Tag: football

Do Not Watch This Game 10.10.14 Weekend Edition

For sports fans, the weekend is a cornucopia of wonderful games to watch. This is particularly true in the fall with its traditional pattern of College Football on Saturday and NFL Football on Sunday and Monday. As the parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend of a sports fan, this can be a challenge. It must be true that some games are more important to watch than others but it’s hard to know which is which. As a sports fan, the power of habit and hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars get in the way of remembering to take a break from sports and do something with your parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend. To aid all of us in this, and just because it’s fun, I’m going to write a weekly post highlighting a single game that is ideal for skipping. Use this to help tell yourself or someone else: “Do not watch this game!”

Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET, NFL Football, St. Louis Rams vs. San Francisco 49ers. It’s on ESPN but do not watch this game!

This looks like it should be a good game. Both teams are in the NFC West, which was, by consensus, thought of as the best division in the NFL after last season. Last year, the four teams in the division combined for a 42-22 record last year and if you exclude the games they played against one another, that record improves to 30-10. The 49ers made it to the semifinals last year where they lost to division rival and eventual champion, Seattle. The fourth member of the division, the Arizona Cardinals, just barely missed out on the playoffs but had a 10-6 record. The Rams were the only team in the division last year not to make the playoffs and to have a losing record at 7-9 but we’re widely said to have been “stronger” than their record.

So, why wouldn’t this game be appointment television? Well, for one, things change fast in the NFL. The teams aren’t as strong as they were last year. The Rams lost their starting quarterback to a season ending injury in the pre-season. They’re playing pretty well on offense behind first-time starter Austin Davis but their defense has basically collapsed. They are allowing an average of almost 30 points per game which is third worst in the league. This won’t help make the game more exciting because even last year, games between these two teams weren’t that close. The 49ers beat the Rams by 10 and 24 points last year.

Last, and this is oddly important to me and other sports fans, this game just doesn’t have many potentially fun story-lines regardless of its outcome. A 49ers victory would engender basically no story at all. They are expected to win. A Rams win would only fuel the prevailing “What’s wrong with the 49ers?” story which, so far, has been answered with a chorus of “they hate their coach.” Teams hate their coaches all the time, it’s not that interesting.

Alternate: If you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of one of these two teams, then this isn’t a good game to skip. Instead, skip the CBS early game at 1:00 on Sunday afternoon between the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets unless you enjoy watching a finely tuned piece of machinery cut through a confused mess.

When fantasy football gets real

Fantasy football is so commonplace that we never stop to think about how funny it is. Luckily two NFL players recognized the humor for us…

Fantasy football has become such a popular game that it’s become quite commonplace. We rarely stop to think about how weird it all is. Millions of people play a game based on the statistics generated from hundreds of people playing a different game. That’s weird! It’s especially weird for the couple hundred people who are notable enough football players that their names and statistics are the ones being used in fantasy football. Two NFL players made news recently by playing with the comical boundary between fantasy and reality this past week.

Glenn Davis of the USA Today reported that New York Giants Tight End Larry Donnell lost his fantasy football game last week because he chose to start 49ers Tight End Vernon Davis over himself! Little did he know that he was going to catch three touchdowns in the Giants game versus Washington while Davis was going to leave his game against Philadelphia early with an injured back. Whoops! As a fantasy owner, it’s comforting to know that even the player involved has no idea before the game whether or not he’s going to do better than another player.

Barry Petchesky of Deadspin reported recently on another NFL player having fun with fantasy. San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Stevie Johnson has been perpetrating a running joke on his twitter feed. He pretends that he is fielding a “Fantasy Work team” and his twitter followers reply with clever reasons to be included on or excluded from his team. It’s an incredibly clever gag. Here are a few of my favorites:

Johnson himself continues to be a surprisingly useful fantasy player himself. In the past three weeks he’s had one game with 100 yards receiving and two other games with a touchdown. As good as he is at football, he’s probably even better to have in a fantasy good-natured-comedy league!

