Tag: football

Cue Cards 11-3-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue 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.

On 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 in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Kansas City 23, Buffalo 13 — The Chiefs are undefeated but people suspect they are not quite as good as that would suggest because they’ve played a lot of weak teams or teams missing important players this year. Down, 10 – 3 at the half, the Chiefs looked like they were on their way to confirming those suspicions before they rallied to win.

Minnesota 23, Dallas 27 — The week after losing in the last minute of the game against the Lions, this week the Cowboys won in the last minute. This proves only that cowboys love drama.

Tennessee 28, St. Louis 21 — Football is a brutal sport and resting often helps. Before this game, the Titans had a week off. The Rams had one fewer day of rest than normal because they played last Monday. In a matchup of two mediocre teams, that might have been enough to decide who won.

New Orleans 20, New York Jets 26 — It’s starting to get creepy how Jets rookie quarterback Geno Smith alternates good and bad games. If you average ESPN’s proprietary measure of quarterback success, the QBR (quarterback rating) for the odd numbered weeks in the season so far (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) Smith receives a 52. Over even weeks, he has an average of 8.4. This week was an odd week — the Jets won.

San Diego 24, Washington 30 — Like the Cowboys, these two teams seem incapable of playing unentertaining games. Washington won, in part, by faking the Chargers defense out three times on the same running play from close to the end-zone they were trying to score on. Each time they gave the ball to little-known fullback Darrel Young who had only touched the ball twice all year before this game. This infuriated fantasy owners everywhere who were counting on more well-known Redskins scoring touchdowns.

Atlanta 10, Carolina 34 — It sure seems like when the Panthers win, they really win. Of the five games they’ve won so far, the closest one has been a 15 point margin.

Philadelphia 49, Oakland 20 — Eagles quarterback Nick Foles threw for seven touchdown passes in this game, tying the NFL record. You might remember that Peyton Manning threw seven touchdowns of his own on the opening night of this season. Before that, it hadn’t been done since 1969. Something strange is in the air. Or, you know, it might just be random.

Tampa Bay 24, Seattle 27 — In the same vein as the undefeated Chiefs, Seattle inspires suspicion that its true talent is not as good as its 8-1 record would suggest. The yet-to-win-a-game-this-year Buccaneers almost pulled off the upset but lost in overtime.

Baltimore 18, Cleveland 24 — Last year the Washington Redskins were 3-6 before winning their final seven games and making the playoffs. Their neighbors, the Baltimore Ravens would like to emulate them now that they are 3-5, and it’s possible, but it certainly feels like the defending Super Bowl champions have succumbed to what basketball coach Pat Riley famously called the “disease of me.”

Pittsburgh 31, New England 55 — For the past few weeks, the narrative surrounding Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady has been “what’s wrong with Tom Brady?” This week the narrative will be “nothing.”

Indianapolis 27, Houston 24 — The Texans were up 21-3 at halftime when head coach Gary Kubiak collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. Without Kubiak in the second half, the Texans were unable to prevent the Colts from coming back to win the game.

Cue Cards 10-28-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue 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.

On 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 in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Dallas 30, Detroit 31 — This was an absolutely crazy game. Detroit wide-receiver, Calvin Johnson, had over 300 receiving yards, which is usually the high-water-mark for an entire team, not one player. The Cowboys blew this game in the last few minutes by not remembering the Alamo.

Cleveland 17, Kansas City 23 — The Chiefs remain unbeaten and look impressive but people will be quick to point out that almost every team they’ve faced so far this year has been in some kind of disrepair. The Browns starting quarter-back in this game was the third best on their roster at the start of the year.

Miami 17, New England 27 — Between the Red Sox in the World Series and the Patriots win, Boston continues it’s streak as an outsize player on the sports scene. Especially for such a small city.[1]

Buffalo 17, New Orleans 35 — I had some New Orleans style etouffee for dinner on Saturday; the Saints had the Bills.

