Where to Watch

 

These days, it seems less and less worth it to actually get your buttocks off the couch and go to an actual sporting event. HDTV technology is getting even better if that’s possible, and la-z-boy’s remain lethargic as ever. We have fantasy sports to keep track of, and Scott Hansen to tell us what’s good in the NFL at a second’s notice.

But there is something to say (or should I say, view) about seeing live sports.

We need a break from our day to day lives, and we look to seek a fraction of the thrill that players get from the roar of a crowd. Often times it’s nice to complain about your team’s starting point guard while urinating next to a complete stranger. And yes, you’re darn right that it feels good to beat the system when you pour the contents of your flask into a $10 souvenir soda.

But just how “worth it” is it to scorn your talking box and make it to an actual game? The answer, like anything in capitalist America, is that it depends on how much money you have and who you know.

Let’s pretend however that money is no object, and that you’re closest friends are Donald Trump and Bill Simmons. You have unlimited resources to see your favorite squad protect it’s house. “Great,” you’re thinking, “get me front row tickets and let’s do this thing!”. Here’s where you’re wrong.

Sometimes, you have to go backwards before you go forwards. In other situations, front and center is right where you need to be. Allow me to explain.

Best place to watch a Hockey Game: Wherever Robert Kraft is

Just kidding. Sort of.

You’ll notice that your’s truly is sitting at center ice, which is a great start when it comes to viewing hockey games. While it’s quite nice to be directly behind the goalie (so you can be the first to spot a good goal), it can be a shame to squint down the opposite end of the ice, especially since teams switch sides of the ice at the change of periods.

Speaking of squinting, here is where you can make a huge mistake when watching a hockey game. While it pumps ice water into your veins the first time you experience two men smashing into each other with only a piece of plexiglass separating you from them, seeing a hockey game from the front row is an eyesore. As the glass bends towards the corners of the ice, there are actually several blind spots that stop you from seeing what’s going on.

Hockey is a sport where if you can’t be like Wayne Gretzky, you want to at least see the ice like he did. Try to position yourself 10-12 rows up from the glass so you can see plays develop, and get a grasp of how players space themselves. Sitting up in the nosebleeds isn’t a bad idea either if you’re strapped for cash (as anyone reading this article surely is) because once again, it allows you to get an entire view of the ice–something that isn’t always the case with television broadcasts.

Best place to watch a Baseball Game: Behind Home Plate

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. Since I was about 8 years old, my Dad and I have been going to Red Sox games at Fenway Park. When I was 10 years old, we stopped paying for our seats. That is to say, we realized that the security at America’s Most Beloved Ballpark was remarkably lax and therefore $20 bleacher tickets actually bought us seats practically anywhere we wanted in the house. I’m 25 now, and I’ve sat everywhere. Of all the major sports, baseball is probably the one in which you’re really screwed if you don’t have a good seat. In old ballparks such as Fenway, some seats aren’t even facing toward the field of play.

Right behind home plate is the spot I have determined to be the greatest to catch a game, and this is for several reasons. Possibly the best reason is for students of the game (and this goes for casual fans, too) can get a real understanding of how good professional pitchers are. The home plate view allows you to get the most accurate demonstration of how fast these guys are throwing. You can see the magnificent break on a slider, and twitch of the shoulders from a batter when an unexpected change-up comes into his hitting zone. There’s a reason why the person tracking the speed of the pitches with a radar gun is sitting next to you. Sit next to them, and you won’t miss a thing.

Another great example of why sitting directly behind home plate is the best is because you can actually see how well struck the ball was. Never again will you be a pre-mature home-run celebrator (every baseball fan’s pet peeve). You can actually hear when the batter got all of a pitch, and if you got higher than a ‘C’ in physics in High School you can also usually guess how far the ball is going to go based on the trajectory of impact.

I’ll also mention that there are few things more satisfying than seeing a home run clobbered from behind home plate. It’s completely unimaginable to grasp the power these men have with a wooden stick until you see it up close and personal. I will now allow you to pause and let that sexual innuendo sink in.

Best place to watch a Football Game: Up, Up, and Away

A wise man by the name of Ludacris once said, “I wanna get you in the Georgia Dome on the fifty yard line while the Dirty Birds kick for t’ree”.

While this sentiment may be deemed accurate and even desirable for sexual fantas-tas-tas-siiies, it’s hardly practical when viewing a game on the gridiron.

When you go to see a football game live, it’s really one of the only experiences where you are at an advantage the higher up you’re sitting. This is GREAT news for all the people who can’t shell out the big bucks to sit front row.

Out of all the professional sports, I would say that seeing a football game live gives you the biggest advantage over people watching at home. That is, if you do it right.

As of a few years ago, the NFL started marketing “coaches cam” footage that was once unavailable to the public for a hefty fee. Why would anyone want to pay an extra $100 to see little dots running up and down green grass? Because you get to see the play develop.

When you go to an actual NFL game, you get the privilege of seeing a Wide Receiver streak down the field becoming open for a deep out route–in many cases before Quarterback sees him there. There’s nothing like being at a game and feeling the urgency of the crowd as they notice their guy breaking down the sideline with a Cornerback tailing him. Picture seeing Viktor Krum diving for the snitch while the rest of the action unfolds hundreds of feet above him, only you’re watching a sport where 95% of the game isn’t academic.

On TV, cameras are only focused on the person who has the football. When a quarterback goes deep, or even throws out of the vantage point of the camera, we have no idea what is going to happen. Think about that for  a second. 40-50 times a game, we have no clue whether a pass will be complete, incomplete, or intercepted. What other sport can you say that about?

Sitting high up–or ideally 20 rows back– gives the stadium viewer the opportunity to see the entire field, something which technology has yet to achieve on the boob tube. To be able to see a play before it happens is pure magic, and it’s the only reason why I would ever sit in 20 degree weather for 4 hours.

Best place to Watch a Basketball Game: Court side

Sorry, 99% of America.

There’s no doubt that in the NBA, court side is where you need to be. You get first-hand accounts of seeing rich people and celebrities live their lives (for all the Juliet Litman’s of the world), and the NBA is the only sport which allows you such close access to the players themselves.

Seeing the whole floor is cute and all, and maybe if you want to become Zach Lowe one day you’ll need to sit a bit farther up to see proper spacing and movement, but let’s stop messing around. Clearly the place to be is right on the court, with the players.

First of all, we all know that NBA smack talk is unbelievable. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to hear the things Kevin Garnett says on a first-hand basis. You can see which guys are tired, who was hungover from the night before, and most importantly, you can see the body language of each and every player. My personal suggestion for anyone wealthy or well-connected enough would be to sit right next to or behind a team’s bench. The amount that you could pick up from this experience would be unparalleled. Team dynamic, play calls, and levels of dysfunction are just a few of the reasons why these seats are arguably more valuable than the Iron Throne.

Unfortunately, these seats are about as unattainable as Khaleesi. Court side tickets to see the Philadelphia 76ers–the worst franchise in the NBA by far–play the New York Knicks this week start at $975. Start saving 😦

The Two Sides of Tom Brady

Warning: Do Not Read This If You Are  a Patriots Fan

4 games suspension, 1st round draft pick next year, 4th round the year afterwards, and the biggest fine in the history of the sport. Honestly, it could have been harsher.