Cue Cards 10-6-14

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

clapperboard
Yesterday —  Sunday, October 5

  1. Two baseball sweeps — The Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles both won games yesterday to complete three straight out of five game sweeps of their American League division series. In case you need to check quickly, this is how the Major League baseball playoffs work. The Royals beat the Los Angeles Angels 8-3 and the Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers 2-1.
    Line: I guess in this case, having the early series be a best three out of five instead of four out of seven was the right choice. Both teams won convincingly in sweeps.
    What’s Next: The Royals and the Orioles get a little rest before their series starts on Friday. That’s because the four teams in the National League, the Cardinals, Dodgers, Nationals, and Giants are still playing their divisional series. The National League divisional series continue today.
  2. An exciting day in the NFL — The NFL had its customary slate of games yesterday but they were more closely contested than most weekends. There were two overtime games and another won in the last second. All the recaps you want or need can be found in our NFL One Liners column.
    Line: Football overtime isn’t as good as hockey or baseball overtime but it’s still unusual and exciting.
    What’s Next: Monday night football is lined up to be a clunker. It’s a good chance to do something else!

Week Five NFL One Liners

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

Week 5

Sunday, October 5, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Buffalo Bills 17, at Detroit Lions 14

The first of a series of extremely close games this week. The Bills beat the Lions on a last minute 58 yard field goal. That’s an incredibly difficult feat. Kickers are not totally accepted in the football fraternity but when you need them, it’s good to have a good one.
Line: I guess benching quarterback EJ Manuel was a good idea for the Bills.

Baltimore Ravens 13, at Indianapolis Colts 20

Two good teams played a pretty good game. One won but they’ll both be fine in the long term.
Line: When in doubt, go with the better quarterback. Andrew Luck on the Colts is better than most.

Chicago Bears 24, at Carolina Panthers 31

The Bears continue to torture their fan base by looking like a supremely talented team… and then losing. Meanwhile, in an attempt to prove how crazy football players really are, Panthers quarterback Cam Newton had four wisdom teeth taken out in the last week and played professional football on Sunday.
Line: Can you imagine having four wisdom teeth taken out and then playing football a few days later?

Houston Texans 17, at Dallas Cowboys 20

The battle of Texas was won by big-brother Dallas but little-brother Houston really made them work for it. The whole “battle of Texas” thing is probably more of a media creation than a real rivalry because the two teams play in different divisions and conferences but it sure made for a good game anyway.
Line: Love them or hate them, the Cowboys do seem to play in an inordinate number of exciting games.

Pittsburgh Steelers 17, at Jacksonville Jaguars 9

The Jaguars fall to 0-5 making them one of only two unvictorious teams left. They’re really just not as good at football as the rest of the teams.
Line: The Jaguars will probably win a game at some point but it’s hard to imagine when.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31, at New Orleans Saints 37

The second overtime game of the day, two weeks ago the Buccaneers had just been humiliated on national television and were winless. Now they’ve won one game and taken another good team to overtime. Although, really, how sure are we that the Saints are good? Not very.
Line: This game says more about the Saints (in a bad way) than it does about the Buccaneers (in a good way.)

Atlanta Falcons 20, at New York Giants 30

This game was a microcosm of the Giants’ season so far. They fell behind 20-10 just like they started the year 0-2. Then they seemed to get their act together and came back to score the next twenty points just like they’ve won the last three games to get to 3-2.
Line: When Eli Manning retires from football he should go right to his next career as the villain in a zombie movie. Every time you think he’s down, he rises back up.

St. Louis Rams 28, at Philadelphia Eagles 34

The fate of the Rams seems to be to scare teams but not to beat them this year. The Eagles, on the other hand, are specialists this year in finding ways to win without looking all that dominant.
Line: The Eagles look like the weakest 4-1 team I can remember seeing.

SUNDAY, October 5, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Arizona Cardinals 20, at Denver Broncos 41

This game exemplifies the current era of the NFL. A good offense beats a good defense every time. The Broncos have a great offense and the Cardinals have a very good defense. It wasn’t close.
Line: A good offense beats a good defense every time.

