The Sports Effect

I hate the college football playoff system.  I know I'm in the minority in this.  I know that every college football analyst lauds the system.  I don't.  I think it's completely tilted towards the team with the best offense.  I've never understood why some people argue that one team may not have a chance to touch the football.  The game of football is designed for both offense, defense, and special teams to affect the outcome.  However, the college football system takes special teams completely out of it and puts a weighted emphasis on offense.  You design a football team to play a certain type of style and then are forced to throw it completely away with the game on the line.  It's like resting the outcome of a playoff hockey game on a shootout.  Or a World Cup Game on a shootout.  They don't do that.  Neither should football.  I would be in favor of the college system if they first had to play through fifteen minutes without scoring.  It would then be like hockey only turning to a shootout if it gets through the overtime period.  However, you completely eliminate any advantage a team with a dominant defense if the offense gets to start on the thirty yard line.  This isn't the AFL or XFL or UFL or whatever else there is.  I don't want my team's playoff chances resting on some chintzy system.

I just don't like that a game is played for sixty minutes and then switched to decide the winner.  It's like playing blackjack, tying the house, and then playing five-card draw to decide the winner.  It's like putting Jim Carray into a serious, suspense thriller as the main character (see: The Number 23).  It's like settling an NBA game with a game of lightning.  It's like settling a drag race by seeing which car's speakers are the loudest.  It just shouldn't happen.  This is football.

There seems to be this apparent need of analysts and fans to complain about the level of competition in the National Football League.  It goes like this, "The bad teams are worse than ever, the leagues never been this bad."  I'll admit that there are some horrible teams: Lions, Rams, Raiders, Chiefs, Buccaneers, Redskins, Seahawks, etc.  However, I think analysts are missing the whole point.  It isn't just because there is a poor effort by GM's and coach's.  It is rather the poor efforts of players avoiding our current culture.

This isn't a world where guys sacrifice themselves for others without getting anything in return.  This is a "me-first" league with massive incentives geared towards personal stats.  The bad teams in the league still have unbelievable talent and marquee coaches.  It is an issue of timing.  Once a team feels like there team will struggle to compete or a mediocre team loses a couple, doubt starts creeping in the helmets.  A player will take off a few plays when they know they aren't targeted.  A lineman may not properly pick up a blitz.  A linebacker may guess early and crash into a pile leaving a gaping cutback hole.  These may be miniscule issues, but these small mistakes are what lead to big losses.  Compounding the problem, recent reports have been documented outlining the apparent danger of concussions and football as a whole.  So why should a player put themselves in lifelong danger for a loser organization?  This is a business and shouldn't they be looking out for a new contract?  When bigger pay-days come with bigger numbers, a player will always look for their own good.  I don't blame them.  But unless players look for the betterment of their team, it will be a cyclical problem.  I don't have a cure.  I just know that you can't call it a business and ask for sacrificial play at the same time.  If I'm Stephen Jackson, I don't pick up the 280-pound blitzing linebacker.  I'm the franchise and I need to get paid like the franchise.

In the same sense, Britney Spears went through the same cycle.  She worked her butt off to get to be a global superstar.  It was all going smoothly until she became her worst problem.  She fueled the attention until the attention couldn't be turned off.  She tried and tried but the media loved her.  It was an attention monster.  It drove her to levels of marrying K-Fed, driving a child around in her lap, and worst of all, shaving her head.  It became to surreal.  We don't want players to shave their heads.  You can't win in the league with attention-grabbing divas.  For example, look at 2008 Chad Ochocinco.  He went for the attention, and sold out as soon as his team went sour.  Then he knew that couldn't last long, changed his outlet, bought back into the system, and now plays for a top team.  You need players to sacrifice and give of themselves in conjuction with their coaches for a national championship.  That is the issue.  You can't keep the 2009 players motivated like you could in 1979.  It isn't about pride anymore, its about money.

It's the league of the rich and risk-averse.

The land where risk-takers are revered and honored.

The NFL has an abundance of coaching ineptitude.  It's 4th and 1 with 5 minutes to play and down by 5.  You are on the opposition's 30 and you try a field goal!  Or you have a 3rd and 1 with 10 defenseman in the box and one-on-one coverage with your star receiver and you run the ball!  Lastly, you are down by 21 with ten minutes to go and you punt from your own 40!  What do you have to lose?  You are only going to have 2 more possessions at the most.

It is this rigid use of conventional wisdom that does little to pull these doormat teams out of the cellar.  It is time for a coach from the Rams, Lions, Bucs, or Raiders that do something out of the ordinary.  It was Miami last year that used the wildcat so effectively.  It is not that the wildcat will be a monumental formation for years to come, rather a formation that hadn't been seen before.  So let's see some guts, some gusto.  Do the coach's with a 1-7 record really believe that if they are safe by keeping the status quo?  Let's develop some unique nuances and special wrinkles.  Where did Randle-El go with his reverse passes?  Where did Doug Flutie go with his dropkicks?  If you are not going to add something to the performance of the league please add to the entertainment level.

Guys like Belichek and Sean Payton are revered minds.  Why?  Because they do things differently.  They look at a team and then gameplan without the conventional constraints.  They do things differently regardless of what it means.  They will use Troy Brown has defensive back.  They will use Lance Moore as an actual downfield threat.  Like Steve Urkel was contrained by his suspenders.  Steve Urkel did it his own way, but was a major threat when he took off the suspenders.  So it is time for the NFL to take of its suspenders and actually make a coaching decision that makes the other coach think.  It should actually be a chess match and not a game of checkers.