It seems rather evident that this punishment was in tandem with all the rules the Patriots have broken, meddled with, or pushed to the limit in their storied recent past.  “There was a feeling, especially in Pittsburgh, that the New England Patriots will bend the rules, they will try to find ways to win games that may tinker on cheating.” said former Steelers defensive star Ryan Clark.

Those factors being taken into account, the punishment was a pretty fair one. Ben Roethlisberger got his 6-game suspension decreased to 4, and Ray Rice only got 2 himself (initially), but if you think those punishments are the same, you’re kidding yourself. Yes, what Rice and Big Ben did was much worse on a humanity scale, but looking at it from afar, it had nothing to do with the outcome of the game.

What Tom Brady did not only effected his job directly, but he did it on the job. This is a serious issue for the integrity of the game because you can argue it changes the way the game is played. Nobody knows how long the deflation of footballs was going on, but its safe to say that Brady’s skills have been on the decline (playoff heroics aside). Perhaps he wasn’t doing this his whole career, but he saw an advantage when his own physical skills were slipping. That’s not how things are supposed to work. Here was a real issue that Goodell could stand behind and influence immediately, and he did just that.

The Wells Report didn’t have to have conclusive evidence in order to have Brady suspended. This isn’t the court of law, and the act committed isn’t a matter of the jury either. Goodell is the judge here, and the league is his courtroom. There is no “due dilligence”, no “innocent until proven guilty” here. Goodell gets to make the rules, because that’s what commissioners do.

Revenue Roger put his NFL-Money-Making Ego aside for once and decided to suspend one of the league’s most marketable players in order to set a precedent about how his game is played.

 

Warning: Do Not Read if You Hate the Patriots

If you think this is over, you’re wrong. Tommy T is one of the richest, most well-connected people in the sport of American Football. If you think Brady isn’t going to lawyer up and fight this suspension, and possibly get it lowered to 2 games, then you don’t understand how this country works. Roger Goodell is many things, and one of them is soft. He won’t be able to sustain the pressure of the Brady 6 (that’s what I’m calling his swag team of lawyers now) from now until September (and it’s only May!).  We haven’t heard the last from Bob Kraft, either.

If you are a true Patriots fan, you shouldn’t be too worried about anything involving the upcoming season. 5 times, the Patriots have gone 2-2 to start their first 4 games. 3 of those times, they won the Super Bowl.

The suspension also provides further motivation to the greatest coach of our generation. Belichick now has 5 months to prepare his hand-selected back-up QB to tread water for 1 month of September football. Sounds to me like the 2817th hardest thing Bill Belichick has ever had to do.

All of New England is in “fuck you” mode, now, again. You remember what happened last time we went into that mode? That’s right, the Patriots won the freaking Super Bowl.

Brady is going to come back in week 6, the Patriots are going to play the Indianapolis Colts, and he is going to destroy them. It will be a Tom Brady of the likes we’ve never seen before. The trash-talking and TD celebrations are going to be off the charts. Off the charts.

And let’s get to the idea of “legacy” while we’re at it. I’ve thought about this a lot, but here is the conclusion I’ve come to. People that honestly think Tom Brady’s reputation as an all-time great is tarnished are one of two things: spiteful or uninformed. Don’t come to me and say that deflated footballs had any effect on Tom Brady’s ability to be the best. I know what I saw.

 

 

You want to talk about ‘legacy’? Let’s talk about those two drives against the greatest defense of our generation. Let’s talk about 199th overall. Let’s talk about 3 in 4 years. Let’s talk about Moss.

You know who’s never accused Tom Brady of cheating? The Mannings. Because they’ve beaten him, and they ain’t bitter.

The Patriots are going to win the AFC East again next year, just like they always do. Tom Brady is going to throw bullets to Gronk and Edelman, and he’s going to headbutt their helmets like it’s his rookie season again. 20 years from now, people are going to remember the greatness of Tom Brady, I promise that. Because while the media may be all over him right now, there’s always the Next Story. If your worried about Brady’s legacy as the Greatest of All Time, talk to me in 20 years. The good times outweigh the bad, and history will reflect that.

. . .

He did it; he didn’t do it.

The suspension was egregious; it should have been for the year.

He should be banned from the Hall of Fame; He’s the GOAT.

He’s human.

 

 

 

 

It’s Not Crazy, It’s Me: Things I do to Make Sports-Viewing Better

It goes without saying that I’m irrational when it comes to sports. Only 24 years young, I have the following experience on my fandom resume:

-Did not attend school the day after 2006 and 2007 Patriots playoff losses

-Broke into a friend’s house when no one was home to watch March Madness (while also skipping school)

-Started “Yankees Suck!” chants at numerous Celtics home games

-Seriously considered missing a few meals so I could buy NBA League Pass (just kidding…kind of)

-Once halted the beginning of a college exam for the entire class because our school Dayton, was playing their rival Xavier in a tournament game. The game was about to end, and I periodically gave score updates until it’s conclusion. 5 minutes later, our class resumed and I scored a solid 40/100 on the test. Sorry, Mom and Dad.

-Many more that I’m sure friends and family have been privy to throughout my life.

 

I’m not telling you to be like me, that it’s okay to be like me, or even why I am this way. It’s a disease. Likely one without a cure. But through these times, I have found some great “hacks” to make sports viewing more enjoyable.

While these helpful tactics may make me seem even more calculated and crazy, I assure you it has brought a heck of a lot of rationality into my sports fan experience. These tips will help you become a better sports fan, a more sane sports fan, and a good friend (maybe not the last one). In lieu of the Greatest Day of the Year (1st day of March Madness) nearly upon us, I’d like to share this valuable knowledge with you all.

1. When playing March Madness pools, don’t submit more brackets with different outcomes.

I understand that it may make financial/economic sense to screw around with your bracket selections if you are involved in several office-style pools. But this is what kills sports viewing for me. Making several brackets to hedge your bets makes you seem evil and calculated. It destroys the fun, unpredictable nature of the tournament and turns you into a boring businessman (or woman!).

Select one outcome for a bracket, because it’s the right thing to do. You won’t confuse yourself, you stay loyal to the teams you chose, and you don’t look like an asshole while you watch the games with your friends.

 

2. Watch the outfielder on deep fly balls in Baseball.

 

This tip will save you a significant amount of heartbreak. The same rule applies in Hockey, but your eyes should focus on the back of the net. The reason this is so important is that you can save yourself from getting your hopes up too high before anything actually happens.

 

A scrum around the net in a close game? That is a SERIOUSLY stressful situation for fans of Hockey, I’m sure. But if you are only watching the net, you don’t need to worry about the incredible saves and missed opportunities that go hand in hand with the sport.

 

If you watch the outfielder drift back on a deep fly ball to the warning track, look at him and nothing else. Reading their body language allows the viewer to tell whether a ball will go over the fence or not, and you will no longer have to judge on the trajectory of the ball. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and let your emotions get the best of you, but rationally watching a player’s reaction is much better than watching a sailing baseball get caught routinely at the wall.

 

Both of these skills take time to develop, which means you have to train yourself to adapt. I suppose that in doing so, the desired effect of being more even-keel as a fan is juxtaposed by the fact that you are training your mind to react to something you a) have no control over and b) is a hobby. Whatever.

