What do I need to know about the 2015 Atlanta Falcons?

National Football League (NFL) previews abound at this time of year. We’re close to the start of the 2015 NFL season and basically everyone in the sports world is in a tizzy, anticipating another great season of the country’s favorite sport. Whether you’re a beginning NFL fan, the family member, friend or partner of an NFL fan, or simply someone who doesn’t follow the league during the offseason, our team previews should get you ready for the season to begin.

If you’re curious about the history and culture surrounding the team, and not just the plot and characters of this edition of the team, read What’s special about the Atlanta Falcons?

How are Atlanta Falcons fans feeling heading into the 2015 NFL season?

Confident but trying not to jinx anything

When are the Atlanta Falcons on national television?

Use this to know when you should host a party with locally (or favorite team-ily) themed food!

Week 1 – vs. the Philadelphia Eagles on Mon, Sep 14 at 07:10 PM.
Week 6 – vs. the New Orleans Saints on Thu, Oct 15 at 08:25 PM.

When is the Atlanta Falcons bye week?

Use this to know when to plan that camping trip you’ve been wanting to go on.

Week 10

What was the Atlanta Falcons record last season, in 2014?

Expressed as: wins – losses – ties (if any).

6 – 10

Who are the Atlanta Falcons most important departed characters?

Head coach of the Falcons since 2008, Mike Smith was fired after last year’s disappointing 6-10 record. The Falcons under Smith went to the playoffs four times in his first five years — a very impressive feat. Since the NFL playoffs, with their single elimination games, are basically a crap-shoot, it’s not hard to feel sympathy for Smith. How differently would he be regarded if the Falcons had lucked into even a single Super Bowl appearance? As it is, he’s remembered (for now) as a relatively bland manager.

Who are the Atlanta Falcons most important new characters?

Smith is replaced by a man who no one would call bland. Dan Quinn, the new head coach of the Falcons, was defensive coordinator for the brash and dominating defense of the Seattle Seahawks for the past two years. In both of those years, the Seahawks advanced to the Super Bowl, thanks in large part to the strength of their defense. A former defensive end and record-setting hammer thrower, Quinn is a dominating presence. Quinn gets a new toy to play with in linebacker Vic Beasley, who the team selected eighth overall in this year’s draft.

Who are the Atlanta Falcons most important characters?

When a team hires a defensive coach as their head coach, they’re making a statement about which side of the ball they feel needs more work. Quarterback Matt Ryan is a big reason why the powers that be in Atlanta felt they could let the offense fend for itself for a little while. Ryan’s public persona is bland but his play is anything but that. For the Falcons to succeed this year, Ryan will have to continue to improve. At age 30, he’s closing in on his peak years as a quarterback.

What is the most pivotal pivot point for the 2015 Atlanta Falcons?

Last year’s defense was one of the very worst in the league. If the new characters on defense can drag the rest of their defensive teammates from terrible to even just bad, the team has a good chance at success.

How will the 2015 Atlanta Falcons fare?

The defense will improve from terrible to bad, the offense will be even better than it has been and the Falcons will win their division.

What do I need to know about the 2015 Arizona Cardinals?

National Football League (NFL) previews abound at this time of year. We’re close to the start of the 2015 NFL season and basically everyone in the sports world is in a tizzy, anticipating another great season of the country’s favorite sport. Whether you’re a beginning NFL fan, the family member, friend or partner of an NFL fan, or simply someone who doesn’t follow the league during the offseason, our team previews should get you ready for the season to begin.

If you’re curious about the history and culture surrounding the team, and not just the plot and characters of this edition of the team, read What’s special about the Arizona Cardinals?

How are Arizona Cardinals fans feeling heading into the 2015 NFL season?

Trepidatious

When are the Arizona Cardinals on national television?

Use this to know when you should host a party with locally (or favorite team-ily) themed food!

Week 7 – vs. the Baltimore Ravens on Mon, Oct 26 at 08:30 PM.
Week 10 – vs. the Seattle Seahawks on Sun, Nov 15 at 08:30 PM.
Week 14 – vs. the Minnesota Vikings on Thu, Dec 10 at 08:25 PM.