Kansas City Chiefs 17, at San Francisco 49ers 22

A couple years ago, the 49ers decided to move on from Quarterback Alex Smith and go with Colin Kaepernick. Smith went to play in Kansas City and Kaepernick took over the starting job in San Francisco. Since then, both quarterbacks have played extremely well. Today, Smith’s old team beat his new team but there’s no shame in that.
Line: Football is a team game. It’s too simple to make it into Smith vs. Kaepernick or any one player against another.

New York Jets 0, at San Diego Chargers 31

Whoa. Uh oh. The New York media was out for struggling Jets quarterback Geno Smith after last week’s poor performance and slight misbehavior (he cursed at some fans.) I can’t imagine how hard their going to slam him this week.
Line: Smith’s time as a starter in NY might be done.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Cincinnati Bengals 17, at New England Patriots 43

The NFL stands for the National Football League but people often say it stands for the No Fun League or the Not For Long league. This game was an exhibition of why people call it the Not For Long league. The Bengals were undefeated coming into the game an the Patriots had just spent a week in an existential crisis over old-age and poor performance. Not for long!
Line: I guess Tom Brady and Bill Bellichick still remember how to win.

News Clippings: The Business of Sports

ReadsOne of my favorite parts of writing Dear Sports Fan is reading other great writers cover sports in a way that’s accessible and compelling for the whole spectrum from super-fans to lay people. Here are selections from some of the articles this week that inspired me. Sports can be followed on many levels. For some fans, only the action that takes place during the games matters. For most fans, following sports means watching games, learning the personalities of players and coaches, and following the business of sports attentively. For most of this fall, the leading story in the business of sports has been the mishandling of domestic violence by the NFL. Bryan Curtis of Grantland argues that, although the focus of the storm, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, is still standing, the public uproar has had some positive impact. Despite the storm, the NFL is still eyeing potential expansion to London. Jenny Vrentas writes about how the NFL might work in London in The MMQB. Meanwhile, established international sport organizations are receiving their fair share of criticism as well. Dan Wetzel and Tom Ley wrote wonderfully about the International Olympic Committee, rivaled in its corruption and general crumminess by the international soccer organization FIFA.

The Goodell Blackout

By Bryan Curtis for Grantland

By blasting Goodell in print, sportswriters acted as pulling guards for the government officials in Washington, who are now torturing the league by threatening to revoke many of its long-standing perks.

Since 1975, a Federal Communications Commission rule has given the league an imprimatur to remove games that don’t sell out from local TV and cable. If it’s 15 below zero when the Packers take the field, the FCC’s chairman recently noted, then Packers fans have to buy all the tickets or find a TV in Chicago. That sounds like extortion.

For years, the NFL has also protected its federal tax-exempt status. The exemption dates back to 1966, and although it has been a perennial talking point for politicians of all stripes, it has also been considered inviolable. “Revoking the tax exemption isn’t in the cards,” the Washington Post argued on September 15. “The NFL doesn’t lose games on Capitol Hill.” Well, that was before Goodell’s lousy press conference and two more weeks of heavy shelling from the press.

Finally, pressure from sportswriters forced action inside the NFL, too. When Goodell was still staggered from the release of the second tape, the NFL suddenly got serious about revising its drug policy.

Why London and Can it Work?

By Jenny Vrentas in The MMQB

The International Series has been a testing ground for the logistics of basing a team abroad.

Teams scheduled to play in London begin planning for their trips in February. They take two reconnaissance visits overseas in the spring. In August they send a shipment of bulk supplies by boat to save money and space on the team plane. Included in the Raiders’ shipment: 10 cases of 8.5 x 11-inch computer paper for play sheets (standard paper is a different size in the U.K.), a couple hundred cases of Gatorade (teams are superstitious about flavors) and 600 outlet plug converters.