New York Giants 15, Philadelphia 7 — After starting the season with six losses, the Giants have won their second straight game and are shockingly still in contention to win the not-so-good-this-year NFC East division which contains the Eagles, Giants, Cowboys, and Redskins.

San Francisco 42, Jacksonville 10 — The NFL keeps putting games, like this one, in London in an effort to grow the game in Europe. Unfortunately they are games like this lopsided one.

New York Jets 9, Cincinnati 49 — Talking about lopsided games… the thing to say here is “Geno Smith (quarterback of the Jets) really played like a rookie.”

Pittsburgh 18, Oakland 21 — Nine years ago, my friends and I were instructing the non-sports fan in our midst to say “Ben Roethlisberger really played like a rookie.” We’re old and so is he!

Washington 21, Denver 45 — The Broncos had a sub-par day and still beat the Redskins by 24 points.

Atlanta 13, Arizona 27 — With the Falcons falling to 2-5 the story this week will be whether or not they trade tight-end Tony Gonzalez back to the Kansas City Chiefs who he played for during the first thirteen years of his career and where he’d have a better chance than in Atlanta to finally win a super bowl in what is probably his last season.

Green Bay 44, Minnesota 31 — Minnesota has started three quarterbacks this season. Aaron Rodgers has started for the Packers for the last five years and it shows.

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. Just kidding all my Boston friends!↵

Cue Cards 10-21-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue 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.

On 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 in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Tampa Bay 23, Atlanta 31 — Usually the time to fire a head coach in the NFL is during the team’s bye week (the one week in seventeen that they get the weekend off.) Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano probably kept his job through the team’s bye by assigning the blame to the quarterback who they later cut from the team. The Buccaneers play again this Thursday and my guess is that after they lose that game they will fire Schiano anyway.

Cincinnati 27, Detroit 24 — This game featured two of the best wide receivers in the NFL, Calvin Johnson of the Lions and A.J. Green of the Bengals. They put on a show, catching a combined 310 yards and three touchdowns in a closely contested and entertaining game.

Buffalo 23, Miami 21 — Stuck in the same division as the Patriots, these teams have not had much success over the past decade. This year, they have both shown flashes of goodness but their inconsistency likely dooms them to another year of not making the playoffs.

New England 27, New York Jets 30 — The Jets and Patriots are rivals so any close game between them takes on at least epic pretensions. This game went back and forth and into overtime before being decided partially on an obscure rule which will be the subject of conversation among infuriated Boston fans tomorrow. A good way to defuse the situation is to point out that their baseball team is in the World Series and the football team is 5-2.

Dallas 17, Philadelphia 3 — This game was a great example of how unpredictable football can be. Every expert, pundit, and gambler thought this was going to be a high scoring game. At half-time the game was 3-0.

Chicago 41, Washington 45 — Talking about high scoring games… even losing starting quarterback Jay Cutler to a groin injury in the first half didn’t keep the Bears from almost keeping pace with the controversially named Washington Redskins.

St. Louis 15, Carolina 30 — Carolina is unexpectedly good. If they didn’t wear teal, I think people would be taking them more seriously.

San Diego 24, Jacksonville 6 — Jacksonville’s horrible play is drawing focus from the fact that they are the only team I’ve ever seen that plays with matte helmets. I think I like it.

San Francisco 31, Tennessee 17 — This game was not as close as the score suggests. The 49ers are bigger and meaner than most of the other teams in the league and most weeks that’s all they’ll need to win.

Cleveland 13, Green Bay 31 — A few years back legitimate sports writers questioned whether the Cincinnati Bengals made a mistake because they drafted a red-headed quarterback. It seems like having the last name of Weeden should have been a red flag for Cleveland’s general managers. Alas, it wasn’t.

Houston 16, Kansas City 17 — The Chiefs squeak by the Texans to remain undefeated.

Baltimore 16, Pittsburgh 19 — The defending Super Bowl champion Ravens lose their third game out of the last for while exhibiting why people say the NFL stands for “not for long.”