When is the Arizona Cardinals bye week?

Use this to know when to plan that camping trip you’ve been wanting to go on.

Week 9

What was the Arizona Cardinals record last season, in 2014?

Expressed as wins – losses – ties (if any).

11 – 5

Who are the Arizona Cardinals most important departed characters?

Todd Bowles: defensive coordinator for the Cardinals in each of the last two years, Bowles left this Spring for a head coaching position in Atlanta. Bowles was a bit of a magician during his time with the Cardinals, keeping his defense aggressive and effective despite changing personel and large numbers of injuries. Cardinals fans are a little scared about how much his loss will hurt the team.

Who are the Arizona Cardinals most important new characters?

The Achilles Heel for last year’s Cardinals was that they were unable to keep a quarterback upright and healthy because their offensive line was so poor. They’ve tried to address that problem by signing veteran guard Mike Iupati from the San Francisco 49ers and drafted Tackle D.J. Humphries from Florida in the 24th pick of the first round. Neither of these moves will launch the offensive line to stardom, but the hope is that they shift it from terrible to mediocre.

Who are the Arizona Cardinals most important characters?

Head Coach Bruce Arians is almost always the biggest character in the room. He’s an iconoclast who wears his weirdness literally on his head. He’s famous for wearing kangol hats. When it comes to football, he’s ready to try just about anything that might work but he has some clear preferences. On offense, he wants to throw the ball farther down the field more often than any other coach in the league. This high-risk, high-reward strategy asks a lot of the team’s quarterbacks and offensive linemen, which has been a problem in the last two years.

What is the most pivotal pivot point for the 2015 Arizona Cardinals?

Will the offensive line improve enough to keep the Cardinals quarterback of choice, 35-year old Carson Palmer, survivor of two torn ACLs and a damaged nerve in his shoulder already, healthy enough to play out the season?

How will the 2015 Arizona Cardinals fare?

Nah… the line will be better but Palmer will probably get injured anyway. That’s football, I guess, but it does feel a little tragic. Arizona won’t have as good of a record as last year.

Deflategate: How Brady and the NFL have already won

Today or tomorrow, U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Berman will rule in the legal case between quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and the National Football League which wants to suspend him for four games for participating in or having knowledge of the illicit deflation of some of the footballs the Patriots played offense with during the AFC Championship game last spring or at least of not having cooperated fully in the NFL’s investigation of the incident. When Judge Berman rules, he will effectively write the ending of a saga that has lasted throughout the NFL’s offseason. There may be appeals after this, but because the new season starts in a week, they probably won’t last long or be hotly followed. Judge Berman can rule in any of three ways. He could uphold the NFL’s suspension of Brady, he could eliminate the suspension, or he could reduce the penalty to a shorter suspension or even just a fine.

In days past, this second paragraph would have been a bulleted list of the outcomes with a short explanation of what to say about each possible outcome. This is still a practical way to think about preparing for the Deflategate ruling, but not the most meaningful one. That’s because, with the ruling (finally) approaching, it seems clear that regardless of the legal outcome, the outcome in popular opinion has already settled inextricably into a simple mold: both sides have won.

Tom Brady and the Patriots have won the battle of public opinion. When the Deflategate controversy first broke, most people believed that Brady or the Patriots had doctored the footballs. This was partially because the NFL and some media outlets were telling the public that this was true but also just because it seemed like something the Patriots and Brady would do. Everyone knows the Patriots are shady! Believing that they would be shady in this particular way was a small leap for most non-Patriot fan football fans. Throughout the spring and summer, the Patriots waged a fairly impressive war for public opinion, starting with Bellichick’s mildly bizarre foray into the science of gasses and continuing as Brady appealed the NFL’s decision and then took the league to court. In court, Judge Berman has been publicly quite critical of the NFL’s handling of the situation. By now, most people either believe that the balls were never deflated, or that if they were, Brady had nothing to do with it, or at least that the NFL’s investigation and ruling on the matter has been so out of proportion to the crime as to render the crime itself insignificant. People on the other side of the issue are either biased fans of rival teams or moralizing, holier-than-thou teetotalers.