 

3. If you’re favorite team is playing on the road and protecting a lead at the end of the game, mute the sound!

Once again, this tactic is a huge stress-saver. It’s amazing how your perspective of a sporting event can change simply from the ambiance and noise associated with it. Not having to deal with annoying announcers talking about the chances of your team losing is nothing short of a transcendent experience.  The excited energy of a crowd rooting against you? YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO IGNORE THEM, AND IT’S ONLY ONE REMOTE BUTTON AWAY.

Watch the end of the game with the sound off and you will be able to see the game as it’s meant to be seen, without emotion as a distraction.

 

4. Don’t Talk Trash to Opposing Fans after a Win.

 

This one goes against the normal conventions of being a sports fan, but hear me out. There is something known as “sports karma” and “sports etiquette”, and they are very, very real!

First of all, don’t ever text a friend who is fans of the other team after a tough loss. Just don’t. Ever. Even if you have something nice to say, they definitely don’t want to talk about it while the wounds are so fresh. I find this this tip is extremely important for people who aren’t fans of sports. As crazy sports fans, we understand that you pity us and perhaps even genuinely empathize with our pain, but the only thing that can help us at that moment in time is to vent to people who have a good context of what just happened. Sorry, extended family members, but I don’t need you to ask me if everything’s alright when the Patriots get bounced from the playoffs and I’m staring 100 miles off into the distance. Let me breathe.

Second of all, if your team has just won a big game and you talk shit to an opposing fan (ESPECIALLY over text message), I assure you that they will never forget it. Sports fans hold grudges; it’s kind of like Hollywood. We WILL return the favor (or lack thereof) one day in the future, and the retaliation will definitely be uncalled for and/or taken too far. Show some empathy and restraint and your friends will respect you more.

 

Please note that this rule does not apply when you are in attendance of the actual game. Trash talk away, because you don’t know these people and will probably never see them again. Screw off, random Jets fan!!!!

 

5. The less you know, the better.

If this photo doesn’t make you want to quit sports, I don’t know what can.

 

 

Probably the most important of all tactics, watching shows like “ESPN: First Take” or “SportsCenter” will ruin you before a big game. I know it’s tempting to catch up on all the news on your favorite team (What if we never make it this far again? I’ve got to live in the moment, man!) but trust me, all major network shows are a waste of your time. The people know exactly as much as you or I do, but the only difference is that they either played the game and have connections or are better looking than us. Don’t fall for ESPN’s fancy graphics and stats. “History tells us that no #1 seed has ever lost to a #7 seed in a regional final” is a pointless statistic that relies on circumstantial information and subjective opinion. These stats appear all the time on major network shows. Ignore them and you will sleep better at night.

 

As you can see, sports viewing at a high level is all about isolating the sane from the insane. It takes practice and it takes discipline, but it will make you happier.  You could also, you know, accept that it’s just a silly game and not care, but that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.

 

Enjoy the weekend, everyone. Watch safe, cheer safe, and most importantly…

Yankees Suck.

 

The Decision

 

If NBA League Pass and I were in a relationship on Facebook, it would be listed under “It’s Complicated”.

I want it. I want it baaaaaad. I’ve nearly convinced myself that I need it. Writers I admire have made me look like someone who’s living under a rock for not having it.

But yet, its $100 of money I’m trying to save. A plethora of travel lies ahead in my near future, and I want to be a responsible twenty-something and save up for “more important times”. On the other hand, what could be more important than Golden State-Toronto tonight at 7:30? Or how about Bulls-Wolves? You know who wants to see Andrew Wiggins make a name for himself night by night in this league? THIS GUY!!!

Things have gotten weird in my apartment. I’ve been egging my roommate on to start gambling on the NBA so he would have a reason to invest on NBALP with me, and I don’t feel remotely bad about it. “It’s an investment dude, you’ll make it all back before you know it”, I keep telling him.

Aspects about my social life also come into question. If you’ve been living in Boston over the last month, you know its been quite difficult to get out of the house. Snow is everywhere, and the MBTA is functioning as well Rondo and Rick Carlisle. Right now, with the weather considered, NBA League Pass seems like the obvious choice. But what about springtime, which may (or may not) be around the corner? I miss riding my bike and visiting my friends in Somerville. I can’t wait to go to explore the city again. Is it really worth it to spend my time cooped up inside my house until mid-April?

These folks look like they could use a little NBA in their lives.

 

There’s also the question of sleep. If you know me, you know I need to log my hours. But the best games start at 10:30 pm on the east coast. Do I risk my livelihood to watch Russ go for 40-12-11 against the Blazers?

As you can see, life is tough. I’m tired of trying to find an off-channel to flip to in-between nationally televised games. Celtics games can be boring, and there are so many exciting young teams and players in the NBA that I’ve effectively stopped following college basketball entirely. It’s all about The League for me now. But is my new alliance worth the money and time to fully devote myself?

Help me out folks: to buy or not to buy?

Donations are also highly encouraged ;-).

 

 

 

An Open Letter to Drew Bledsoe

 

Dear Drew,

How’s it going, man? Seriously, it seems like forever since we last spoke. Are you enjoying life?

I’ve been thinking about you a lot this week. You’ve had a pretty crazy ride the last decade and a half. Well, not as crazy of a ride as Patriots’ fans but, well, you know what I mean…

You’ve exemplified what it is to be a successful person after your career in the NFL. I see that you’ve started a winery. Your website says that your oldest bottle is 8 years old! You don’t happen to have one from 2001, do you?

OK, enough with the jokes. I promise I’ll stop. I’m writing this letter because I wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten about you. In September, 2001 when Mo Lewis nearly ended your life I was there. That was my first Patriots game.

It’s funny because that day didn’t really feel like it had much to do with football. It was the first game after 9/11, and we were playing the Jets. We all would have understood if you got crushed that day. Just not in the way that you actually did.

I remember leaving the game early, as soon as you got hurt. There was still time left in the game, but we knew it was over. Drunken fans were yelling “They’re bringing in FUCKIN BRADY” as I left the stadium. Everyone just hoped you would be okay.

Then there was the quarterback controversy in November. You’d been there before though. Remember Michael Bishop? I do. But this time was different. Tommy was winning football games. Patriots fans loved how quickly he got rid of the ball, as opposed to your um…hesitancy to let it fly sometimes (no offense!).

When Coach decided Tom was going to be QB1 going forward, you did not take it well. Who could blame you? You just signed a contract worth over $100 Million!! And some Cali bro was going to take your job just like that?

We all remember the AFC Championship game. That was heroic. Tom got hurt, and all of a sudden all of New England remembered we had the best back-up Quarterback in the league. Your first touchdown pass of the season came to David Patten in the back of the end zone in Pittsburgh. “Cancel those reservations!”, Willie McGinest yelled to the towel-waiving crowd. We won the game, and you wept tears of joy at the podium. Shit was storybook.

Then Brady got better. He played in the Super Bowl, and I don’t need to remind you what happened, because you were there. But we didn’t forget you. Tom certainly didn’t. You were a wonderful mentor to him, and an even better sport once you got over the initial fury of being discarded by your coach.

The following Tuesday–for Boston’s first championship parade since 1986–we wanted to celebrate with you. But you decided to skip out. We understood. Not your team anymore, I guess. But Tom Brady or no, you were still the guy from the Papa Gino’s commercials. You were still a hero in many New Englanders’ hearts.

The rest of your career didn’t go as you planned, I expect. You went to a couple of different teams, the highlight of which was probably beating  your old Patriots 31-0 on opening day of 2003. Yeah, they beat you 31-0 in a karmic reversal of fortune in week 17. But you still have that one game. You torched us!

In 2006, in similar fashion, you were benched for another young up-and-comer. A person pretending to be you made one of the most hilarious blogs of all time. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s go back to New England for a second.

This weekend, you turn 43 on Valentine’s Day. For 8 years, you were Boston’s valentine. Then #12 happened. Then 4 rings in 14 years happened. Then the greatest coach and Quarterback of all time happened.

Funny how things work out.

I haven’t forgotten about you, Drew Bledsoe. I hope you remember us, too.

“Deflategate”: Searching for Meaning in Terms of Reality

It’s been a tumultuous week and a half for Patriots fans. In fact, fans of football in general of had their world rocked. One of the most intriguing Super Bowl match-ups in the past decade has been marred by, well…one of the strangest controversies of my lifetime.

So bizarre are the circumstances, so polarizing are the opinions. It feels like it’s just a matter of time before Sarah Koenig takes the story up for Serial: Season 2.

I’m not going to bore you with the details and/or recent developments of the “scandal”. You probably know them by now. In relationship to those details, my opinion on the matter is equally academic. What I will say however, is that my feelings toward the issue have wavered plenty within the last 10 days. It’s hard not to, with new “evidence” coming to light all the time, and new “reports” being made by the hour.

What is more interesting though,  I believe, is taking a step back to think about how my (or anyone’s) opinions on “Deflategate” were formed. Who is dictating our flow of information and aiding us in forming our own opinions?

Is it ESPN,  media mogul of the 21st century and dictator of all things  mainstream in 2015 sports culture? It would be hard to dispute that they play a role.  The Worldwide Leader dominates the 24-hour sports cycle, and employs dozens of analysts whose job it is to comment on situations like these. They help develop a phenomenon that Sociologist David Newman describes as “externalization”. The term can best be described as ” ‘fact marketing’ by which certain people try to “sell” a particular explanation of some social phenomenon to the rest of us. They publish, broadcast, or explain ideas, giving the ideas a form that the rest of us can understand.”. Why wouldn’t we listen to what they have to say?

Is it the radio station you tune into while you drive to and from work? The people behind these microphones are more personalized, and its possible you’ve been taking their opinions into consideration for years, even decades. Maybe you’ve even called in by now to speak on the air. These shock jocks, along with us, take the information ESPN gives us and allows us to discuss it in a secondary, more personalized forum. Newman describes this as “objectivation”, but notes that”ideas are sometimes communicated, externalized, and accepted as truth by the public without any connection between the objectified knowledge and hard facts.”

Are you listening to your mother, who suddenly has an opinion on footballs with more scientific background than that annoying dude from Sports Science? You should always listen to your mother, you know…

Eventually, we internalize our own opinions through the previous two concepts. Our decisions are made up, and it’s hard to waver from them. Young children however have found a way around this. Newman goes on to explain an example of this in regards to how kids see the world. Essentially, children were given 3 pictures to look at and were asked to match them with a word. Most children matched the world “fly” to an elephant as opposed to a bird. Why? Because Dumbo, you dumbos!

How do we construct our own reality? Entrepreneur Jim Rohn suggests that “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with”.

I like to think this is true. When I was at my lowest depths of sorrow over the possibility of the Cheating Patriots, I spoke with the people I cared about and trusted the most. Did I care that  they were Patriots fans or not, or even interested in football? Actually, I didn’t. I simply wanted to gauge the opinions of those I respected in order to form my own identity. Some may call this insecure, I call it being myself ;-).

 

“People often go to great lengths to establish and preserve meaning, even in situations that may in fact be meaningless”- Howard Garfinkel

 

Eventually, I was able to take object opinion and internalize my own belief. What I found–and decided upon– was fascinating to me. I no longer care what people think about the “deflategate” situation. I believe that everyone is going to have to come to their own conclusions about the Patriots, and cheating, and PSI, and Tom Brady’s grip on the football, and so on and so on.

If you think that the Patriots will forever be masked in shadiness, go ahead and think that. If you think ESPN created this story to stir up a week where NFL stories are scarce, I don’t blame you for that thought process as well.

My only piece of advice is to do what the Patriots say they’re doing, and “ignore the noise”. One way or another, believe what you want to believe, and stay on your own track. Some events in life play out this way. They are ambiguous, and it’s as simple and clear cut as ambiguity can be.

The Patriots may have gotten caught cheating for something they didn’t think was a big deal (and it actually kind of was). They could have deliberately done it, or it could have been an accident. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Maybe the entire story was made up. Some stories will never get solved. It’s how we perceive them that’s important.

So now, the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks will play one football game to determine who is the best team in the NFL (or maybe not, if you think the Patriots cheated to get there). Will it effect the game? I don’t think so. If the game were played last Sunday, then perhaps. Not two weeks, though. No way.

These are athletes that have been taught to ignore the noise their entire lives. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think being accused of cheating is the hardest thing these pro athletes have had to deal with. We are talking about professionals who form their identities on overcoming adversity.

On Sunday, a game will be played, and a winner will be crowned. Unjustified or not, people will attach meaning to the outcome. We’ll discuss it as a nation, publicly and privately. I’ll internalize my beliefs, and you’ll internalize yours. There’s no point trying to convince you otherwise.

So if you want my opinion, it’s to form your own, on your own. Watch the Super Bowl and enjoy it with friends. Grab a beer, eat something that makes you fat, and laugh over the stupid commercials. Celebrate afterwards or commiserate. Before you know it, you’ll be transported somewhere else, far from the bright lights of Glendale, Arizona.  A new reality awaits.

 

 

 

Once Again, The Rest of the World Has it Right

 

No Monday Night Football on tonight? No College Football Championship until next week? Still bored with the first half of the NBA season? Not a problem at all. North of the United States (wait, there’s a country North of us!?) everyone will be glued to their television sets sets tonight at 8 pm EST for their “Granddaddy of ’em All”. Canada is set to host Russia in the World Junior Hockey Championships, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t tune in.

In case you were wondering, The World Junior Hockey Championships (taking place this year in Toronto and Montreal) are actually a real thing, not just a figment of Pierre Mcguire’s imagination. They take place every single year, making them arguably as important as March Madness here in the United States.  The tournament features the best under-20 players in the world playing for country, not club. The players are protecting their bodies with full on face-masks and neck-guards, so nobody has to worry about those nasty spinal injuries or concussions. And the USA is actually good and won the tournament two years ago! So why aren’t we watching?

The Short answer: All games south of Canada have been relegated to the NHL Network. For Comcast customers such as myself, the Network comes with the “Premium Sports Package” and is quite difficult for the uninhabited to even find on the channel guide because it is in a different channel range than the other sports channels (did that last sentence make sense to anyone but myself? Nice.) If it wasn’t for me subscribing to “The Score” App on my iPhone (as opposed to ESPN’s version, ‘SportsCenter’) I might not have even known that the tournament existed. Even worse, the Network couldn’t even splurge to get the likes of Doc Emerick and the aforementioned Pierre McGuire on the the mic. Unacceptable.

The Long Answer: Americans simply have too much on our mind to worry about amateur hockey. What with the New Year, the impending football playoffs (at both levels), and various other reasons (only 1-2 more weeks before the Patriots are booted from the playoffs and everyone in Boston realizes  that there are 2+ more winter months to go…gotta try and stay happy while you can!),  we have a lot of business to attend to.  A sport long dominated by Canadians might not seem worthy of our American eyes, especially when the US team was beaten by Russia in the quarterfinals.

All I can say on the matter is that tonight’s face off will absolutely be worth watching. Canada and Russia boast two of the best teams in the world (under-20 or over-20) and it will be extremely exciting to see them play for a gold medal with 20,000 screaming Canadians expecting a victory and nothing less. Tonight marks the 14th time that Canada and Russia have played for the title.  Every year, bars in Canada are packed in anticipation for this tournament (I have no basis for this information other than hearing Zach Lowe say so on one of his pod casts). The world will be watching as some of these youngsters (many of them currently employed by NHL teams) try to make a name for themselves for the first time.

Do yourselves a favor and tune in tonight, even if it takes 20 minutes to find the channel the game is airing on.

 

 

The Life of a Sports Fan: A Reliably Unreliable Narrator Narrating A Reliably Unreliable Outcome

By Evan Scarlett

Editor’s Note: This article was written before the Patriots-Broncos most recent contest that took place on Sunday, November 2nd. 

 

In sports, teams are constantly evaluated through two opposing lenses. One lens is broad, all encompassing, evaluating the totality that builds up within a complete body of work such as a full season or an entire career. The other is narrow, short-sighted, concerned with the present, or, for that matter, the most recent past – in other words, one game.

For a clearer picture of these contrasting modes of judgment, let’s examine the way Bill Belichick evaluates his team versus how the media does. Bill Belichick is a boring, grumpy old man with below average social skills and an annoyingly humble kind of arrogance. But this same man is also a football genius, a reliable motivator, and a proven champion. Ever listened to one of Bill’s press conferences? If the answer is no, you haven’t necessarily missed out. Belichick is blunt, rude, and matter-of-fact – he’s basically the greatest all-time when it comes to answering the media’s questions in the least preferred manner possible. But this habit of simple, obvious, and uninspiring responses is also calculated, intentional, and, quite arguably, beneficial. You see, Bill Belichick and his team talk very little and say even less to the media because he views the media as a distraction that is always hungry enough to feed its own essence. In other words, according to Bill Belichick, there isn’t a lot to gain from being totally honest, upfront, and personable with the media, so the less you say and the more boring you make it, the better. In his mid-week press conference, Belichick responded to any and all questions related to the hype of this Sunday’s Pats-Broncos match-up by commending Peyton, recognizing the Broncos numerous strengths (and lack of weaknesses), and ultimately stating, as always, that it’s just one game and that winning this game is the ONLY thing he is focused on. If you ask Bill how important this game is in the context of the regular season and even playoff seeding, he’ll tell you that every game is important, and that every team in this league is hard to beat. Not necessarily the answer anyone is looking for, but that’s what you get with this guy.

Anyways, back to my initial point. There is a strange dichotomy in sports between the identity of a team now vs. their identity over the course of a season or even over the course of several seasons. Particularly in the NFL, the media tends to be extremely reactionary on a week-to-week basis. A week ago the Cowboys were the best team in the league. Now, thanks to one mediocre performance and one Tony Romo injury, they suddenly have a lot of question marks. Give it another couple of weeks and sports nation may flip flop back to its initial intuition. Remember that abysmal performance by the Patriots in week four against the Chiefs? I blocked most of it out of my memory, although I do recall Trent Dilfer’s post-game comments. “They’re not good anymore,” he stated, as if it was a universal truth that the New England Patriots simply don’t have what it takes to contend right now and won’t have what it takes to contend this season or even next season and Tom Brady’s career is over and Bill Belichick has mismanaged his team over the past ten years and hasn’t given Brady enough support and got arrogant in his scouting. Most people agreed with Trent at the time. But now he looks pretty foolish. You see, even though it’s important for players and coaches to take it one game at a time, it’s also important for fans and the media to recognize that there’s a f**cking reason why it’s a 17 week season and how you play in week four has close to no significance in terms of how you will be playing in week 16! This honestly grinds my gears, because every time the Patriots remind fans and the media why patience pays off, people forget about it and fall back into their overly presumptuous and impatient ways.

As fans, our attention is constantly split between the now, the was, and the what could be. This is in large part due to our human nature. Humans seek to recognize patterns. It’s how we cope with the world around us. The same applies to spectating sports. As fans we want to feel more aware than we actually are, so we seek out patterns and tendencies in order to ‘gain insight’ and predict the future. Watch as I find patterns in the Brady-Manning rivalry and try to use them to predict the verdict of Sunday’s game. Pay attention to how, by throwing in a bunch of stats at you, it sounds like I know what I’m talking about, even though in reality I think it’s going to be close to impossible to accurately predict what happens in the game, with the possibility of an accurate guess being heavily influenced by luck or chance.

I like to view this weekend’s Peyton vs. Brady match-up as one quarter of a sixteen quarter game (yeah, I get it, one sixteenth of a sixteen period game – quarter just sounds better…). Actually, scratch that. We don’t know how many football quarters will be in this match up. Peyton and Brady could very well compete head-to-head another five times before both of them retire (this season’s AFC championship, next season’s, the season after…). These guys are like the most entertaining and athletic fine wine – they literally have gotten better with age. And I get it that oftentimes age hits athletes in a blink of an eye rather than in a sustained, linear regression. That could very well happen to both Brady and Manning, but do I expect it to in the next three seasons? Honestly, I don’t. Counting this season as apart of that cluster, I legitimately see no reason why Peyton and Brady shouldn’t face off in the next three AFC championships (which would make it four years in a row dating back to last year). Sure, the Colts have been impressive of late and Andrew Luck continues to get better. But will they really have a better roster and coaching staff than the Pats or Broncos anytime soon? Sure, the Bengals are talented on both offense and defense. But is there any reason to trust Marvin Lewis and Andy “The Red Rifle” Dalton in games that mean something?? Sure, San Diego is having it’s best season in a while and Phillip Rivers seems to have caught a second wind in his career. But I view this year as more of an outlier in what is sure to in hindsight be a slightly above average ten to fifteen year span for the Chargers with Phillip Rivers under center. There is no logical reason to favor any other teams over the Patriots and the Broncos for this season, next season, and the season after. Plain and simple. Even if Peyton and Brady aren’t as good next year and the following year, they’ll still be better than the other QBs in the AFC and will still have stronger rosters and coaching staffs.

 

 

So, back to the point that I almost started to make (Sorry, I’ve done that twice now. My apologies to anyone with a short attention span…that’s probably all of you). This Sunday’s match-up between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos, between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, or, rather, between Bill Belichick and Peyton Manning, is but a blip in the all-time showdown. Because of that, this game shouldn’t be emphasized over any others. If we actually try and listen to the point that Belichick drills home in every press conference instead of getting annoyed with him and chalking it up as nonsense, the truth is quite transparent: it’s just one game. Nothing that’s happened before it will be an ultimate factor. Nothing that might happen in the future should matter either. What kind of game will it be? Will it look like last year’s windy, frigid showdown that was bizarre and compelling all the way through overtime? Or will it be more of a grind-it-out wrestling match where the stronger, more talented, and more motivated team will get an early lead and put its opponent in an aggravatingly gradual chokehold from the second quarter on (see last season’s AFC champion game)? The answer, of course, is neither. This game will be it’s own game. Players will treat it as such. The outcome will be unique. It may or may not resemble past match-ups in terms of the scoring margin, but each play call, each execution, each move within the chess match will be of its own genera and of its own complexities.