“As long as they get their paychecks,” Bills Hall-of-Famer Andre Reed assured the forum of local fans, “players would play in Alaska.”

Steve Smallwood, 49, of Eastbourne, on the Channel coast, sees the growth of American football in the U.K. as a good thing, the same way he views the growth of MLS in the U.S. “And,” he offers, “I’d rather watch American football than rugby.”

Why no one wants to host the 2022 Olympics

By Dan Wetzel for Yahoo Sports

Essentially the only places interested in hosting the 2022 games are countries where actual citizens aren’t allowed a real say in things – communist China and Kazakhstan, a presidential republic that coincidentally has only had one president since it split from the old USSR in 1989.

“The vote is not a signal against the sport, but against the non-transparency and the greed for profit of the IOC,” Ludwig Hartmann, a German politician said when his country said no.

The IOC has billions of dollars laying around and billions more coming because to most people the Olympics is just a television show and the ratings are so high that the broadcast rights will never go down. The IOC doesn’t pay the athletes. It doesn’t share revenue with host countries. It doesn’t pay for countries to send their athletes. It doesn’t lay out any construction or capital costs. It doesn’t pay taxes.

Top Female Soccer Players Sue FIFA Over Bullshit Artificial Turf

By Tom Leyfor Screamer

After weeks of pleading with FIFA to change its mind about playing the 2015 women’s World Cup on field turf instead of grass and being met with nothing but stubbornness, a handful of women’s soccer’s biggest stars have filed a lawsuit against FIFA to try and force the organization to put the upcoming games back on grass.

Turf sucks, everyone knows it, and there’s no way FIFA will force it upon the men’s game if it continues to cut up and piss off players around the world. But that won’t stop the organization from crapping all over the biggest tournament in the women’s game by forcing women to play on it. The only thing that sucks worse than turf is FIFA.

NFL Week 5 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precaps

Good Cop, Bad CopThe NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the Week 5 matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps. If you’re worried about watching too much football or if you’re negotiating for a little break during the weekend, read our weekly feature, Do Not Watch This Game.

Week 5

Sunday, October 5, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Buffalo Bills at Detroit Lions

Good cop: The legendary Kyle Orton comes off the bench to lead the Bills against the Lions!

Bad cop: He’s legendary for his neck beard, not his football prowess.

Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: Baltimore takes on the team that Indianapolis stole from their city! It’s the ultimate revenge game!

Bad cop: The Colts left Baltimore 30 years ago — do you really think people are still angry?

Chicago Bears at Carolina Panthers

Good cop: Two good teams with high hopes for the year face off after crushing defeats last weekend! I want to see which team can bounce back!

Bad cop: More than just crushing, those defeats last week were revealing of flaws that neither of these teams are going to be able to overcome this year. Let’s move on.

Houston Texans at Dallas Cowboys

Good cop: It’s the battle of Texas! The lone-star state! Everything is bigger and better in Texas, especially their two 3-1 football teams!

Bad cop: You got me. I’m going to watch this game until Texans defensive lineman J. J. Watt eats and digests Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. Which will happen within five minutes.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Jacksonville Jaguars

Good cop: Last week the Steelers lost to a winless Tampa Bay team! Will Jacksonville get their first win this weekend?

Bad cop: No.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints

Good cop: Avast there Matey! This game pits the two scurviest crews of scalawags in a contest of blood and guts! Yaaaarrr!

Bad cop:  You do know that Saints are not a type of pirate, right?

Atlanta Falcons at New York Giants

Good cop: The Giants are on a roll! The Falcons are on a roll! After this week, only one will remain on a roll!

Bad cop: First it’s pirates, now it’s sandwiches? You’re confusing. And making me hungry. 

St. Louis Rams at Philadelphia Eagles

Good cop: I’m fascinated by the Eagles! They’ve overcome injuries to almost all of their offensive linemen to make it to a 3-1 record over the first four weeks. How long can they keep this up?

