What is a Quarterback in Football?

The quarterback is the most visible person on a football team. In high-school he is the one with the bleached blond hair and all the most desirable girlfriends (or boyfriends in a particularly open high-school community.) When the team wins the quarterback gets the most credit and when the team loses the quarterback takes even more of the criticism. Six of the highest ten paid players in the NFL are quarterbacks. Whether the quarterback really deserves all this attention is arguable, but it matches how most people watch a football game. As soon as a football play starts, the quarterback has the ball and almost every eye in the stadium and on TV follows him until he throws the ball or is tackled.

In preparation for the rapidly approaching football season, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a series about the basics of football. Some previous posts answer the questions: Why Do People Like Football, How do I Begin to Enjoy Football, Why Are People Obsessing About Fantasy Football Now, and What’s a Down in Football? This post is one in a series that explores each position on a football team. So far we’ve covered What is a Running Back in Football.

What is a Quarterback in Football?

A great quarterback has to have a rare mix of physical, emotional, and intellectual abilities. He has to have a strong throwing arm, great footwork, and enough physical toughness to pick himself up and keep playing after a couple 300 pound defensive players crush him into the turf. A less obvious but essential physical quality is a strong, untiring voice. Quarterbacks have to communicate with their teammates over the noise of the crowd. Although teams do develop systems of hand-signals and other physical cues to use when it gets too noisy, these are measures of last resort. Quarterbacks vary in terms of emotional bearing — some go for cool and confident while others are fiery and combative — but they all have to be able to inspire their teammates. With all the attention focused on them, they also have to foster a type of willing amnesia in themselves. No matter how big of a mistake they or one of their teammates make, they need to get up and treat the next play as if the last one never happened. Quarterback is not necessarily the most intellectual position on the field (that prize probably goes to the offensive line that protects the quarterback) but it requires a wide understanding of where every player on the field is, an encyclopedic memory of plays, and unbelievably quick decision-making.

A given play for a quarterback goes something like this:

Listen to the play the coach has chosen for you to run. (Quarterbacks are the only offensive player on the field with an earpiece in their helmets so they can hear the coach talk to them between plays.)
Relay the play to the rest of the offensive players on the field
Look at how the defensive players on the field have lined up and are moving around. Assess how the play you’re about to run is going to fare and, if it’s bad, audible (i.e. switch) to a better play.
Get the ball and do a little fancy footwork moving backwards while simultaneously scanning the field to find someone on your team to throw the ball to.
While looking down-field at your receivers, use your instincts, your ears, and your peripheral vision to keep track of whether or not someone is about to drive you painfully into the turf.
Throw the ball or, if no one is open, find a spot on the field where there aren’t any (or many) defense-men and run like the blazes in that direction.

The first three things happen before the time the ball is snapped, but everything else has to happen in an average of 2.5 to 3 seconds.

What Kinds of Quarterbacks are There?

Quarterbacks are categorized into two styles: pocket passers and running quarterbacks.

A pocket passer is a quarterback whose first through ninth option on a passing play is to throw the ball. If he cannot find anyone good to throw the ball to, he’ll usually find a way of “throwing the ball away.”^[1] The word “pocket” in the phrase “pocket passer” refers to the protected area that a team’s blockers try to create for their quarterback. A pocket passer is not unathletic — he’s usually very adept at sliding around in the pocket to avoid defenders that make it through his blockers — he just very rarely chooses to run with the ball past the line of scrimmage.

A running quarterback is sort of what it sounds like but not quite. As opposed to the pocket passer, a running quarterback is one whose first through approximately third option on a passing play is to throw the ball. Once in a while a team will call a play that intends for the quarterback to run the ball into the opposing team’s territory. Most of the time the plays a team calls with a running quarterback are the same as with a pocket passer, it’s just that there is a much higher chance that a running quarterback will run with the ball. The running quarterback style combines all of the qualities of a pocket passer with the physicality of a running back.