The NFL has lost in the court of public opinion, so how can they also have won? Back in February, I asked whether the entire Deflategate controversy was a clever piece of misdirection on the NFL’s part to keep the football world talking about balls instead of brain injuries. Perhaps Deflategate was something the NFL was using to keep football fans and media from writing about the far more disturbing and threatening twin issues of brain injury and domestic violence that should have dominated the football conversation in the fallow period leading up to the Super Bowl. I was wrong — we were going to keep talking about Deflategate all through the offseason, but maybe I was also right. The NFL is in a tight spot when it comes to brain injuries. After years (maybe decades) of denying their impact on players, the league now needs to find a way to address the causes and consequences of brain injury and concussion before it robs them of their workforce and consumer base in any meaningful way. The NFL has not yet come up with any realistic solutions to address the problem (maybe they should read my proposed solution!) The football world would have been focused completely on brain injuries, especially when as amazing a focal point as the retirement of 24 year-old linebacker Chris Borland appeared, but instead it talked about deflated balls and morality all summer. Regardless of how bad the NFL looks on those topics, they are not a threat to football in the way that brain injuries are. By keeping the Deflategate “scandal” going all summer, the NFL has won another season to solve the concussion crisis. That’s a victory for them too.

Judge Berman’s ruling will be announced soon and what it is will seem like a referendum on who “won” the Deflategate scandal. If the suspension is upheld, it will seem like the NFL won. If it is eliminated, it will seem like Brady and the Patriots won. If Brady’s penalty is reduced but not eliminated, it may seem like the two sides fought to a draw. This will be an illusion. Regardless of the Judge’s ruling, both sides have already won.

Why are some tournaments called opens?

Dear Sports Fan,

I’m excited that the U.S. Open tennis tournament is starting this week. I have a question which you might be able to answer though: why are some tournaments called opens? Who are they open to?

Thanks,
Becky

Dear Becky,

In today’s sports language, the word “open” is almost a synonym for the word “tournament”. If you ask a tennis fan what she’s watching in the next couple weeks, she’ll say, “the U.S. Open” not “the U.S. Open tournament”. In a more technical sense, the term does make a distinction between one type of tournament and another. In a non-open (sometimes called an “invitational”) tournament, all of the places in the tournament will be filled by professional tennis players based on a current ranking that is maintained by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). An open tournament doles out most of its places to players based on the same rankings but it reserves a small number of spots (16 for men, 8 to 16 for women) for people who qualify by winning or doing well in a qualifying tournament. (Side note — players who don’t win their qualifying tournament but who make it into an Open field anyway are wonderfully called Lucky Losers.) These qualifying tournaments are open to professional and amateur players. Amateur qualifiers have rarely made an impact in recent years. In men’s tennis, a qualifier named Vladimir Voltchkov made it to the semifinals in the 2000 Wimbledon and during the 2015 British Open (of golf), an amateur qualifier named Paul Dunne was tied for the lead after the third of four rounds. Nonetheless, the inclusive nature of open tournaments adds to their romance. Like an open cup in European soccer, the fact that an unknown could win is enough to justify their inclusion.

Given current use of the “open” moniker, you’d be forgiven for thinking that tournaments have historically been the province of professional players and the opening of open tournaments has always been to allow amateurs to join in. Historically, at least in tennis, it’s actually exactly the opposite. Before 1968 the major tennis tournaments each year were open only to amateurs. In 1968, they all began to allow professionals to compete. This change was reflected in the name of two of the tournaments. The U.S. National Championships became the U.S. Open and the Australian Championships became the Australian Open. In today’s money fueled sports world, it seems crazy to think that professionals were excluded and amateurs preferred, but that’s how things were in tennis before 1968.

Enjoy the U.S. Open! Here are two printable brackets that you can use to track the action. The 16 qualifiers are labeled with a “(Q)” in the men’s draw and the women’s draw as well.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

What does "tale of the tape" mean?

Dear Sports Fan,

You’re good with words and phrases. I was watching Rachael Maddow the other day and she said she was doing a special “tale of the tape” show. What does “tale of the tape” mean? Is it some kind of sports thing?