But that relative truth isn’t nearly as fun to explore. This is why, from a fan’s perspective, the history does mean something. This is why this isn’t just one isolated game. From a fan’s perspective, it must be taken into context. Let’s look at Brady and Manning’s history against one another. In the first six match-ups, Brady won all of them. Manning then went on to win the next three. Brady then went on to win two of the next three. At this point it was Patriots 8, Colts 4 as far as the team match-up was concerned. Peyton went on to the play three seasons with the Broncos. So far, the head to head is Brady 2, Manning 1 in Pats-Broncos scenarios. Let’s take a look at some more figures:

 

Total Wins When Both QBs face off: Brady 10, Manning 5

 

Regular Season Match-ups: Brady 8, Manning 3

 

Post Season Match-ups: Brady 2, Manning 2

 

Super Bowl Rings: Brady 3, Manning 1

 

Super Bowl Appearances: Brady 5, Manning 2

 

At Gillette: Brady 7, Manning 2

 

In Indy/Denver: Brady 3, Manning 3

 

What does this tell us? On the road it’s a toss up, with the slight advantage to Manning in the post-season. At home Brady has been dominant, including vs. Manning in the post-season. If we’re going with our gut, which tells us to look for patterns that could somehow predict something that shouldn’t in actuality be predictable using numbers alone, history says the Patriots will win this game. But just as I don’t think this should really be factored in to who wins on Sunday, I also don’t think what we’ve seen thus far this season should have too much baring.

Think about this. The Patriots come in to this game averaging 29.9 PPG and the Broncos come in averaging 32.0. The Patriots have given up an average of 22.1 Points Allowed, whereas the Broncos have only given up 20.3. Okay, so edge Broncos…if we think that every game each team has played should be factored in equally. In their last four games, the Pats have scored 39.5 PPG and given up 21.5 PPG, whereas in the same span the Broncos have scored 37.3 PPG and given up 18.8 PPG. Much closer differentials this time. The Broncos have been consistently good all season, but the Pats have turned things up of late. The biggest difference, apart from a few unfortunate injuries? Their newcomers finally had enough time to learn the system. Let’s try and examine the key Pats players who weren’t on their roster last year. Revis, Browner, Tim Wright, Brandon Lafell, etc. Notice a pattern? They’ve all emerged in the last four games. It’s been the same thing with some of the Pats’ rookies. Plain and simple, Bill Belichick’s system is complex. Players need time to understand it and excel in it. The longer they have to get used to it, the better they perform. Thus, this Sunday should theoretically be the Patriots’ best game of the season. And I, as an extreme New England homer, believe that it will be.

But the same could be said about the Broncos. The Denver Broncos have not slowed down. They continue to demolish their opponents by an average margin of almost two touchdowns. They are relatively healthy, and you could make the argument that they are the most talented roster top to bottom in the NFL. The Pats have been up and down against good teams this season (although to be honest they haven’t played that many), whereas the Broncos have been consistently strong. There’s no reason why this couldn’t also be the Broncos’ best game of the season thus far.

So, what’s my point? My point is that I don’t really have one when it comes to predicting this Sunday’s match-up. But my other point is that while it’s fun to analyze trends, they don’t decide what happens over the course of the next 60 minutes that these two teams play football. The players and coaches decide what happens. They will game plan and scout based on the past, but everything will be taken with a grain of salt. It doesn’t make much of a difference that the Patriots beat the Broncos last season and the season before when both teams faced off in Foxboro. It doesn’t really matter that the Broncos beat the Patriots in their most recent post-season match-up either. These things can be motivation. So can first place in the AFC, which will be awarded to the winner of Sunday’s game. But in order to win, players will need to forget about the past and ignore the future. A week of diligent preparation will certainly help, but the only thing that gives your team the W is sixty minutes of solid, hard-fought, team-oriented football.

Here’s another fun pattern I picked up on, this time relating to baseball. The World Series just ended, and boy was it a compelling one. In case you live under a rock, the Series went to an all-or-nothing Game 7, where the Giants took care of business on the road by a score of 3-2. Apart from a nail-biter in Game 3, no other individual game within the series was remotely close. Series-wise, super even. Game 7-wise, super close. But let’s take a look at the final scores of the other games. Game 1: Giants 7, Royals 1; Game 2: Royals 7, Giants 2; Game 3 (which I pointed out was the only other close match-up): Royals 3, Giants 2; Game 4: Giants 11, Royals 4; Game 5: Giants 5, Royals 0; Game 6: Royals 10, Giants 0. Again, series-wise, super close. Individual game-wise, not so much. But here’s the most interesting part – going in to Game 7, both teams had put up virtually the same total numbers. If the first six games of the World Series weren’t viewed as separate games but rather were seen as one very long 63-inning marathon match, the score at the end of 63 innings would be Giants 27, Royals 25. Remarkably close, eh? So, if we’re going by the numbers and assuming that the World Series will turn out much like any game of NFL Blitz 2000, we should have seen the law of averages come in to play yet again in Game 7. But we didn’t because in reality the only trend we needed to monitor was what happens when Madison Bumgarner takes the mound. If we had been aware of this all along, then the outcome of Game 7 would have seemed rather obvious (and, to some people’s credit, it was). The Royals didn’t win by a few runs in Game 7 in order to even the total scoring margin. Instead, they got beaten by Bumgarner for the third time in what is sure to be deemed as one of the most prolific and dominant post season performances in MLB history.

 

 

Part of the beauty of professional sports, from a fan’s perspective, lies in the urge to analyze longterm trends and individual games at the same time, while also being open to throwing both measurements out the window. As predictable as outcomes can seem beforehand or even in hindsight, what happens in professional sports usually is not something you could accurately foresee. That’s what makes every game so compelling. But it’s also what makes sustained success so impressive. Statistically speaking, a player like Madison Bumgarner wasn’t supposed to deliver the dominant performance time after time. But he did. A team like the Patriots aren’t supposed to average 11 wins or better for a decade and a half. But they did. A player like Peyton Manning isn’t supposed to have his two best statistical seasons ever, coming off several surgeries at ages 37 and 38. But he is. Sports are a game of defying the odds. Most teams and players that stumble upon success do, eventually, regress. Just look at what the law of averages has done to Peyton’s brother, Eli. Eli Manning has twice as many super bowl rings as his brother. But in pretty much all of the seasons where Eli’s Giants didn’t make a super bowl run, they were mediocre at best. In this day and age, it’s really, really, really difficult to have sustained success in any professional sport. That’s why you gotta tip your cap to the teams and players that pull it off. So here’s to you, Madison Bumgarner. Here’s to you, Peyton Manning. Here’s to you, Bill Belichick. Some people say that the greatest thing about professional sports is the reliable parody that exists. I say it’s the emergence of players, teams, and coaches who defy such a thing.

What’s Different About the ‘Noles

By Grant McCandless

 
As a lifelong avid Seminoles fan, the 2013 National Championship-winning squad was the best team of my lifetime.  They were dominant, and many experts picked them to be just as dominant this year, but the newest incarnation of the Seminoles is now getting written off as a team that is too flawed to win it all.  College Football, and more importantly the Seminoles are not like they were 15-20 years ago.  I remember watching in the late ‘90s when Snoop Minnis, Anquan Boldin and Peter Warrick were hauling in passes from Chris Weinke.  I remember vaguely Warrick Dunn slicing up defenses and setting records on the ground.  I am too young to remember the Charlie Ward years, but I have watched enough video to know that I would have been really, really excited about it.

I also remember the darker years.  The ones where FSU would always blow some game that they were supposed to win, and the quarterbacks who presided after Chris Weinke’s “Reign of Terror” who would continually let the team down.  There was notorious blowhard Chris Rix, the boring Drew Weatherford, Xavier Lee who never lived up to his talent, and then the overrated Christian Ponder.

During those years, my season was left to hinge on a couple players (mostly on the defensive side of the ball) who would dominate and make the plays that reminded that you that even in their worst years, the Seminoles still fielded some of the best talent in the country.  We had Darnell Dockett at DT, one of my two favorite ‘Noles of all time who was named the NCAA freshman of the year and All-ACC three years in a row.

We had promising running backs like Greg Jones, who was great to watch; and then the combination of Leon Washington and Lorenzo Booker who made big plays and broke off chunks of yardage.  The highlight of the team was that it was always anchored by stud linebackers including AJ Nicholson, Ernie Sims, Geno Hayes, and Lawrence Timmons, who always made fans excited to see the defense come on the field to lay some hard hits.

There were also immense talents who could have greatly improved the team but were out for one reason or another.  Shutdown corner Antonio Cromartie was on pace to be the best corner in the country before he tore his ACL before his junior year; Cromartie then went pro before he was fully recovered.  Similarly Greg Reid looked like one of the most dynamic talents in the NCAA but then got kicked out.  Preston Parker got kicked out too, Craphonso Thorpe was too fast for the aforementioned Chris Rix to throw him a proper ball, and Myron Rolle (brother of Samari and Antrell) was a great talent but was just too good at other things, like being a Rhodes Scholar and studying medicine in Oxford, England.  Needless to say, there was some bad luck, some bright spots and some unfulfilled talent during between 2001-2010.

Everyone saw the culture starting to change two years ago when Florida State won the Orange Bowl against a Northern Illinois team that just flat out didn’t have the same athletes that the ‘Noles did. The culture switch was turned around for good last year when FSU blew out every opponent until the national title game but still managed an undefeated National Championship season to win both the first and the last championships during the BCS era.

But something has changed this year.  Every Florida State game you hear the announcers talking about it and they have seemed to figure it out.  It’s the offensive line, running game, passing game, and defense…otherwise known as every aspect of the football team (other than the kicker, but FSU might have the best kicker on the planet, not just college football on their team.)

In reality, it is all based on a couple very small differences on the offensive side of the ball and two enormous–to the point where they are continuously understated–differences on defense.

Below is a list of the starters and the backups for the Seminoles rosters from this year and last year.  As a key: bold means that the player was elected as All-ACC and an asterisk means the player was voted in some form or another as a 1^st or 2^nd team All-American.  A “+” followed by a number means that the player was injured, and the following number is the number of games, S means they are out for the year.  Additionally the edge is given and is emboldened if the difference is drastic.  Mostly, there is no edge given if there is a change in player unless their improvement has been monumental.

 

 

2013 FSU                                                    Edge                                 2014 Seminoles

QB: Jameis Winston*                                                                  Jameis Winston

RB1 Devonta Freeman                       2013                      Karlos Williams +1

RB2 James Wilder Jr                               2013                        Mario Pender +1

RB3 Karlos Williams                              2013                                 Dalvin Cook

WR1 Rashad Greene                           14                              Rashad Greene +1

WR2 Kelvin Benjamin                        2013 Bobo Wilson/Travis Rudolph

WR3 Kenny Shaw                                    2013                         Kermit Whitfield

WR4 Christian Green                                                                   Christian Green

TE Nick O’Leary                                                                                Nick O’Leary

LT Cameron Erving*                                                                     Cameron Erving

LG Josue Mattias                                                                                 Josue Mattias

C Bryan Stork*                                        2013                           Austin Barron +S

RG Tre Jackson                                                                                  Tre Jackson

RT Bobby Hart                                                                                     Bobby Hart

 

 

DE Christian Jones                                  2013                      Demarcus Walker

DT Timmy Jernigan *                                                                      Eddie Goldman

DT Jacobbi McDaniel                                           Nile Lawrence-Stample +S

DE Mario Edwards Jr.                            14                      Mario Edwards Jr +1

LOLB Reggie Northrup                                                              Reggie Northrup

MLB Telvin Smith*                               2013                                EJ Levenberry

ROLB Terrance Smith                           14                             Terrance Smith +1

CB LaMarcus Joyner*                          2013                                PJ Williams

CB Ronald Darby                                                                                Ronald Darby

Nickel Nate Andrews                                                                      Nate Andrews

Safety Jalen Ramsey                                                                          Jalen Ramsey

Safety Terrence Brooks                    2013                                 Tyler Hunter

 

Matthew Thomas (Suspended 5 gm)        Ukeme Eligwe+1

Backup LB EJ Levenberry                                                               Chris Casher

Backup DB P.J. Williams                                                           LaMarcus Brutus

Backup LB Ukeme Eligwe                                                           Desmond Hollin

Backup DL Dan Hicks                                                        Lorenzo Featherston

Backup DL Chris Casher                                                      Ro’Derrick Hoskins

Backup DL Demonte McCallister                                              Derrick Nnadi

Backup DL Eddie Goldman                                                             Jacob Pugh

Backup DL Nile Lawrence-Stample                               Derrick Mitchell Jr.

Backup DB Keelin Smith                                                           Trey Marshall +2

 

 

 

Injuries: (Tyler Hunter)

 

 

The Offense

The pundits concerns about the offense are grossly overstated.  Is there a difference in the offensive line? Yes.  But he only actually downgrade is that last years’ Rimington award winner Bryan Stork is on to the Patriots and Austin Barron, his backup, is injured for the season.  I think that in the long run, the new center, Ryan Hoefield will improve and the offensive line will be completely fine.  There is too much talent and experience along the rest of the line for them to struggle, and they will sort themselves out.

The Florida State running backs were also better last year, but that doesn’t really matter all that much.  With FSU undefeated at this point in the season Karlos Williams, Dalvin Cook and the rest will continue to improve and will not perform as poorly as they have up to this point.  “Wild and Free” the combination of Devonta Freeman and James Wilder Jr, was a better and more experienced combination, but the running game has enough malleability this year to not lose games.

Of course, the reason the running game won’t have that responsibility is because they don’t have to.  And although Jameis Winston is talked about ad nauseam on ESPN, to watch him play, you can see that he is actually a better passer and overall player than he was last year.  He is the most dominant player in college football, but statistical regression to the mean is something that everyone could have expected while the offense got acclimated to each other.

While we are on the passing game, every fan knew that it was going to be a process to find another second receiver.  Rashad Greene is one of the great FSU receivers in a long line of them, but no other returning player had ever had significant playing time before.  Kelvin Benjamin was dominant last year and Kenny Shaw was one of the most reliable third options in the country.  The good news is that Bobo Wilson and Travis Rudolph now have a battle to see who will emerge in Kelvin Benjamin’s place. I believe Rudolph will be the number two option and Wilson will be the slot receiver, although if the young players continue to mature, Kermit Whitfield and Ermon Lane could end up making their presence felt in the second half of the season.

