t seem to stop anyone on defense, certainly not the Bills today.

Chicago Bears 0 at Seattle Seahawks 26

Line: Oh well. I was cracking up when it was 3-0 halfway through the second quarter, but eventually all good things must come to an end.

What it means: Unless you are a Seattle Seahawks fan, the prospect of a 0-2 Chicago Bears team, playing without their starting quarterback and best wide receiver, coming into Seattle and defeating the desperate 0-2 Seahawks was a hysterically funny one. The Seahawks are a brash bunch whose success over the past few seasons has engendered a lot of envy, so the longer it seemed possible they would fall to 0-3 at the hands of the hapless Bears, the funnier it was.

Denver Broncos 24 at Detroit Lions 12

Line: It may not be pretty, but so far it’s working for the Broncos.

What it means: The Denver Broncos may be the most criticized 3-0 team ever. The problem so far has been that their legendary but ancient quarterback, Peyton Manning, has not looked half as good as he has for the entirety of his career. Despite much hemming and hawing about his age and health, my theory is that this has more to do with he and his new coach, Gary Kubiak, feeling each other out. In this game, the Broncos played most of their offensive plays from a formation called the pistol, which was new to both Manning and Kubiak. As the result shows, their experimentation seems to be leading somewhere good.

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.

Why do baseball players slide?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why do baseball players slide? Surely it’s faster to keep running than to slide in the dirt, right?

Thanks,
Ellis

Dear Ellis,

Running is faster than sliding but speed isn’t the only consideration. Baseball players have two other reasons for sliding into a base: elusiveness and stickiness. In this post, we’ll explain each of the major reasons why baseball players slide instead of just running.

Often in a baseball game, a fielder only has to catch the ball while touching the base that a runner is headed toward in order to get him out. This is called a force play and we’ve covered it extensively before, in case you need a refresher. When a force play is not in effect, a fielder must tag the runner in order to get her out. Tagging involves having the ball securely, usually in her glove, and then touching the base runner with the hand or glove that’s holding the ball. In order for a tag to count, the fielder must touch the runner while he isn’t touching the base and must maintain control of the ball throughout the process. A tag is a rapid and precise moment. A fielder sets up near the base, reaches out to catch a throw from a teammate, and then sweeps the glove with the ball in the direction the runner is coming from to try to touch the runner before the runner is able to touch the base. It’s much easier for the fielder and for her teammate who is throwing the ball to aim waist to head high. This offers the best chance for a safely completed throw but it leaves the fielder with the ball pretty high up. Sliding on the ground forces the fielder to have to catch the ball and then sweep it down to reach the runner. This is slower and harder than tagging closer to the height at which the fielder caught the ball.

You might have wondered why I described a successful tag as needing to happen when the runner “isn’t touching the base” as opposed to “before the runner touches the base.” This is because a runner must maintain contact with the base in order to continue to be safe from tags. A runner that touches a base and then stops touching it while play is going on is at risk for being tagged. Sliding helps a base runner stay in touch with the base they are aiming at for the very reason you suggested sliding might not be a good idea – sliding slows the runner down. Sliding is perhaps the only way for a very fast runner to shed the speed she needs to in order to not run by or overrun the base.

There is one giant exception to these calculations about sliding and that’s first base. Because there is always a force play at first base, the first baseman never needs to worry about tagging the runner. Perhaps as a way to even things out, baseball rules allow the runner a similar advantage — the runner doesn’t need to stay in contact with first base. Once a runner touches first base, they are considered on the base as long as they don’t make a move toward second base. This evens things out – the fielder doesn’t have to tag the runner and the runner doesn’t need to bother sliding. Once in a while, you’ll still see players, even professional players, slide in to first base anyway! This is a dumb move and is always met with skepticism and scorn by announcers and knowledgeable fans. Feel free to join in!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

What does it mean to roll with the punches?

Dear Sports Fan,

You know the expression, “roll with the punches?” It means to be adaptable to whatever comes at you in life. Is that a sports phrase? What does it mean to roll with the punches in a sports context?

Thanks,
Sara

Dear Sara,

The phrase “roll with the punches” comes from boxing, where athletes are literally in the business of punching and getting punched. Although many people think of boxing as the ultimate aggressive sport, defense is as important or perhaps even more important than offense. If a boxer can develop techniques to defend themselves from being hit or being hit hard by their opponent, they are well on their way to winning the fight. Rolling with the punches is one defensive option in boxing. What I love about how the expression has moved from its sports context into general use is how precisely the meanings line up with one another. The parallels are almost poetic once you see them. Here’s how rolling with the punches works in boxing.

Getting hit is inevitable in boxing. Oh, sure, boxers are taught to protect themselves with their hands, so punches land harmlessly on padded gloves instead of chins, noses, or stomachs. And yes, dodging a punch is a great idea too. But eventually, every boxer is going to get hit right in the head. This is when the smart boxer rolls with the punch. As they see or feel the punch coming, they move their head or body so that it’s moving the same direction as the punch. If a punch is coming at their head from their left, they move their head backwards and to the right. Watch Mohamed Ali demonstrate with two classic rolls:

This allows the body to arrange itself into an alignment that’s used to moving and proper for moving in the direction the punch will inevitably send it. This protects the boxer from the most damaging element of being hit – the sudden rotational force applied to the brain. This rotational force is what generally knocks a boxer out and causes the worst brain damage. If you watch fights, it’s usually the punch that a boxer doesn’t see and therefore can’t prepare for that knocks him or her out. The head snaps backwards or sideways and you know the fight is over.

Rolling the spot that’s going to get hit with the expected force of the punch protects a boxer from being surprised in this way. If you don’t believe me, take your hands and put them out and up in front of you with your elbows bent and your palms faced out. Get a friend to punch your hands a few times. Experiment with trying to keep your arms rigid (it hurts, right) and then letting your arms go loose and your hands give way as your friend punches them. It hurts a lot less, right?

The beautiful part of this is that in boxing, as in life, every one is going to get hit. If you can find a way to prepare yourself, not with fear or rigid resistance, but with calm acceptance, you can learn to live through most of what the world has to throw at you.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra

 

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