Historically, there has been an insidious racist belief that black athletes couldn’t succeed in positions that required a lot of intellect or leadership, but that they were somehow more “naturally athletic” than white athletes. Black athletes were therefore relegated to playing running back, wide receiver, and defensive positions. Despite the long history of black quarterbacks in the NFL, people continue to associate whiteness with unathletic pocket passing quarterbacks and blackness with athletic running quarterbacks. These beliefs inform both how people think about and view quarterback performance AND the choices made by developing young athletes and their coaches.

What is clear is that there have been lots of great quarterbacks in every combination of white, black, running, and pocket. There have been great black running quarterbacks: Randall Cunningham, Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick. And great white running quarterbacks: John Elway, Steve Young. Excellent black pocket passers like Warren Moon and Doug Williams. And wonderful white pocket passers: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Dan Marino.

What is the Fantasy Football Importance of the Quarterback?

Quarterbacks score the most points in most fantasy leagues but are traditionally not the most important position. This is because there’s less difference between the best quarterback and an average quarterback than there is between the best running back or wide receiver or tight-end and an average player in that position. Also, most fantasy leagues use the stats from two or three running backs and wide receivers on each team but only one quarterback. In only a few of the last seven years has an unexpectedly excellent performance by the best statistical quarterback in the league made having the best quarterback more important than having the best running back or wide receiver. Logic aside, because watching football involves a lot of watching quarterbacks, having a bad quarterback on your fantasy team, like on your real-life team, is a sure-fire way to make yourself miserable. Don’t make yourself miserable, get a good quarterback but you don’t need to shoot for a great one to win your fantasy league.

Footnotes (↵ returns to text)

There is a rule against intentionally grounding the ball but there are enough loopholes in it that a clever quarterback can usually find a safe way of throwing the ball at no one and moving on to the next play that isn’t ruled a foul.↵

What is a Running Back in Football?

In preparation for the rapidly approaching football season, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a series about the basics of football. Some previous posts answer the questions: Why Do People Like Football, How do I Begin to Enjoy Football, Why Are People Obsessing About Fantasy Football Now, and What’s a Down in Football? Today’s post is the first in a set that explores each of the key football positions.

What is a Running Back in Football?

If football were a farm, the running back would be the pig. Like a good pig, a good running back is compact, strong, and very hard to catch. The job of a running back is multifaceted. Running backs are expected to be able to catch the football reliably and to prevent defenders, who are often much bigger than them, from getting to the quarterback, but that’s only part of it: the primary job of the running back is to take a few steps, grab the football as it’s handed to them, and then charge off down the field while avoiding as many defenders as possible before being tackled or pushed out-of-bounds.

Running back is one of the toughest jobs in football. A running back either gets hit or hits a defender on almost every single play. Sometimes both happen in a single play. Running backs have the shortest professional careers of all the positions (4.35 years according to a 2002 Dartmouth study), but they make up in immediate impact what they lose in longevity. Running backs don’t waste time growing into their professional careers; unlike other positions, they can be effective right out of the gate. The diverse skill set of a great running back includes some very unexpected qualities, like great peripheral vision and low center of gravity.

There is an overall trend in professional football to run the ball less and throw it more. This has made running backs a less important part of football strategy. The running back remains essential to most teams’ fortunes but there is a romantic air of inevitable obsolescence that lingers around the position.

What Kinds of Running Backs are There?

Feature back

A feature back is the running back on a team that gives the majority of its carries (plays when a running back takes a hand-off and runs the ball up the field) to a single person. A great running back can make an enormous difference to a team’s fortunes so it’s no surprise that teams who have star running backs feature them a lot. Twenty carries per game has traditionally been the average that defines a feature back but, like the fullback, this number has declined in the past ten years. Last year only three running backs averaged more than 20 carries per game over the whole 16 game season.

You won’t hear a lot of people refer to a running back as a feature back — it’s a term that will be used to differentiate one person who plays the running back position from another who does it but does it in a different way. As you might expect from a position that requires so many different skills, there are players who specialize in one aspect of the position. Increasingly over the past ten years, teams have used several specialized running backs instead of one great generalist. This approach is called “running back by committee.”