Denver 33, Indianapolis 39 — The game with the best plot of the weekend saw legendary quarterback Peyton Manning returning to the city he played for for 14 seasons to face the team that released him. Indianapolis’ defense frustrated the high-flying Denver offense all night and led their team to victory. Losing this game actually makes me like Peyton Manning more — he was clearly emotional about returning to what used to be his home and it affected his play.

Should the Washington Redskins Change their Name?

Today the Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Bears in a back and forth, exciting 45 to 41 game. Although they were able to outlast the Bears in a contest with very little effective defense, the Washington professional football team may not be able to outlast their opponents in another contest. Proponents of keeping the team name, Redskins, find themselves, like their team, without an effective defense.

The Redskins began their existence in 1932 in Boston under the name of the Braves which matched the name of the Boston baseball team they shared a field with. The next year, according to Wikipedia, the team moved to Fenway park where the Boston Red Sox played (and still do,) and changed their name to Redskins to match Red Sox better. In 1937 the team moved to Washington D.C.

It’s not completely clear why a movement to change the name has picked up momentum over the past year but it has. In recent weeks there has been a flurry of comments from prominent figures about the name. Television commentator Bob Costas used his platform on Sunday Night Football to argue that the name is “an insult, a slur, no matter how benign the present day intent.” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer claimed that the team should follow the trend of common usage which suggests that most people wouldn’t use the word Redskins “because the word [is] tainted, freighted with negative connotations with which you would not want to be associated.” President Obama even said in an interview that if he were the owner he would think about changing the name.

A few voices have come out in defense of the name. Foremost among them is the team owner, Daniel Snyder, who wrote a public letter to fans that was reprinted in many newspapers. Snyder sites public polls that show that most people, even most Native Americans are not offended by the use of the word “Redskins” in the team name. He also takes what I consider to be an unbelievably wrong-headed tack in arguing that the name should be preserved because of its great and historic legacy during the 81 years of the team’s existence. I can’t believe that in arguing for the preservation of a name with connections to a genocidal history that anyone thinks playing to its history is a good idea. Often vilified ESPN columnist Rick Reilly makes an interesting case for the name by (after first giving himself the street cred to make this argument without being accused of being racist by name-dropping his “father-in-law, a Blackfeet Indian”) sharing stories of mostly high-school teams with similar names whose predominantly Native American population are proud and defensive of. Reilly’s best line addresses Native Americans who defend the name, “Too late. White America has spoken. You aren’t offended, so we’ll be offended for you.” This paradox is also addressed in the best article I’ve read on the issue. Published on Deadspin.com and written by a Blackfeet Indian, Gyasi Ross, the article looks at what he believes the larger issue is — the unequal treatment of Native Americans as compared to other minorities by the mainstream public. He writes, “NO non-black person has ever gone rummaging through American cities in search of a black person who’s not offended by the word “nigger,” and then held them up as proof that the word isn’t so bad. ”

Of course this controversy has stirred up some of people’s best, worst, and most comedic instincts. Design company 99 Designs ran a contest to redesign the team’s logo with three name suggestions: Griffins, Warriors, and Renegades. They received 1,887 submissions in one week. PETA shamelessly stole an idea from a Tony Kornheiser column in 1992 and suggested that the team keep their name but change their logo to the potato of the same name. The Onion put its stamp on the issue with a fictional quote: “We’ve heard the concerns of many people who have been hurt or offended by the team’s previous name, and I’m happy to say we’ve now rectified the situation once and for all,” said franchise owner Dan Snyder, adding that “Washington Redskins” will be replaced with “D.C. Redskins” on all team logos, uniforms, and apparel.”