Bad cop: I’m having trouble expressing why, but I just don’t want to watch this game. And I don’t think anyone else who isn’t a green-fonted lunatic would want to either. 

SUNDAY, October 5, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Arizona Cardinals at Denver Broncos

Good cop: The 3-0 Cardinals and the defending ACF champion Broncos must have used their bye (or off) weeks to plan how to beat each other! This game is going to be a festival of tactics! 

Bad cop: Tactics you say? I’m going to go all the way out on the limb and say that the team with Peyton Manning is going to beat the team without Peyton Manning

Kansas City Chiefs at San Francisco 49ers

Good cop: Two teams on opposite trajectories! The Chiefs are springing back to the top of the heap after a bad first two weeks! The 49ers’ curve is like a U so far! Win, loss, loss, win!

Bad cop: Both teams are stumbling their way to winning half their games and losing half their games. That’s literally average. Could. Not. Be. Less. Interesting.

New York Jets at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: Is this the last chance for Jets quarterback Geno Smith? He’s exciting to watch but he makes lots of mistakes including cursing at the New York fans in New Jersey last weekend! 

Bad cop: Every disappointing, angry New Yorker should get a chance to go to San Diego. They just shouldn’t start at quarterback.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Cincinnati Bengals at New England Patriots

Good cop: The day of reckoning is here for the Patriots! Tom Brady has had nothing but bad things to say all week! Bill Bellichick hasn’t really said anything but you can tell he’s not happy! They need to beat the Bengals to right the ship but the Bengals are undefeated!

Bad cop: Day of reckoning? I reckon the Patriots will find a way to win nine games this year. Which is probably all they’ll need to make the playoffs because their division is so weak.

MONDAY, October 6, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Seattle Seahawks at Washington Redskins

Good cop: It’s… uh… umm… football! Hooray!

Bad cop: Do not watch this game.

Cue Cards 10-3-14

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

clapperboard
Yesterday —  Thursday, October 2

  1. The Royals magic continues — The Kansas City Royals won game one of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Angels 3-2. Like their first game of the playoffs, this game went into extra innings. Mike Moustakas hit a home run in the eleventh inning to push the Royals ahead of the Angels.
    Line: The Royals sure are exciting!
    What’s Next: Game two is Friday night at 9:37 p.m. ET on TBS.
  2. Beat down in Baltimore — The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers 12 – 3 in game one of their playoff series. Baltimore isn’t quite the feel-good story that the Royals are but they have only made the playoffs one other time since 1997, so they’re a good underdog to root for also.
    Line: Detroit has such great pitchers, you don’t expect to see them lose in such a lopsided, high-scoring game.
    What’s next: Game two is Friday at noon ET on TBS.
  3. You wanna buy a duck? — The Oregon Ducks’ college football team went into last night’s game ranked number two in the country. They lost 31-24 to Arizona. This is the second straight year that Arizona has upset them. The Ducks are famous for their dynamic spread-offense and their flamboyant uniforms. The coach of Arizona’s team, Rich Rodriguez, spent many years coaching at West Virginia about ten years ago where he was one of the early adopters of the spread-offense. Perhaps he knows how to defend it better than most.
    Line: Sad to see the Ducks lose so early in the season. That said, they’re the most exciting when they are looking to upset the top teams, not the other way around.
  4. Thursday Night NFL games continue to stink — There’s so many reasons to dislike having NFL games on Thursdays. It breaks the rhythm of the weekend, it sullies fantasy games, it’s terrible for the health of the players, and it’s a unabashed money grab by the NFL, but perhaps the best argument against them is that they stink! So far this year, of the five Thursday games, the scores have been 36-16, 26-6, 56-14, 45-14, and now, 42-10 with last night’s Green Bay Packers win over the Minnesota Vikings. No fun!
    Line: It’s barely even worth watching these Thursday night games. They’re over before they even get started.