Fullback

The fullback is a blocking specialist. He often lines up right in front of a running back and uses himself as a bowling ball, scattering would-be tacklers away from the path of the running back who has the ball. Fullbacks are big, hulking guys with necks the size of medium-sized tree trunks. Alas, the fullback is a dying breed in the NFL. Over the past fifteen years, teams have gradually moved away from using fullbacks. This season it will be pretty rare to see a fullback on the field. Although the fullback is officially one type of running back, it is specialized enough that it’s basically considered another position, as opposed to the types of running backs we’re about to describe.

Third-Down Back

The third-down back is usually a smaller, quicker running back who is better than most at catching the ball. This is dictated by the situation teams find themselves in on third downs. If a team is not within a yard or two of getting a first down, they will almost definitely be passing the ball. The third down back is the best running back on the offense for when the team is planning on passing. Sometimes, instead of playing their best receiving running back on third down, teams will choose to put a veteran who can reliably “read the blitz” (figure out who it’s their job to block). When it comes down to it, regardless of strategy, the third down back is a back who plays mostly on third down.

Goal-Line Back

Some teams have a running back who specializes in getting into the end-zone when their offense is within five yards of scoring a touchdown. Like a third-down back, this specialty is defined by situation. Unlike the third-down back, the goal line back tends to be bigger and stronger instead of quicker and more wriggly. Plays close to the end-zone are much more compact than those that start somewhere in the middle of the field, because all twenty-two players on the field are smushed into only a few yards instead of the twenty to thirty yards that could be expected otherwise. Goal line backs use patience and vision to find small weak spots in the defense and then use their formidable strength to push through them to make it to the end-zone.

What is the Fantasy Football Importance of the Running Back?

Traditionally the running back was the most important position in fantasy football. This is because most fantasy football leagues require each fantasy team (twelve is the most common number) to use the stats from two running backs each week but only one quarterback. The statistical difference between the best quarterback and the twelfth best was not as great as that between the best running back and the twenty-fourth best. This is still true today but much less so because of the overall decline in use of the running game and the splintering of the position into specialist running backs that split the work. As in real life, fantasy fortunes are often cyclical, so the glory days of a running back’s importance may come again.

What is a Good Football Book? The Blind Side

Dear Sports Fan,

I have a question for you from my coworker. He is making a last ditch attempt to get his wife interested in sports, especially pro football. She loves murder mysteries, so he asked for book recommendations that would merge the two. Do you have any recommendations? Preferably murder mysteries, but any engaging book will do!

Thanks,
Helen

— — —

Dear Helen,

Last ditch attempt, huh? I too am a lover of detective novels but when it comes to introducing someone to American Football through a mind-blowingly good read, there’s only one book I would recommend: Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side. I know you might be thinking “wasn’t that that chick flick from a couple years back starring the woman from Speed?” And you’d be right — yes, the material from the book was made into a movie starring Sandra Bullock in 2009. I’ve seen parts of it and I think it’s probably a good movie but it probably wouldn’t get your friend’s wife into football. The book? The book might just do it.

Michael Lewis is an economist and a writer and a sports fan and he uses all three to great success in The Blind Side. The book has two key chronological stories. One, the one that the movie focuses on, is the story of a young, poor black boy growing up near Memphis. Michael Oher, the kid, is taken in by a rich white family and grows physically and academically until he is a 6’4″, 300 pound potential star college and eventual high NFL draft pick playing the position of left tackle. This is a great story in and of itself, and Lewis does a great job telling it without flinching or sensationalizing any of its many dicey elements — from Oher’s extreme poverty, to his academic and social struggles, to the suspicion that the Tuohy family (who basically adopt Oher) have designs on his playing for their alma mater, Ole Miss.