So how could Florida State have one of the best scoring offenses in the country and have dropped to 21^st this year? And how can you tell me that the running game will be ok when they are 106^th in the country? Well that is easy, and the answer is the defense.

 

The Defense

The defense is why the offense isn’t as potent and their inability to tackle or make big plays is why their running game can’t get going.  To be honest, given the expectations, this is the worst FSU defense I have seen in my lifetime, and not all of it is their fault.  Because the Seminoles defense is forcing less turnovers (2.5 per game in 2013 compared to 1.9 per game this year) the offense is getting the ball less often.  And because the defense is allowing long drives, the offense is getting worse field position in addition to the opposing defenses being well rested. This combination causes them to tackle better, and prohibits the FSU running game from being able to bust out the long runs that often game in the second half of games last year.

My main problem with every incarnation of football is that the “average” fan consumes it in a vacuum.  If the running game does poorly then they have a bad running back, if the passing game does poorly then it’s the quarterback.  What people with love for the game and/or playing experience realize is that everything is codependent on the other.  The continuous battle of a football is influenced by everything else that happens on the field and one weak point, in this case the Seminoles inability to get opposing offenses quickly off the field, can cause every other aspect of the team to be less effective.

And I don’t mean to pick on this years Seminoles defense, because they have struggled with injuries, primarily on the defensive line, and that is a problem that just flat out didn’t happen last year. Having Mario Edwards Jr. and Eddie Goldman banged up throughout the year is the worst loss that they could have, because those two players and former 5 star recruits are without a doubt the best players on their defense.

Despite that caveat, injuries are not the main cause of decline from last years FSU defense to this years.  Last years team was historically good.  Not only did they lead the NCAA in points allowed per game with 12.1 (compared to 21.6 this year) but they also set the record for most defensive touchdowns scored by an FSU team.  That is where the difference is, and it comes down to two players; sidenote- the following is not to discount how dominant Timmy Jernigan was last year because he was a beast, it’s just that Eddie Goldman is also really, really good, so the difference is almost negligible.

The first difference is All-American Safety/Cornerback/Nickle Linebacker/human swiss army knife LaMarcus Joyner. First of all, receivers were scared of running over the middle because being hit by the diminutive Joyner is not fun.  But more importantly than his big hits, his speed and athleticism allowed him to make big plays both in pass coverage, in the run game and in blitzing the quarterback.  There was a reason that many people considered Joyner to be the best DB in the NCAA last year and it is because he can accrue highlight tapes like this.

Telvin Smith ran a 4.41 at the combine, but he plays every play at full speed, and at many times is the fastest player on the field…at linebacker.  I mentioned that Darnell Dockett was one of my top two favorite ‘Noles ever, well Telvin Smith is the other one.  I have never seen another college football player play with more passion and fearlessness.  This sideline to sideline speed is not limited to making tackles, it also enabled Telvin to because one of the top FSU playmakers of all time with 7 sacks, 4 INT’s, 3 FF, 5 FR and 3 defensive TD’s over his career, with almost all of that coming his senior year.  Telvin Smith’s highlight tape is amazing to watch and it says more than I can about his abilities to lead this Seminole defense last year.

Quite simply, Florida State had talent all over its defense last year, but it had two of the greatest playmakers, leaders, and examples in school history, and a team can’t just replace that.  If everyone on the 2013 FSU defense did their job, they could always count on either Joyner or Smith to make a big play that would either stunt the opposing teams drive or flat out change the game.

The kind of ability that Joyner and Smith displayed last year is something that is cultivated over years, and the ‘Noles have players who can eventually be that, but for that to be expected of them at the start of the year is too much.  If the Seminoles are going to win another National Championship this year, the playmaking ability will have to start showing itself as early as this Thursday’s game against Louisville.  The good news is that every player on the defense has the ability to be that guy: PJ Williams and Nate Andrews have shown glimpses, and the aforementioned Eddie Goldman and Mario Edwards are among the best defensive lineman in the country.  But if I’m putting money on it, my guess would be Jalen Ramsey, Ronald Darby, or Matthew Thomas.

Jalen Ramsey is a natural playmaker at safety.  He is solid in every area, and he could do what Joyner did. This year he was moved to the nickel back spot in order to provide more big plays.  Recently, Ramsey has started to provide pressure in the blitz and can jump routes in coverage.  If Ramsey can improve and learn this new position (an admittedly difficult task) then he is in the best position to be the answer that FSU fans are looking for.

Ronald Darby is the best pro prospect in a Seminoles secondary littered with future NFL players.  He is a physical corner who can also be a ball hawk.  As a former 5 star recruit though, Darby is still slightly underperforming.  Before the season he was my pick to be a break out star for the Seminoles but it just seems like he is a half step short of being the guy who you see all over the field.  This is not a speed issue, as Darby has everything someone would want athletically, instead I think (and remember I am just a fan) that he plays with a tiny bit of hesitancy.  If he can get rid of that and become a player who plays proactively, then he could be the answer.

Matthew Thomas was a player who a jumped out of my chair and cheared for when he announced he was committing to Florida State on national recruiting day.  After some soul searching for how maybe I should reexamine my life if I’m cheering where some high schoolers are choosing to go to college, I decided that everyone in the south does it, and so it’s alright.  That’s my logic and I’m sticking to it.  Since that day when he committed as the top LB prospect in the country, everything has been cringeworthy for Thomas.  First he said that he didn’t want to go to FSU anymore but was stuck because he signed his letter of intent…that was infuriating.  Then he got hurt for the year in his freshman season and that was sad.  Then he got suspended for the first six games this year for unspecified reasons (he was smoking pot) and that was disappointing.  And now he is healthy, eligible, talented and could go one of three ways.  Thomas is one of the most talented players in the country and he could either become another in a long line of great Seminoles players who have underperformed, he could progress like a normal player and likely wouldn’t be a major contributor this year…or he could show his prodigious talents and be the player who turns Florida State from a National Championship contender to a juggernaut.

 

 

Overall

              The 2014 Florida State Seminoles are not the 2013 team, and they likely won’t be.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that this team doesn’t necessarily have to be.  If Jameis Winston stays on the field and the maturation of a young team continues at an expected pace, FSU could still win the National Championship.  The problems look big, especially after almost losing a game against an above average Notre Dame team, but the fixes are much smaller than people think.  If the defense can start to force three and out’s and turnovers, and someone steps up, then the rest of it will fall into place.

 

 

 

 

 

Random Sports Clip du Jour: Welcome to Charlotte

 

“I’ve been ballin’ hard since like the 5th grade. Watchin’ A.I. gettin’ 40 with the French braids”

 

What a line.

 

Lance Stephenson has officially landed in North Carolina, and he’s ready to drop beats as well as buckets.  I’m kind of upset that the edited version was the only video available; it sent me back to the days where I was purchasing the clean version of “The Slim Shady: LP” under my mom’s watch.

 

Check this video out. Highlights include a quick cameo by Kemba Walker, and a few seconds of Lance holding a pair of sneakers as if they were his hands, or perhaps a telephone. This is no doubt a ploy to promote his endorsement with And1, and personally, I don’t think I could have came up with a more brilliant marketing scheme. Happy Thursday.

 

P.S. Shout out to Jalen Rose for bringing this video to my attention on his podcast last Friday. I’m sure you’re reading this right now.