Do Not Watch This Game 10.4.14 Weekend Edition

Do not watch this game 1

 

For sports fans, the weekend is a cornucopia of wonderful games to watch. This is particularly true in the fall with its traditional pattern of College Football on Saturday and NFL Football on Sunday and Monday. As the parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend of a sports fan, this can be a challenge. It must be true that some games are more important to watch than others but it’s hard to know which is which. As a sports fan, the power of habit and hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars get in the way of remembering to take a break from sports and do something with your parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend. To aid all of us in this, and just because it’s fun, I’m going to write a weekly post highlighting a single game that is ideal for skipping. Use this to help tell yourself or someone else: “Do not watch this game!”

Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET, NFL Football, Washington Redskins vs. Seattle Seahawks. It’s on ESPN but do not watch this game!

If you enjoyed last Monday’s lopsided game between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs, then you’ll probably love this game. It’s likely to be at least as lopsided as the 41 – 14 shellacking we just witnessed. Why? Let’s count the ways:

  1. Washington is on their second quarterback of the year, Kirk Cousins, who just threw four interceptions against the Giants last week.
  2. Seattle’s quarterback is Russell Wilson who has thrown four interceptions in his last ten regular season or playoff games.
  3. Seattle won the Super Bowl last year. Washington last won in 1991, when Cousins and Wilson were three or four years old.
  4. Vegas thinks Seattle will win by 7.5 points even though they are on the road and playing at home is usually the equivalent of a three point advantage.
  5. Seattle has players and positional units nicknamed “Beast Mode” and “The Legion of Boom.” Washington’s nickname is so bad that announcers won’t even say it on television anymore.
  6. Washington has lost their last six night games. Seattle is 10-1 since 2010.
  7. Stats like that are pretty meaningless because it’s always easy to find counterpoints: Washington has won the last six regular season games against Seattle.
  8. The truth is that Washington and Seattle don’t play that often. Those six games have been played over fourteen years. In that same time, the two teams have played three times in the playoffs and Seattle has won every time.
  9. Football Outsiders thinks Seattle has an 80% chance of making the playoffs. Washington? 6%.
  10. Washington themselves doesn’t think they have much of a chance in this game. The Washington Post got offensive lineman Trent Williams on record as saying, “Can we beat them? Yeah,” Williams said, nonchalantly. “At the end of the day, they’re not robots. They’re human beings and nobody’s perfect. Nobody plays perfect every Sunday. They have been beaten before. It’s not like they’re unstoppable. They’re a great team, no doubt about it, but anything is possible in the NFL.”

There’s ten ways of saying roughly the same thing: Seattle is very good at football and Washington is pretty bad. I’m not going to bother giving an alternate game this weekend because really, even if you are a Washington or Seattle fan, I think you can do without this game. Go for a hike. Read a book. Play some bridge.

Cue Cards 9-30-14

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

clapperboard
Yesterday —  Monday, September 29

  1. Down and out in Kansas City  — The Kansas City Chiefs beat the New England Patriots 41-14 last night and the game didn’t even seem that close. The Chiefs dominated the Patriots in just about every way possible. They were better at running the ball. They were better at throwing the ball. They were able to keep the Patriots from running the ball successfully and, when the Patriots tried to pass, the ball seemed just as likely to end up in an opponents hands as one of their own. It was a complete beat-down.
    Line: I know the Patriots always seem to turn it around, but this year their team seems really bad.
  2. Two little bits of soccer — Other than the football game, the sports world was pretty quiet yesterday. You know it’s quiet when the other biggest score of the day is Stoke City 1, Newcastle United 0. Both these teams are relatively weak teams in the top British soccer league, the English Premiere league. According to this ESPN article, Newcastle United’s manager might get fired because of the result. Also their nickname is the Magpies! The other interesting soccer news is that Chivas USA is being sold and as part of the deal will skip the next two seasons! It’s an unorthodox move. Chivas had been one of Major League Soccer’s most interesting franchises because it was owned by the owner of a Mexican soccer team and operated almost as a minor league team. Apparently that has not been successful and the new owners insisted on the team taking a break from competition while they rebrand and potentially relocate the team.
    Line: Soccer seems so wacky compared to other sports. Who names a team the Magpies? Who buys a team but insists that it stop playing?

News Clippings: Want the truth? Ask the players!

ReadsFootball players have been in the news a lot this fall and mostly for the wrong reasons. A string of high profile domestic abuse and child abuse cases has left many observers wondering about the present and future of the National Football League. Luckily, some great journalists and organizations have given platforms to players and former players and I have appreciated hearing from them. I’ve chosen just a few of the many public contributions to share with you today. These three athletes are a great reminder that as physical as sports are, they are equally a mental pursuit. It’s a mistake to think that just because a football player can run through a brick wall that they think like a brick wall.

Take Him Off the Field

Chris Carter on ESPN NFL Countdown

Former wide receiver Chris Carter was impressive on television discussing the Adrian Peterson child abuse case. He two best points were that taking a player off the field is really the only way to adequately punish him and that tradition is no excuse for wrongdoing.

 

Looking Through Bulletproof Windows

William Gay for The MMQB

On the subject of domestic abuse, there could be better voices out there, but there’s none more immediately relevant than an active NFL football player who volunteers regularly at a shelter for victims of domestic abuse and whose mother was killed by his stepfather. William Gay is all of those things and an effective writer as well. Here he is on the balance between punishment and assistance:

A lot of people have asked me for my thoughts about the Ray Rice situation. They want to know if I think the punishment has been fair. With all due respect to the commissioner, I couldn’t care less about what the punishment was. My concern is not about how many games Ray Rice is going to play or not play. This isn’t about games or football; it’s about the bigger picture. It’s about life itself…

If we’re going to fix this problem in the NFL, our focus can’t be solely on what the punishments should be. The main priority needs to be helping victims—to show them how they can be heroes. The league needs to be asking, Why is this occurring? And how can we help prevent this? The NFL needs to focus on setting up programs that can help men and women have healthy relationships.

The NFL Made Me Rich. I Won’t Watch It Now.

Anna Sale for Death, Sex & Money on WNYC

Death, Sex & Money is an excellent weekly interview show on WNYC. Its title is a clever reference to a cliché about the only inevitable things in life being death and taxes. The NFL is nowhere near as inevitable as death, sex, or money but during the past decade, during football season… it has been right up there! Now, due to an increasing reluctance among its audience for its violence on and off the field, many are wondering whether they will keep following it. With that uncertainty as the backdrop, Sale interviewed former player Dominique Foxworth about his experience in college football and the NFL and his reflections on it now that he has retired and graduated from Harvard Business School. We’ll cut into Foxworthy answering a question about the end of his career. He retired the fall after participating in a collective bargaining negotiation as president of the NFL Players Association:

I just participated as the president in the negotiations for the collective bargaining, the most recent collective bargaining agreement, and I sat across the table from the owners of the teams and negotiated over the ten billion dollars the NFL was supposedly making. And days later, I was on the practice field. Like, sweating and listening to coaches yell and all that, and that—at this point in my life, I felt more comfortable at the table than I did on the field. It didn’t feel like—I went from the top of the totem pole to the bottom. We get paid well because the talents that we have are so rare. But you’re still the labor.

Do you enjoy watching football now?

Nope.

No? Do you just not watch?

Nah. I have a hard time watching injuries. It’s difficult for me to watch guys get knocked unconscious. The strategy and the mental part of football, I still love. It’s a lot more like chess, and these calculated decisions, than these other sports are. And I love that about football, and I love that about business, and I love that about chess. But, the play-by-play guys don’t know what they’re talking about, which is shocking considering there’s so many ex-athletes, and maybe they just simplify it for the sake of the common fan, but I can’t listen to them. Most of them. because they don’t know what they’re talking about, and it makes it hard for me to watch, like, no that’s wrong. And I want to see the entire field, so I can, like, really analyze the chess match. TV copy, I can’t—the angles that they have, what I enjoy about football, I can’t see.