The other side of the story is a remarkably accessible history of football’s tactical evolution from being dominated by teams that could run the ball the best to teams that pass the ball the best and the effect that this evolution had on the position of left tackle. The left tackle is one of the offensive line-men, and thirty years ago the left tackle was just one of the offensive linemen, the big guys whose job it is to either clear the defense away from where the running back wants to run or to protect the quarterback from defensive players). As football began to tilt towards emphasizing the pass and the left tackle starting increasing in importance until around the time Michael Oher was in high school, when the left tackle was usually one of the top three players in terms of salary and importance. Why the left instead of the right tackle? Well, because most quarterbacks are right handed, when they prepare to throw the ball, their body is perpendicular to where they want to throw it, with their right arm cocked back. In this position, they cannot see defenders attacking them from the left side of the field. The left tackle protects a quarterback’s blind side when he is passing the ball.

The brilliance of the book and the cleverness of its title comes also from a mostly hidden third narrative. This narrative asks a tough question about our society. If so many semi-miraculous things had to go right for Michael Oher’s talent to make him successful, how many other talented poor children are we missing out on? If rags to riches is so insanely difficult on the football field, where talent is so objectively measurable (again — 6’4″, 300 pounds, and unbelievably athletic) how difficult is it for our society to identify talent in more subjective fields? The quarterback’s blind side makes him vulnerable to defensive rushes. He needs a strong left tackle to protect him. Social stratification makes our culture vulnerable to missing out on some of its brightest talents. Where’s our country’s left tackle? On top of being a touching story and a great tactical history of football, The Blind Side, is an insightful, challenging book about America.

Let me know if this works,
Ezra Fischer

Aaron Hernandez, Sports and Crime

Dear Sports Fan,

What is going on up in Boston with the football player Aaron Hernandez? Did he really kill someone? Why does it seem like athletes are in trouble with the law so often?

Thanks,
AJ

— — —

Hi AJ,

It’s not completely clear what’s going on in Boston with Patriots’ Tight End Aaron Hernandez. Here’s what we do know: a 27 year-old man named Odin Lloyd is dead. He was found Monday morning and by Wednesday his death had been ruled a homicide. As the Boston Globe reports, Aaron Hernandez is “embroiled” in this story in a number of ways. Lloyd either was or had been dating Hernandez’ sister. Hernandez was out with Lloyd and some other people the night Lloyd died. Hernandez apparently drove Lloyd and two other friends in a car away from the club where Lloyd was last seen alive. The car, a rental, was found abandoned near the body and had been registered to Hernandez. Hernandez also is said to have destroyed his home security system and cell-phone sometime after Monday night.

The media of course (including this website, I guess, although this is our first and hopefully last post on the subject) has been ALL over this story. According to the New York Times which clearly likes to see itself as above the fray:

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” said Michael McDowell, a laborer for a mason contractor, as he cleared off the bed of a company truck and looked up at a chopper overhead. He wore a faded Patriots T-shirt. “Football player, on the run.” Hernandez was not running from the police; he was evading the news media, who sprang into action for a relatively mundane pursuit when he left his house on Thursday morning.

The blog-o-sphere has been equally focused. Deadspin.com even ran a post covering a tweet which relayed the information that an edible arrangement had just been sent to Aaron Hernandez’ house. Meanwhile the police have been fairly silent on the topic aside from saying that Hernandez is a “person of interest.” The most recent development is that lots of sites reported that an arrest warrant for Hernandez for obstructing justice had been issued. That report was pretty quickly disputed and as of now it seems as though no warrant has been issued.

So what do we make of all of this? There are a few things I find interesting. First is of course the question you asked about why it seems like athletes are always mixed up in stuff like this. I’m cautious about commenting on this authoritatively but most of what I find online suggests that “it is not clear that athletes are any more involved in serious crime than the general population is.” An interesting Duke study concludes that athletes actually commit fewer crimes than a similar segment of the general population. When they do commit crimes, it stands to reason that they will be far more public than the general population. Second is whether or not Hernandez committed a crime. My guess is that he did, but it seems just as likely that he is guilty of aiding, abetting, and protecting someone who committed murder as it is that he committed murder himself. Last is my own reaction which has been a small but constant voice in my head saying “this guy was on my fantasy football team!??!” As if somehow that makes me connected to the incident or more shocking that someone I’m related to that closely is involved with a murder. This speaks either to the power of fantasy sports or to my having a screw loose.

Thanks,
Ezra Fischer

Why Does Vladimir Putin Have a Super Bowl Ring?

From the how-weird-can-it-get files, this story is about whether or not the Russian politician Vladimir Putin stole an NFL Championship ring from the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft.

The story begins in the summer of 2005 when Robert Kraft went on a trip to Russia. The New England Patriots, then (as now) one of the best teams in the National Football League, had just won their third Super Bowl in four years. Vladimir Putin’s record was almost as good as Kraft’s. Elected in 2000 after his predecessor Boris Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly, Putin had just been reelected in 2004 with 71% of the vote. At the end of a day of meetings between Putin, Kraft, and other American businessmen, something happened and Putin ended up with Kraft’s Super Bowl ring.

What’s in a ring? Most team sports leagues, including the NFL, give out a trophy to the championship team. There is also a tradition that the winning organization rewards its own players and coaches with gaudy championship rings as a celebration of the winning season. These rings have become a sort of jockish short-hand representing the championships themselves. One common factor in arguments about how to rate a player is “how many rings does he or she have?” Athletes use the word like this too, as in the famous rejoinder, ““I can’t hear what Jeremy says, because I’ve got my two Stanley Cup rings plugging my ears” by hockey goalie Patrick Roy when taunted by Jeremy Roenick, a good player but one who had never won championships like Roy had.

The exact series of events that led to Putin possessing Kraft’s ring was never completely clear, even in 2005. In the Boston Globe article Donovan Slack wrote that it could be “an international incident of sorts, a misunderstanding of Super Bowl proportions. Or it could be a very, very generous gift.” Despite Kraft’s statement a few days later that he, “decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin.” there was always a certain mystery around the incident.

In a wonderful profile of Kraft’s wife Myra in 2007, the New York Times reported her version of the story which involved an off-color remark by Putin that he could “kill someone” with the ring before more or less walking off with it, to her husband’s dismay. The story of the ring being a gift was a cover-up to avoid an international incident, she said.

The story resurfaced this week when Robert Kraft finally confirmed his now deceased wife’s version of the story, even adding some henchmen into the mix: “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

Just to make things even more scandalous, Putin responded to the story today through spokesperson and witness Dmitry Peskov, who said that “what Mr. Kraft is saying now is weird.” As reported by CNN, the metric system-obsessed spokesman remembered that he “was standing 20 centimeters away from him and Mr. Putin and saw and heard how Mr. Kraft gave this ring as a gift.”

What will happen next? Who knows! But it’s truly a great world that creates the headline “Putin denies stealing Kraft’s Super Bowl ring” and puts it on the front page of ESPN.

Gifts for Sports Fans: Nesting Russian Dolls

We’re starting a new feature for Dear Sports Fan — gift suggestions for the sports fan in your life. Please let us know what you think of this! Do you ever need recommendations for sports related gifts? How do you feel about giving sports related gifts? We’re thinking we will mostly search for gifts that are a little off the beaten path of jerseys, hats, etc. How can we customize this section for you? Thanks!

Custom Sports Team Nesting Russian Dolls

What says sports and sports culture more than dolls? I saw these dolls first on the Brooklyn Game, a Brooklyn Nets blog that I read. An excited Devin Kharpertian wrote this about the dolls:

These Brooklyn Nets matryoshka dolls, better known as nesting dolls, are… pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted in a Brooklyn Nets gift. Shout out to Russian culture? Check. A recognition by Russian doll makers that Andray Blatche and Brook Lopez succeeded together? Check. A tiny Andray Blatche? All the checks

Not every team has a Russian owner but that’s no reason to think that the sports fan in your life would appreciate these dolls any less. These dolls have a fascinating history. According to Wikipedia, the first set of matryoshka dolls was “carved in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter in the Abramtsevo estate of the Russian industrialist and patron of arts Savva Mamontov.”