One common reaction to the controversy from many writers, bloggers, and podcasters has been to stop using the name Washington Redskins and instead go with the awkward “Washington Professional Football team” or the euphemistic “‘skins.” This seems as likely to help the team avoid the issue as it does to force them to change it. At Dear Sports Fan we’re going to keep using the name Washington Redskins until the team changes it, which we hope they do soon. Of all cities, the capital of the United States should be the most careful when it comes to team names that send racist or violent messages. Dan Snyder should emulate the former owner of the professional basketball franchise in Washington D.C., Abe Pollin, who got rid of the name “Bullets’ because of his feelings about gun violence.

Portraits of the Manning Family

If you’ve been exposed to any NFL football in the past few weeks or years, you’ve probably heard of the Manning family. Father Archie was a well-respected quarterback whose personal brilliance was always undermined by the mediocre to terrible teams he played on, first in college at Ole Miss and then in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints. He married the college home-coming queen, Olivia, and they had three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli. Peyton and Eli have both had successful college and professional football careers. The long-time quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts and for the last two years of the Denver Broncos, Peyton is generally thought of as one of the top five or ten quarterbacks of all time. Eli, his younger brother, has been the Giants starting quarterback since he was drafted in 2004 and has won two Superbowl championships; one more than Peyton. The oldest brother, Cooper, was diagnosed with a spinal abnormality in high school and had to give up playing football. The Mannings are the “first family” of football.

This year the Mannings have been a particularly prominent part of the football season. Peyton’s team, the Broncos, is undefeated and he has been playing some of the best football of his career… or anyone else’s. Eli has been having exactly the opposite kind of season. His team, the Giants has lost every game so far and he has thrown 15 interceptions — the same number he threw all of last season. Coincidentally ESPN released a documentary about the Mannings two weeks ago called The Book of Manning.

Brian Phillips is one of my favorite writers on the Grantland staff and has an absolutely fabulous Twitter feed. Phillips in his own abstract way often seems to have a direct line to the Zeitgeist so I wasn’t surprised to see he had written an article about each of the Manning brothers last week. I’m going to excerpt from each of the articles but I recommend you read them in full.

Peyton:

You look at his stats and you have no choice but to deploy weapons-grade verbiage… Peyton Manning crushes. Peyton Manning burns. Peyton Manning annihilates. And yet … have you ever seen a football player less likely to crush, burn, or annihilate anything than Peyton Manning? It’s possible to imagine, say, Ben Roethlisberger, if a night took a weird swerve, actually wielding a torch in anger; Peyton Manning would spend that same night at home, in his sock-folding room, folding his socks. I doubt he has ever shredded anything in his life. (Maybe a document.) On the field, he’s Genghis Khan as portrayed by your 11th-grade trigonometry teacher. The language that best describes his accomplishments is also the language that most completely misrepresents his style.

And Eli:

Eli is more Archie’s natural heir than Peyton will ever be — like Eli, his dad was a fun and scrambly quarterback, more a seat-of-the-pants adventurer than the lucid math-compulsive then playing in Indiana — but because Peyton came along first, the definition of Manningness has somehow shifted in a way that includes Eli out… Eli is the un-Manning. He is the Manning who makes mistakes, and thus, as a Manning, he is unlike himself.

This is the kind of sportswriting I enjoy! I hope you do too.

Cue Cards 10-14-2013: NFL One Liners & Bonus Baseball

clapperboardCue 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.

On 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 in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

Cincinnati 27, Buffalo 24 — If the Bengals needed overtime to beat the Bills, who didn’t even have their best quarterback playing, they’re not a serious playoff contender.

Detroit 31, Cleveland 17 — Lions rookie tight-end Joseph Fauria caught three touchdowns and did a different celebratory dance each time.

Oakland 7, Kansas City 24 — Kansas City continues it’s undefeated season on the strength of its defense which sacked quarterback Terrelle Pryor 10 times and intercepted him three times.

Carolina 35, Minnesota 10 — The Vikings signed deposed former Buccaneer quarterback Josh Freeman in the middle of last week. You’ll hear a lot of talk about how “distracting” that was to the Vikings.