Thanks,
Ellis

Dear Ellis,

The phrase “tale of the tape” refers to making an objective comparison, particularly between two combatants. It comes from the sport of boxing where fighters are measured and weighed before a fight.

The pre-fight measurement has an important function but it also has its share of pageantry. To make boxing reasonably fair, it is organized into weight classes. For example, the famous fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns in 1981 was fought in the welterweight category. Both fighters had to be less than 147 pounds and more than 140 pounds during the weigh-in, which is usually the night before the fight. For a professional fight, the minimum weight is usually waived, but for amateurs, it’s an important safety element. Why the obsession with weight? Assuming that most boxers are not flabby, weight translates almost directly from muscle and height into punching power. The heavyweight class, the most traditionally prestigious weight class, has no maximum weight, only a minimum of 200 pounds, and even that isn’t enforced. So why do heavyweight fights still have weigh-ins the day before? Part of the answer is that the weigh in has become an important part of hyping or developing interest for the fight. The boxers pose for promotional photos with eyes locked on each other and fists cocked. Often trash talk is exchanged. Sometimes they even come to blows, although that’s usually put to an end quickly. The other reason is that the boxers’ weight, height, and reach are important factors for people who are betting on the fight. Reach, for example, or wingspan, as it would be referred to in a non-boxing context, is important because one fighter being able to punch the other from a distance at which they cannot be punched back is a big advantage.

The word, “tape,” in the phrase, “tale of the tape” suggests that reach or height were the first measurement being referred to. After all, what else do you measure with a measuring tape? Over time, the phrase has expanded, not just to include weight, but also other semi-objective measurements like a fighter’s previous record, what championship belts they possess, as well as biographical information like where they are from. In this context, it combines making an objective comparison with simply describing the fighter. That’s likely the sense in which Rachael Maddow was using the phrase. Did she do a comparison of two candidates which included objective information about their positions as well as stories about their past?

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

How to plan for the week of Aug 31 – Sept 6, 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.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday: Uh… I thought the sports doldrums of the summer season were over, but here they come again, in waves of sports wilderness. With European soccer leagues paused during their transfer period and the college and professional football seasons just about to take off, there’s basically nothing on the sports schedule except tennis. The U.S. Open opens in Queens, NY, on Monday and you can spend all day watching them, from 11 a.m. until late in the evening. There are always a few upsets in the early rounds of the tournament and the crowd is second to none.

 

Thursday: If you’re sick of tennis by Thursday, (and if you really spend all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday watching it, you might be), then breathe a sigh of relief, Thursday brings variety to this week’s sports. Iceland probably doesn’t have a chance against the Netherlands in their men’s soccer European Championships qualifying match, but you never know. In the evening, tune into one of the first big college football games to watch Michigan and their new coach, Jim Harbaugh, who once starred as a quarterback there, play against Utah.

Friday: Date night takes on a patriotic tone this week as the U.S. men’s national soccer team plays against Peru. Earlier in the day, the deep and tortured history of conflict between Germany and Poland plays itself out on the soccer field as well.

Saturday: Football, football, football! This is the first truly full day of the college football schedule. There are good games to watch from noon to midnight and beyond, but the one that I’m most interested is Alabama, one of the favorites to win the championship, against Wisconsin, a team that has a punchers chance of beating them. Two playoff teams face off in one of the last games of the NWSL regular season. There’s more tennis and a NASCAR race, as well as some rare international Rugby Union action on NBC Sports Network.

Sunday: The week closes with, (yes), more tennis from the U.S. Open. Pending rain, the Round of 16 should start today, and that’s where you start to see the best play against the best. Other than that, there’s the final round of the week’s golf tournament, another NASCAR race, a decent MLS matchup, and boxing on CBS.

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.

Sports reads: Is winning everything? Is it anything?

The topic of winning is a natural one in sports. Sports are, after all, one of life’s few activities that have clear and objective winners and losers. That’s one of the appeals of sports. It’s therefore very interesting when things happen to subvert the reward of winning, even within sports. This week, we’re featuring four articles that approach the topic of winning from a different point of view.

Fuck Winning

by Albert Burneko for Deadspin

Burneko got his start on Deadspin writing about food and quickly became hotly anticipated must-read-out-loud material in my household. Recently he’s made the move to non-food commentary and his stuff is just as good. This week, he responded to James Harrison, and NFL veteran, who publicly and triumphantly returned a participation trophy that one of his children had been given. 

The big grown-up world is coming up behind my children—behind James Harrison’s kids and yours, too, if you have them. To sort them: those who will prosper, or falter; those whom the barbarism we have enshrined into our way of life will reward, and those it will devour; those who will strive with their whole selves to make their way in that grown-up world and then unknowingly choose to attend the same prayer meeting as Dylann Roof and be snatched out of it in violence and fear and confusion, whether they got trophies for participating in sports or not.

For now, for now, for as long as I can have it, the reason to do things—to play sports, to do work, to get out of bed in the morning—is because the privilege is a fucking miracle, because it might allow my children to be children now, now, today, before the least consideration of long-term goals and competition and getting ahead may intrude upon the impulse a little kid gets to put a balloon inside his shirt and make another little kid laugh.

Soccer’s Poor Little Rich Clubs

by Joshua Robinson for the Wall Street Journal

Although European countries tend to be more socialist than ours, European club soccer is way more capitalist. The movement of teams from one level-league to the next higher or lower carries with it incredible financial consequences. For smaller teams, just making it into the top league, even if they then lose all their games, is a giant victory.

Europe’s major leagues all operate on a system of promotion and relegation. The bottom two or three clubs every season are demoted to the division below and replaced by the best teams beneath them. In the richest leagues, it’s like a revolving door to the billionaires’ club… 

And as television revenue reaches new heights, the microclubs all make the same bet. A couple of seasons at their country’s top table can translate to years of financial stability. It isn’t about winning titles. It is about surviving—even briefly.

Roger Goodell vs. Tom Brady: The Ultimate Revenge-of-Mediocrity Story

by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone

In court, no one wins, not even the winner. That’s the message of this acerbic article about the continuing Deflategate “scandal” in the NFL.

If Goodell wins this court battle, sports pundits will line up to talk about what a “brilliant” PR strategist Goodell is, how he’s “masterfully” scored a public relations “knockout” of the once-iconic Brady.

Except this Iago-esque campaign of diabolical leaks, secret indictments and double punishments has been conducted against his most marketable player for…why exactly? What other business would spend such an awesome amount of time, money, and most of all cunning undermining its key employees?

It’s like concocting a brilliant plan to break into a supermax prison. Hey, you made it, congratulations, that’s a hell of a tunnel you built there. Now what was the point again?

Medieval Times: The Armored Combat League Makes Sport Out of Swords and Shields

by Jason Concepcion for Grantland

Concepcion spends a fair amount of time marveling at the wild sport that people have forged from a history of armored combat, but its his ironic take on the appeal of this history that caught my eye. 

Once upon a time, the subset of Americans who are drawn to the ren-faire-style wizards, wenches, and knights trappings of medieval Europe were looked upon by their countrymen with collective fascination, if at all. Such behavior existed under the general umbrella of Nerd Shit. But now, after the one-two punch of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Game of Thrones becoming a global phenomenon, a not-insignificant portion of Americans have a cursory knowledge of heraldry and feudalism.

For all its courtly affectations, Europe’s medieval period was essentially a religiously fractious, war-torn dystopia… Which is to say, its appeal has never seemed more obvious.

How to plan for the week of Aug 24 – 30, 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.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Liverpool vs. Arsenal is a hack of a game. Nice work by the British Premier League setting that up. If you work a 9-5 (or 6, as they seem to be these days,) set your DVR and watch the soccer when you get home. There’s no point in watching any NFL Preseason game, really, but the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers is truly pointless.

Tuesday: Do you enjoy watching little league baseball? I do. More than other sports, baseball is fun to watch for joy of the game, not skill of the players. Monaco vs. Valencia is the best of the early season UEFA Champions League play.

Wednesday: Manchester United looked strong in the first half of their two game series against the Belgian Team, Club Brugge. They won 3-1 and should easily advance in today’s soccer game. There’s more little league baseball in the afternoon and then a NWSL match in the evening. The Boston Breakers are in last place and the Seattle Reign are in first. The last time these two teams played, I was there in person, and the Reign won handily despite some very spirited defense from the Breakers.

Thursday: There’s nothing quite like a Canadian Football league game sandwiched between two little league baseball games. Think of it like a really weird sports ice-cream sandwich.

Friday: Date night! I think an NFL preseason game would be a hard sell, but a West Coast MLS rivalry game? Also… probably a hard sell. Neither one is a good hill to die on.

Saturday: Football, football, football, football. It’s not even time for the start of the NFL season yet and we’ve already got a weekend dominated by football. Watch some high school kids at noon and then the championship of the Arena Football League at seven p.m. The British Premier League schedule in the morning isn’t star studded, but the Tottenham vs. Everton game does feature two of the more popular teams in the U.S. market.

Sunday: There’s no hotter rivalry in United States soccer than that between the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. If you don’t believe me, watch the match at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN. The final day of competition at the IIAF track and field World Championships should be a doozy, especially if Usain Bolt continues to struggle. I’m also interested in the last NWSL regular season game of the season on Fox Sports 1 between the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit.

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.

Dear Sports Fan's Football Fan and Friend Fantasy Football League

Joining a fantasy football league can be an intimidating prospect. It’s a big commitment – usually 16 weeks. Fantasy football seems to require a great deal of knowledge about and passion for football. Then, you add a level of game-play on top of that. Fantasy football is also challenging from a social perspective. Leagues are closed societies with their own culture and expected behavior. The people in them look like they are having a ton of fun but it’s almost impossible to share their enjoyment if you’re not on the inside. All of this adds up to making fantasy football a difficult thing for beginners to break into. This fall, we’re going to try to find a soluton!

Dear Sports Fan’s Football Fan and Friend Fantasy Football League (the DSFFFFFFL for short) is a brand new kind of fantasy football league. Teams will be owned and operated by pairs of people: one a football and fantasy football veteran; the other, someone who is brand new to fantasy football. Throughout the process, we’ll be open and attentive to explaining anything that needs explaining. Both sides will learn a lot and have fun too! I’ll write about the league in Dear Sports Fan and will likely ask for each pair of owners to do a podcast with me about the experience sometime during the year.

  • If you’ve ever wanted to play fantasy football but were afraid to try, find an experienced friend of yours and get her to join with you.
  • If you’re an experienced fantasy owner who has always wanted to share the experience with a friend of yours, invite him to join the DSFFFFFFL.

Send an email to dearsportsfan@gmail.com with a little bit of information about who each of you is and how you know each other. We will be taking applicants until Saturday, August 29.

Sports Stories: Derek Blackman, a fan of Miroslav Klose

Miroslav Klose is a 37 year-old German soccer player of Polish descent. Derek Blackman was born in New Jersey but moved to North Carolina when he was four. He kept his early allegiances to the New York Jets and New York Yankees, added a love for the Chicago Bulls, and adopted UNC as his North Carolina college basketball team. He became a soccer fan recently, during the 2014 World Cup. Germany and specifically Klose jumped out at him. He became a fan, and the rest is history. We captured some of that history in this podcast. Enjoy!

 

On why he roots for Klose:

He took it upon himself to be a leader… He was always creating opportunities and always scoring goals.

To me, Klose will always be the GOAT (greatest of all time). Some poeple say, “Oh no, Lionel Messi is the GOAT, some people say Pele is the GOAT… but this is my generation and I never really paid much attention to Klose before i started watching the World Cup last year, but he always stands out because he’s the greatest.

A little known Klose family fact:

Miroslav has a brother, Timm, who is 6’4″ and also plays soccer professionally.

On Klose telling a ref he scored a goal illegally with his hand:

When he said he scored a goal with his hand and told the ref about it, he was being modest. He didn’t want to take credit for a goal he didn’t score. I’m just going to tell the ref… so they might view me in a different light.

The one thing Derek would like a non-sports fan to know about sports or sports fans:

That sports unites all. Even if you don’t like sports, you can sit with someone who watches sports and you can ask them a question as a non-sports fan… like, “hey, why did they throw that flag” or in soccer, “why did the ref pull the yellow card.” And if you explain something to them, they might be actually interested in it.