The doll figures usually create a set, like cats, dogs, astronauts, politicians, etc., so the idea of creating one out of a team seems to be a natural fit. Plus they nest. Which means they are fairly compact when a social occasion calls more for white table-cloth and less for a matching set of Kansas City Royals infielders…

The dolls can be purchased on Etsy for $60 which seems to include shipping. If you don’t see your fan’s favorite team, you can order a custom set for the same price. One note of warning — not all the sets seem to have differentiated figures modeled after actual players. For instance, my Pittsburgh Penguins all look roughly like a cross between Evgeni Malkin and Donald Duck.

What is a Sweep?

Dear Sports Fan,

I’ve been following the NBA playoffs and have heard announcers talking about one team sweeping another. What does that mean?

Thanks,
Don

Dear Don,

When one team wins all of its games against another team in a particular set of games, it is said to have swept the other team. The reason you’re hearing it so much now is that the NBA playoffs are organized into best four out of seven series. For a team to move on to the next round of the playoffs, it must beat its opponent four times within those seven games. If it were a set of three games instead of seven, a team would have to win a majority of two out of the three to win the series. If a team gets to having won a majority of the games in a series by winning consecutive games, they have swept the series.

You’ll hear talk about sweeps most often in sports that organize their games like basketball does. The NHL and MLB playoffs also are organized around seven game series. In the NFL, where the playoffs are single elimination, you may still hear someone talk about a team sweeping a “season series ” against another team. This means the team won all (usually it is just two) games against a particular opponent even if the games were not consecutive.

Being swept is seen as humiliating in professional sports and players are determined not to let it happen to them. It’s actually fairly common though — as of 2009, 18% of NHL playoff series ended in a sweep. In this NBA playoffs so far, there are four teams at risk for being swept: the Celtics by the Knicks,^[1] the Bucks by the Heat, the Lakers by the Spurs, and the Rockets by the Thunder.

If you’re having trouble remembering what a sweep is, here are two possible derivations that might help. One possibility is that the usage comes from the image of using a broom to sweep your opponent out of the way — that opponent put up so little fight that you could use the broom instead of having to pull a mop out or get on your hands and knees to scrub. Another possibility is that this usage shares a derivation with the word sweepstakes — a contest where one party sweeps all of the possible winnings into their lap — the image of one of those miniature shuffleboard sticks that roulette dealers use comes to mind.

Enjoy the playoffs!
Ezra Fischer

Footnotes (↵ returns to text)

Not anymore, since I started writing this, the Celtics won in overtime to avoid being swept 4-0.↵

Super Bowl Prep Talk, Part One-B: Harbaugh Brothers and New Orleans

In this series, Dear Sports Fan will try to prepare non-sports fans and sports fans alike to converse knowledgeably during this Sunday’s Super Bowl parties. Super Bowl Sunday is probably the day when the most non-sports fans gather in front of televisions and mingle with their sport loving friends and family. In Part One-A of this series, we covered the many, many plot lines centered around Ray Lewis. In this post, we’ll cover two more story lines, the Harbaugh brothers and New Orleans, the host city.

The Harbaugh Brothers

Unlike the normal one-game-a-Sunday cadence of the football season over the past few months, there are two weeks between the semi-finals and the Super Bowl. This gives everyone time to take any interesting story and drive it into the ground. By the time the game comes around for those of us who watch and listen and read a lot about sports, the narrative of many stories will have shifted from this-is-an-interesting-story to this-story-is-going-to-kill-me-if-I-hear-it-one-more-time. Then, of course, that becomes the story!

The story of the Harbaugh brothers is one of those stories. It goes like this: the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, John Harbaugh, is the older brother of the head coach of the San Fransisco Forty-Niners, Jim Harbaugh. That’s pretty much the whole story. But what the hell… their father Jack was a football player and coach himself. There’s a pretty sweet story about the sons going out of their way to help him when he was struggling as the head coach of Western Kentucky University. Sweet, however, is not the emotion this family is most known for. The sons are intense — even for football coaches. Jim, the younger one, is particularly demonstrative.

Says the New York Times:

His San Francisco 49ers players love to imitate the cartoonish nature of their coach: the clenched teeth, the dropped jaw, the wide eyes, the narrowed brow. Each has their favorite Harbaugh face.

John had is own blog-ready moment. When he was asked about coaching against his brother, he responded by saying it was a “great moment for our country.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but you know… even if it’s not an incredibly interesting story… it is kinda cool to think about two kids playing super bowl in their back yards years ago and then growing up to face each other in that exact situation.

New Orleans

The host of the Super Bowl this year is New Orleans.Usually it’s not interesting who’s hosting the Super Bowl. But this year, there’s some drama. If the NFL and New Orleans were Facebook friends, their relationship status would be, “It’s Complicated.” Here’s the timeline.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the Superdome became an emergency shelter for 20,000 plus people. The stadium, which had hosted football and basketball games, the pope and the Rolling Stones, quickly became a symbol of the desperate, tragic situation.

Then, a little more than a year later, the Superdome became a symbol for the rebirth of the city when the city’s beloved Saints returned, like so many New Orleans residents did, from San Antonio. Roger Goodell, now the commissioner of the NFL, then the assistant commissioner, played a big role in this, remembers NOLA.com:

Goodell worked with local leaders to rebuild the Superdome. He cleared bureaucratic hurdles in Washington D.C. to accelerate the construction process. And he was a constant motivator, sending local officials late-night emails for inspiration: “We’re winning! Don’t stop! We’re in this to win!”

Three years after the team returned to New Orleans, they won the Super Bowl. So, it’s a positive, feel good story, right? Well… not so fast.

This past summer, a scandal broke out (predictably Clintonized to “Bountygate”) when it was revealed that the New Orleans Saints had a bounty system set up to provide financial rewards for injuring opposing players, including targeting the heads of players with histories of concussions. Goodell, now commissioner, suspended several team coaches and players for the season. Goodell has widely been accused of everything from tyranny to hypocrisy to ineptitude. He was sued by a suspended player. He eventually had to ask his predecessor to step in and try to clean up some of the mess. Paul Tagliabue cleaned up the mess by essentially repealing as many of Goodell’s decisions as possible.

So, where do we stand today? My guess is that Goodell is more hated than he is loved but that the hate is mostly a good-natured, whaddayagonnado type of hate. My favorite story about this is the signs that have started appearing in the windows of New Orleans restaurants and bars: “Do Not Serve This Man,” they say.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Super Bowl Prep Talk, Part One-A

In this series, Dear Sports Fan will try to prepare non-sports fans and sports fans alike to converse knowledgeably during this Sunday’s Super Bowl parties. Super Bowl Sunday is probably the day when the most non-sports fans gather in front of televisions and mingle with their sport loving friends and family. In Part One-A of this series, we’ll cover some of the key story-lines and plot points around the game.

As is often the case with big sporting events, many fans will be following the Super Bowl for its dramatic, soap opera-esque stories. Although the game this year does not have any story half as inspiring as an athlete over-coming the twin deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend or half as bizarre as the revelation that that girlfriend never existed, this game has plenty of juicy stories orbiting it.

Ray Lewis is Everything

Ray Lewis is the starting middle linebacker of the Baltimore Ravens. He’s a very controversial figure. Some people love him, some people hate him, and some people will represent both sides of the issue while attacking the seven layer dip like a fiend. This playoff season has brought out the best, the worst, and the most dramatic elements of Lewis — let me tell you about some of it.

First, Lewis is undeniably great at his job. He’s been playing for the Baltimore Ravens since their inaugural season 17 years ago. He has been to 13 Pro Bowls, been the NFL Defensive Player of the Year twice, and was the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player in 2001 when the Ravens won last. Also… maybe he’s overrated.

We’re now done with the football side of Lewis. Before this year’s playoffs, he announced that he would be retiring at the end of the season. Boston area NESN wondered in early January (before the Ravens knocked the New England Patriots out of contention) whether or not this would inspire the Ravens to win the Super Bowl.

Lewis missed the final ten games of the regular season this year after he tore his triceps muscle. Now he’s back playing. Some say (and probably some at your super bowl party will say) that this has to be thanks to some serious performance enhancing drugs. Or even some kind of silly ones.

Lewis’ response to being asked about using deer antler spray shows another side of him — the religious crazy person side. He commented that the allegations were “the trick of the devil.” There is no question that if Lewis were not a football player, he might have been a charismatic preacher. He fires up his team before the game, cries dramatically during the national anthem, and answers post-game questions with mildly incoherent scripture.

Back in 2000, the year before Baltimore was last in the Super Bowl, Lewis was embroiled in a less goofy controversy. He was arrested for murder and aggravated assault in the stabbing death of two men outside a night club. Lewis cut a plea bargain where his charge was reduced to virtually nothing in return for testifying against his two friends. They were eventually acquitted.

Oh, and did I mention that he has a signature dance? It’s brilliant. Teach yourself it and impress your friends with an imitation. Like the mayor of Denver. Or Keenan Williams of SNL.

Good luck learning the dance! In the next two installments of this series, we’ll cover the two opposing head coaches being brothers and the complicated relationship of the host city, New Orleans, with the NFL.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra

How do I Begin to Enjoy Football?

Dear Sports Fan,

My partner is a big football fan and I’m wondering if there are any tricks to start enjoying watching football more. I want to be able to enjoy a game with him but the game seems so complicated that it’s hard to know where to start in trying to understand it.

Thanks,
Ken

Dear Ken,

I imagine this is a problem that many football watching newbies face. One of the sports blogs I read, Deadspin, jokingly addressed this issue the other day in a post titled, “Football is the Hardest Sport to Explain to Children and Dumb People.” In it, the author Drew Magary describes the problem and through his tongue-in-cheek impatient vulgarity, describes the reward for those who develop football understanding:

Football… almost goes out of its way to keep you at arm’s length. You can’t watch football for the first time and know, intuitively, what the hell is going on. The announcers don’t pause to explain every little thing to you, which is good because that would be really fucking annoying. But even the referees don’t know the rules to the game anymore. It can all be rather intimidating…

It takes a while to figure out what’s going on in a football game but, once you’ve got the basics down, watching becomes intensely rewarding.

Fear not though Ken, I think that I may have one little thing that you can do each play that will get you in engaged in the game and will teach you a lot about football along the way.

Once you understand the basics of down and distance (and if you don’t, I wrote a post about it a while back) the next thing to do is play the run or pass game. The rules are simple — as soon as the ball is snapped to start a play, shout out RUN or PASS. If you are watching with a friend or your partner and you are sporting people, put a small wager on each play. According to wikianswers.com there are around 125 plays in a football game. So put 10 cents on each play and you’ll end up being able to buy your friend a beer or a popcorn.

Here are three tips you can use to win the game:

Think about the down and distance. If it’s second or third down and the team with the ball needs less than three yards to get a first down, they are more likely to run the ball. If it’s third and ten to fifteen yards, the team is likely to throw.
Watch the offensive line. The Center (who snaps the ball to the Quarterback,) the Guards (the two men on either side of him,) and the Tackles (the two men on the outside of the Guards) will usually try to knock the defensive players opposite them backwards if it is a run play. If it is a pass play, the offensive line will usually fall back, allowing the defensive line to move forwards, but trying to maintain a protective “pocket” around the quarterback so he can throw the ball before he is tackled.
When in doubt, guess Pass. The NFL has slowly been evolving into a league where most teams pass most of the time. Last year teams passed 57% of the time, tied for the highest in NFL history.

Hope this makes watching games more interesting. Let me know how it goes!

Happy Watching,
Ezra Fischer