Pittsburgh 19, New York Jets 6 — The Steelers win their first game of the season sending the Jets back to earth after a week of flying high following their big victory over the Falcons.

Philadelphia 31, Tampa Bay 20 — Eagles quarterback Michael Vick missed this game because of an injured hamstring and might never get it back after replacement Nick Foles’ four touchdown day.

Green Bay 19, Baltimore 17 — Green Bay squeaked out a victory in this matchup between two teams that have been very, very good over the last five years but are struggling to get things together this year.

St. Louis 38, Houston 13 — Talking about struggling to get things together, there’s going to be a lot of people quoting Apollo 13 after the Texans lost their fourth game in a row.

Jacksonville 19, Denver 35 — The story with this game all week was that Vegas bookmakers had set the Broncos as 28 point favorites, equalling the highest line ever. Denver won but it was much closer than expected so now the story will be about how the plucky Jaguars showed so much heart.

Tennessee 13, Seattle 20 — This game was a comedy of errors that ended in a Seahawks win which undoubtedly made their cutest fan very happy.

New Orleans 27, New England 30 — In our post last week about how to negotiate with a fan in your life who wants to watch football all day, we mentioned that one of the reasons was chasing the rare game that becomes a transcendent experience. This was one of those games. Leading in the last five minutes, the Saints had two chances to win the game but failed to get a first down both times leaving Tom Brady and the Patriots with about fifty seconds to go down the field and score a touchdown… which was exactly what they did.

Arizona 20, San Francisco 32 — The Forty Niners are like the weather in San Francisco: unexpectedly fierce.

Washington 16, Dallas 31 — The good news for Washington is that their quarterback, Robert Griffin III, finally looked like he wasn’t hampered all that much by his knee which is recovering from ACL surgery. The bad news is that at 1-4 on the year, it might be too late for them this season.

Sport: Baseball
Teams: The Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox
When: Sunday, October 13
Context: Game two of the American League Championship Series, Detroit was up 1 game to zero
Result: The Red Sox won 6-5
Sports Fans will be Talking About:

  • Boston’s transcendent sports day continued into the night at Fenway park. Down 5-0, the Red Sox scored one run in the sixth and then four in the eighth when David Ortiz, known as Big Papi, hit a grand slam (a home run with three of his teammates already on base) to tie the game. The Sox then scored one in the bottom of the ninth to win the game.
  • If there’s anyone at work today from Boston, you’ll be able to tell from the big circles under their eyes and the goofy grin that keeps appearing on their faces. Last night’s game reminded Bostonians of 2004 when the Red Sox and David Ortiz seemed to do this almost every night during the playoffs on their way to winning their first world series in 86 years.

What’s Next: They play again tomorrow at 4:07 for game three of the seven game series.

Fantasy Football and Sports Reporters' Objectivity

As I’ve been immersed in the football and fantasy football season for the past weeks, a thought has been sneaking up on me bit by bit. If financial reporters are not allowed to purchase stocks and political reporters are not allowed to make contributions to candidates or even make their own political views public… why are we okay with sports reporters participating so passionately in fantasy football leagues?

And participate, they do: At the 13 minute mark of the 10-10-13 edition of ESPN’s fantasy football podcast (yes, I listen to it) fantasy sports pundit Matthew Berry mentioned that sports reporter Ed Werder tweeted:

To his credit, Berry told the audience that this was not official reporting from Werder but instead was conjecture. Berry built off of this with his own conjecture that perhaps Werder has some inside information on the situation based on his long history covering the team and the fact that Werder had picked up Terrance Williams to be on his fantasy team in a league with Matthew Berry. Berry often refers to a sixteen team league he plays in with other ESPN employees called the War Room. This league (if this isn’t a clever hoax) can actually be viewed here and its membership includes reporters and analysts like Adam Schefter, Michael Smith, Trent Dilfer, Mark Schlereth, Ed Werder, Chris Mortensen, and Stephania Bell. Is there money riding on the outcome of this league? Although that is common in most fantasy leagues, it’s hard for me to imagine ESPN would allow their employees to gamble on sports in this way. Then again, ESPN has moved off it’s traditional ignore-that-gambling-exists stance and now has a gambling blog and allows its top personality, Bill Simmons, to openly talk and write about gambling. Regardless of the money, given how often and publicly the War Room league is talked about, it seems to be fiercely competitive.

Berry’s  investigative reporting into reporters’ fantasy actions seems to be becoming a habit. On the same day he tweeted about a fantasy trade made by ESPN reporter Chris Mortensen and former NFL player, now ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer:

What can we make of this? Berry’s job is helping readers and listeners get an edge in their own fantasy leagues. He is suggesting that we use the information that reporter Ed Werder thinks it’s possible that Dallas receiver Terrance Williams supplants Miles Austin in the starting lineup or that Chris Mortensen thinks a lot of tight end Ed Dickson or not very much of running back Rashard Mendenhall to help our fantasy teams. I am open to that use of this information (Terrance Williams is now on my fantasy team) but I am suspicious of it at the same time.

My suspicion is multi-faceted:

  1. Fantasy owners get attached to the players on their teams. As I mentioned in a post on the arrest of Aaron Hernandez for murder, I found it harder to believe that he was capable of that crime because he had been on my fantasy team for years. Fantasy owners become fond of their players and are often prone to overvaluing them when engaging in trade negotiations with another fantasy team. Is it possible that a sports reporter would write favorably about a player because of the unconscious instinct to overvalue the players on one’s own fantasy team?
  2. Fantasy owners promote their players in an effort to convince other people to trade for them. The honorable art of trading in fantasy is finding a team whose strengths match your weaknesses and vice versa so that a trade can work out to benefit both teams. The disreputable art of trading in fantasy is convincing someone that a player who you think is not that good is going to be REALLY REALLY GOOD. I’ve certainly embellished my belief about a player’s prospects to a friend I was trying to trade him to. Is it possible that a reporter might use his or her twitter account to drive up the value of a player they are trying to trade? What about filing an article for the same purpose?
  3. Finally, (and here’s where it gets really crazy,) whether as part of an intentional act of fantasy negotiation or through unconscious bias generated by owning a player, isn’t it likely that something a member of the media says or writes about a player will eventually affect how a real football game is played? A negative article can motivate a player to vengeful greatness or shake a player’s confidence and cause his play to suffer. A carefully placed rumor could cause a divide between teammates or modify how a coach thinks about a player.

It is possible that I’m on to something incredibly profound or that it’s 11:11 pm on a Friday, it’s been a long week, and I’ve watched the Matrix too much. Either way, I not sure I’ll ever be able to listen to an “NFL rumor” again without thinking “I wonder whose team that player is on in the reporter’s fantasy league…

 

Why You Shouldn't Spend All Day Watching Football

One of the joys of working on this website is that the WordPress software I run the site with tracks many of the search terms people have entered that lead them to Dear Sports Fan. Yesterday someone viewed the site after searching google for “why men shouldn’t watch NFL football every Sunday.” This is pretty exciting because it means that our core audience (non-sports fans who have important sports fans in their lives) exist and that they are curious or frustrated enough to take their questions to the internet and that once there, Dear Sports Fan’s content is relevant enough to pop up in searches and to be read! So, in honor of you, whoever you are, here are some thoughts about spending all day watching football and some tips on negotiating the topic with your favorite football fan.

Less is More

There’s different modes of football watching and one that is extremely enjoyable is the viewing of a single, important game. Watching football all day sometimes means you never really focus in on one game and enjoy it’s drama, it’s plot twists, it’s ups and downs as fully as you could. If the fan in your life has a favorite team, why not make it into a special occasion for him or her? Expressing the desire to watch with that person is likely enough to make it special but it wouldn’t hurt to add some props to the equation. Throw on some color coded clothing to support a team. Clear away distractions half an hour early. Get involved by cooking or ordering appropriate food. Football team names are often fun to play with in a themed event kind of way. When I was in college, my friends and I would throw a themed super bowl party. When the Buccaneers played the Raiders it was PIRATE BOWL. There’s no reason why you can’t steal this idea on a normal Sunday. Cook some gumbo for a Saints game, make some wings for a Bills game, or cook a corned beef (but start early) for a Patriots game. Making an occasion out of a game is a good way to make a single game the occasion.

Take a Bye Week

If the sports fan in your life has a favorite team there is at least one, probably two or three weeks during the football season where the negotiation for a football free or football light weekend will be significantly easier than others. In the NFL, every team plays 16 games over 17 weeks. The one week a team does not play is called their bye week. This is a great week to suggest that your favorite fan take a bye week too! Go away for the weekend or get some yard work done! Every team also has at least one prime-time game on Thursday, Sunday, or Monday night. These weeks are also good bets to suggest a Sunday day activity.

Plan Ahead

One of the under-appreciated elements of the sports business is how effectively is markets itself. Most of the time sporting events are generally unremarkable. Once in a while they’re drama and unpredictability make them transendent experiences for sports fans. ESPN, NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS, and the sports leagues themselves do a great job of promoting upcoming games to convince sports fans that despite all probabalistic evidence to the contrary, this game is going to defy logic and has a 100% chance of being transendent. Think of the way big food companies market desserts and then double it. By the day of the game most sports fans have been looking forward to watching particular games for days. If you want to do something else with them, talk to them about it before they’ve bought the hype.

Lose the Battle, Win the War

Sometimes, it is great to watch football all day. As bizarre as it may sound if you are not a fan, planting your butt on a couch and watching football all day is an experience many of us prize. It’s an indulgence like spending the day at a spa or an amusement park or in a casino. And like all indulgences, it’s only really enjoyable if you feel good about doing it! So give the football fan in your life the gift of support some Sundays and make them feel good about indulging themselves. Tell them you understand how they enjoy a full day of football and that you want them to choose some Sundays to have that and some Sundays to share the day with you. I’ll leave it to you and your sports fan to figure out exactly what the right ratio is.

Good luck and happy negotiating.

 

Cue Cards 10-7-2013: NFL One Liners

clapperboardCue 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.

On 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 in our cue cards series on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

NFL One Liners

New Orleans 26, Chicago 18 — The Saints go marching into Chicago and come out with a win. Apologies for the pun. The NFL seems to be dividing itself into good teams and teams that look like they are unstoppable video-game football teams. Chicago is a good team. New Orleans is a video-game team.

New England 6, Cincinnati 13 — Cincinnati seems to specialize in winning ugly. In a New England rainstorm, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady did not score a single touchdown for the first time in 53 games.

Detroit 9, Green Bay 22 — Talking about video games, the Lions star wide-receiver Calvin Johnson (nick-named Megatron) did not play in this game because of an injury and his team was not able to generate much offense without him.

Kansas City 26, Tennessee 17 — This game is an example of the importance of quarterbacks. The Chiefs remain undefeated behind their new quarterback this season, Alex Smith. After their quarterback, Jake Locker, sustained a hip injury last game, the Titans were forced to turn to backup quarterback and Harvard man, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and lose.

Seattle 28, Indianapolis 34 — For reasons unclear even to me, I consistently think the Seahawks are not as good as they are. Today I was right.

Jacksonville 20, St. Louis 34 — There is no better medicine this year for an ailing football team than playing the Jaguars.

Baltimore 26, Miami 23 — It’s pretty clear that both of these teams are good.

Philadelphia 36, New York Giants 21 — It’s pretty clear that both of these teams are not good.

Carolina 6, Arizona 22 — Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton played like a super-hero in his rookie year two seasons ago but seems to have wedged his cloak in a phone booth since then.

Denver 51, Dallas 48 — This game tied for the fourth highest scoring game in NFL history. Both teams played like video-game teams. Dallas’ quarterback Tony Romo has been known for always messing up at the last minute his entire career and played to type by throwing an interception in the last three minutes of the game that led to Denver’s winning field goal. Romo is the guy who does everything right, right until he stubs his toe, scratches on the eight ball, and steps on the tines of a hoe which flies up to hit him in the face.

Houston 3, San Francisco 31 — The story coming into this game was that Texans quarterback Matt Schaub had thrown an interception which the defensive team had then converted into a touchdown on that play in each of the last three games. Although that is the most destructive thing an offense can do, it’s also relatively random whether or not the defense scores once they intercept the ball. Random or not, Schaub had done it for a fourth time within the first few minutes of this game. He threw two more interceptions before being replaced by backup T.J. Yates. Fans will spend the next week talking about whether Schaub should lose his job for good.

Oakland 27, San Diego 17 — The Oakland Raiders share a stadium with the major league baseball Oakland Athletics who were hosting a playoff game Saturday night. The stadium workers needed more time to convert from baseball to football so the start time for this game was moved from 1:25 Pacific Time to 8:35 Pacific Time. We had the fourth highest scoring game ever in Dallas this weekend, this may be the latest game ever.

Why do Some Sports Play Through Bad Weather and Others Don't?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why do I always hear about baseball games being delayed or rescheduled due to a light rain and yet soccer games continue around the world in a downpour?

Thanks,
Jesse

Sport, baseball. Hardest material, a wooden bat. Plays through rain? No.

— — —

Dear Jesse,

Thanks for the question! It’s true that sports react differently to the elements. I’m tempted to try to explain this culturally. I’m not the biggest fan of baseball, so it would be fun to bash them for not playing in the rain. A more fair explanation would probably explain that weather affects the trajectory of balls and that this is much more dangerous with a small, hard ball traveling at 95 miles per hour than a big soft ball flying at 35 miles per hour. What is most interesting to me is trying to explain the general phenomenon of why some sports play through bad weather and others don’t and if possible, coming up with a rubric that explains why.

There seem to be two or three simple rules that we can abstract to to explain how each sport deals with weather.

  1. If the sport is played inside, there should almost never be a weather related delay.
  2. The harder the hardest substance used in normal game-play is, the less likely the sport will be to play through bad weather.

Let’s see how these work in practice.

Pro or College Basketball, Volleyball, Boxing, Hockey, Ping Pong — all played inside and all safe from weather delays.

Soccer, Football, Rugby, Cross Country Running — all played outdoors and the hardest material involved is no harder than a soft, inflated leather ball. Their surfaces are all grass or dirt. The only weather that will stop these games is a lightning storm in the direct area of the game.

Golf, Baseball, Tennis, Cricket — all played outdoors and the hardest material is significantly harder than leather. Golf has metal clubs and hard resin balls, baseball has wooden bats and hard leather balls, tennis is played on concrete with fiberglass rackets, and cricket has wooden bats and a hard leather ball.

These rules work pretty well to predict whether a sport will play through bad weather or not with only a few exceptions. You may have noticed that football is in the play through the weather category despite its helmets being much harder than an inflated leather ball. Two possible explanations for this are that historically the helmets were made of soft leather or that because the helmet is attached to the body, its danger is not modified by the weather. Of course if we allow the historic state of sports to enter into the equation, we’d have to admit that tennis used to be played only on grass and clay and that the rackets used to be made of wood. Then again, women’s tennis attire once “included a bustle and sometimes a fur” according to one history of tennis. Basketball’s treatment of weather is modified by its setting. If you are in an outside basketball league, played on concrete, games will be canceled if it is raining. Cycling admittedly breaks this rule entirely. They ride in the rain even though their bikes are made of fiberglass and the roads are made of road. I can only explain this by saying that cyclists are a little crazy and that no rule is perfect.

These rules should help you if you ever need to know whether your tickets to a sport are in danger of being rained out or if you decide to invent a new sport and want to set reasonable weather expectations.

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer