On The Week's Top Five

1. Spiking the Football

In 1965, a New York Giants wide receiver named Homer Jones, having crossed the end zone with a football in his hands, chose to slam said object to the grass in celebration. Hence the birth of the ostentatious gesture known as the "spike," which 46 years later, our commander-in-chief utilized in metaphorical language to discuss why he declined to release photographs of a mass murderer with a considerable hole in his face. Now, depending on which cable news programs you watch, you may find this refreshingly humble or you may find it hopelessly naive/falsely modest, and you may claim that there is no direct correlation between the national atmosphere fostered by presidents and the attitudes of professional athletes, but here's something I was wondering about, in the wake of the president's statement: Are we witnessing a restoration of modesty in sports? I am thinking specifically of several of the young stars in these NBA playoffs, most notably Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant, who, at least at this point in their careers,* seem to legitimately embody a sort of humility that hearkens back to a bygone era. Not to mention, in the back and forth between the players and owners in the NFL, most reasonable humans seem to side with the players, which has earned them a new level of sympathy. So--could we be on the verge of an era when "spiking the football" suddenly seems ostentatious and uncouth, when touchdown celebrations are muted, when quiet cool is the default position?

2. Well, Probably Not...

...because there are still the Miami Heat, who grow increasingly unlikeable with each game they win, with each half-hearted apology LeBron James makes, with each opponent Dwyane Wade inadvertently cripples, with each attempt to rile up a fan base that clearly has little to no idea who exactly it is cheering for. At this point, the Heat's only mistake is in not embracing its villainy. Quit apologizing, LeBron. Embrace the dark side so that we may be allowed to embrace it with you.

3. The Most Deflating Paragraph of the Week

“The last thing you ever expect is that somebody you revere will mislead you,” said Alex Davis, 38, who bought a $500,000 unit in Trump International Hotel and Tower Fort Lauderdale, a waterfront property that Mr. Trump described in marketing materials as “my latest development” and compared to the Trump tower on Central Park in Manhattan.
 
4. Reading

David Grann, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes

Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

5. Listening


A few years ago, future wife and I were in Los Angeles, listening to a radio show emceed by Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols--which was, I will say, one of the greatest radio shows I've ever heard--and in the midst of all this Jones was discussing Jethro Tull, and he mentioned flutes, and then he said, "When you hear flutes, you know there are hippies about." This is pretty much all I think about when I listen to "Aqualung," which happens about once every sixteen months or so.

Anyway, I don't believe there are any flutes on this new Fleet Foxes album, though there are oblique discussions about laboring in orchards and contemplating the stars and reciting incantations. It is hippie music through and through, and I really, really like it. Which means, I guess, that I should start taking flute lessons.


*If you reading this in 2016, there is a distinct possibility that both of these men will have done something self-aggrandizing and social distasteful that will completely alter the narrative about them. But, at least for now...

On Super Bowl XLV, The Day After: XXV Random Thoughts

I. I agree with Joe--if Rodgers doesn't make that third down throw, the Steelers probably win. Then again, if Mendenhall doesn't fumble, the Steelers probably win. And if Roethlisberger doesn't throw that pick-six, the Steelers probably win.

II. And yet there was never a moment where it felt like the Steelers were going to win.

III. The most surprising thing about the final drive is not that the Steelers didn't score. It's that the drive fizzled out. Given the situation, you would have figured the Packers would give up underneath routes, that Roethlisberger would find a way to deliver first downs, that the game would be decided in Green Bay's red zone.

IV. That it wasn't was both curious and anticlimactic.

V. Because of the way it ended, I doubt I will remember much of anything about this Super Bowl in five years. Unlike the past few years, there was no single, defining play. Which means the Super Bowl is far better than it used to be. Which means we've actually grown to expect a decent Super Bowl.

VI. Wasn't there a time when ESPN would show the NFL Films highlights package from every Super Bowl, back to back?

VII. I seem to remember a brief period in my life when I could recite the winners of every single SB from memory. It's kind of sad that there are too many now, that we can't do this anymore, that there are no longer as many kids who grow up knowing who Max McGee is because John Facenda taught them.

VIII. XTina's bungling of our national hymn only makes it seem more absurd that Roseanne generated such raging controversy for mangling a tune that even professionals can't get right.

IX. It's either The Star-Spangled Banner or America the Beautiful. Not both. Decide.

X. A record number of people watched this Super Bowl, which is kind of astounding.

XI. And yet it's more astounding to me how many people choose not to watch the Super Bowl.

XII. I mean, is the Puppy Bowl really that compelling?

XIII. Let's say 25 percent of the population professes no interest in football, or in pervasive cultural events. That still leaves an additional 30 percent of American households with televisions who were not watching the Super Bowl at any given moment.

XIX. That said, I was actually driving through the backwoods of South Carolina, on assignment, when the Giants defeated the Patriots a couple of years ago. It's weird, listening to a Super Bowl on the radio--it's almost like the game never happened.

XV. I was also in England for a Super Bowl once, which was even stranger, because A.) The game kicked off after midnight, and B.) No one in the entire country seemed to care about the single most popular television event in America.

XVI. Which I suppose is how transplanted Europeans must feel about our disdain for virtually every sport they actually seem to like.

XVII. Charles Woodson has had an undeniably great professional career, and is almost certainly a Hall of Famer. And yet he was so dynamically awesome in college--there were moments when Woodson, playing both ways, looked like he might actually alter the paradigm--that he almost seems like a disappointment to me.

XVIII. The Darth Vader kid was the only ad that didn't seem heavily burdened with either "epic" imagery, talking animals, or borderline misogyny.

XIX. When exactly did Eminem become a spokesman for mainstream America?

XX. As someone at my apartment happened to mention, how far down the celebrity endorsement list did Groupon have to go before they landed on Timothy Hutton?

XXI. Was Tim Matheson occupied?

XXII. Chimpanzees are so 2007.

XXIII. So is beer.

XXIV. So are automobiles.

XXV. So is America. 

On Jay Cutler, in Six Brief Acts

I. It is time we come to some sort of cultural consensus that Deion Sanders is not a trustworthy source about anything.

II. It is hypocritical, if you believe that head injuries are a serious problem in the NFL, to judge someone's fitness for play based on outward appearances. Many people who have concussions don't look like they've had concussions, but this doesn't mean they should be sent back into a football game. It's true, Jay Cutler's problem was not his head but his knee, and it's true Jay Cutler didn't look hurt, but neither did LaDainian Tomlinson a few years back in that playoff loss,** and this did not seem to reflect on his legacy at all, largely because Tomlinson is a likeable guy who's run for many, many yards.

III. I believe Jason Whitlock is a provocative and entertaining columnist, but I think this is one of the more regrettable pieces of his career. "Right or wrong," Whitlock writes, "the culture dictates that you inject yourself with whatever is necessary to play." But isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place? Isn't that the same ethos that permitted coaches to overrule doctors, and the players themselves to feel that confessing to serious injury was somehow a sign of weakness? Isn't that the whole reason head injuries are threatening the very nature of football? If it's true that, as Cutler says, the team doctors would not allow him back into the game in the second half, isn't that, in fact, a sign of cultural progress? "Yeah," Whitlock says, "we were naive, stupid and probably exploited." So why is no one saying that Cutler's decision was a sign of maturity? Why is no one commending Cutler--and more importantly, the Bears team doctors--for refusing to conform to a code that is exploitative and (in certain cases) virtually inhuman?

IV. Of course, it is rather easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to Jay Cutler. He looks like an entitled malcontent*, and Rick Reilly tells us he is an entitled malcontent, though I'd like to think that Reilly was making a larger point in that column, which is that Cutler may refuse to play into some facile media narrative about him, but that this does not necessarily say anything about his actual character. The question is whether we are willing to judge someone based on surface impressions. I found myself perplexed as to why Cutler seemed mute and despondent on the bench during that game, but is it possible that A.) He was depressed about his inability to play football effectively, and B.) That he is simply not a Sis Boom Bah kind of guy?

V. Speaking of Sis Boom Bah kind of guys, didn't we just spend the past several years lambasting Brett Favre for his seeming aptitude in manipulating mass media in his favor? Wasn't our primary issue with Favre that he seemed capable of tremendous deception, that he portrayed himself as a team-first kind of dude while simultaneously looking out for himself at every turn? Favre spent two decades manipulating his image, and while we cannot question his toughness, we can question his relative intelligence. Because A.) Who knows if Brett Favre will be able to walk at the age of 50? B.) Who knows if any of his records will still stand? And C.) Who knows if his legacy will be as one of the five greatest quarterbacks in NFL history or as an aging redneck who so yearned to be loved that he couldn't help but share his private parts with the world? In that sense, isn't there something to be said for Jay Cutler's refusal to engage in building a false mythology?

VI. Or maybe the problem is that the NFL is not the NFL without all those layers of exploitation.

*I once had a boss at a terrible job I worked in my late 20s discipline me for "rolling my eyes" too often during meetings. In this case, she was actually right: I not only disliked the job, I disrespected her completely, and my face could not help but betray my true feelings. I'm not saying it's morally right for Jay Cutler to be dismissive of a media corps that is trying to do a job; but I do think there is an inherent shallowness to the game played between reporters and athletes (just as there was an inherent shallowness to the game that boss expected me to play while in that office), and I don't blame them for being skeptical.
**At one point, I actually thought to myself, "Why doesn't Cutler walk back to the locker room to at least pretend that his knee is being scoped? Why doesn't he walk with a more pronounced limp? Why doesn't he grimace every so often?" And then I realized that this is an incredibly shallow way to think.

On the Power of Nostalgia, Punky/Non-Punky QBs, and the 2010 Jets

"It's incredible. If we said words back when I was playing, we'd have to stand up in front of the team and take about a one-minute berating from the coach. Now, it's coming from the coaches.''
-- CBS NFL analyst Phil Simms, on the volume coming from teams critical of other teams in football these days. (via Peter King)

 

I cannot blame Phil Simms for engaging in revisionist history. I do it. We all do it. We turn back to the events of some bygone era in order to proclaim that the modern world has been turned on its ear. This kind of nostalgic thinking is what drives our culture, and our politics, and our national dialogue; it is what defines us as Americans. But in this case, Phil Simms is clearly blinded by idealism. In this case, Phil Simms is simply ignoring the fact that the hodgepodge of braggadocio and poppycock that comes screaming like a scud missile out of Rex Ryan's id was actually born in the era when Simms himself was an All-Pro quarterback.

 

On the surface, nothing about the 2010 Jets is ground-breaking. You could argue that self-aggrandizement in sports was born with Babe Ruth, or with Ali, or with Namath...or you could argue, as I would, that the modern formula was perfected twenty-five years ago, when the 1985 Bears streaked onto the cultural landscape, rapping cacophonous rhymes about the Super Bowl before the playoffs had even begun. Much of that was driven by a raucous and untamed locker room--and, I have argued, by a quarterback who didn't care much for the social mores of his position--but it wasn't like the coaches were innocents in this drama. Forget Bart Scott's histrionic WWE lunacy: At one point, you may recall the Packers took out a hitlist on the Bears. Rex Ryan's father was a master of the psychological screw-job, and Simms' own coach was one of the most cruel and Machiavellian figures in football history.

 

So, on a basic level, Simms is wrong. And yet in a strange way, he still seems kind of right.

 

There's something about the way the Jets carry themselves that does seem unprecedented. They're messy; they're all tangled up in tabloid culture in ways that even that '85 Bears team never really was. If the Bears were the cultural equivalent of Eddie Murphy, the Jets seem more like Joan Rivers. Things just move way faster now, and that's part of it: The acceleration of media in the time between the '85 Bears and the 2010 Jets is about a hundred times what it was in the era between Super Bowl III and Super Bowl XX. But there's something else going on here, too: Just as Jim McMahon did with his hero Joe Willie Namath, the Jets are repurposing their influences. The Bears were more like a dysfunctional family: The defensive coordinator hated the offensive coordinator, the offense hated the defense, and they channeled all this negative energy against their opponents. The Jets are more like a cabal of obnoxious bloggers: They are immature and playfully narcissistic and intermittently entertaining. They say what they think without processing it; they act as if they are more talented (and more influential) than they actually are. They are very much of a piece with their era, which is why Phil Simms' astonishment, while factually incorrect, is emotionally accurate.

It's funny: I liked the Jets when I watched them on Hard Knocks. I liked them in the abstract, as a team that seemed determined to break the mold, to cast away the stereotypes of football coaches as crusty authority figures and football players as soulless automatons. I think Rex Ryan is a charismatic goofball, and part of me truly wants him to succeed. But I can't bring myself to actually root for them on Sundays, and I don't know why. The only thing I can think of is that I'm a little bit like Phil Simms myself, that somehow I'm so wrapped up in my own nostalgia that I would prefer not to acknowledge that the world I grew up in is not exactly the same as I remember it to be.

(Photo: AP)

On Ten Jarringly Specific Predictions For This Weekend's Games

1. Ben Roethlisberger throws for 256 yards and two touchdowns and bleeds from at least two (2) orifices before the fourth quarter is complete.

2. Ray Lewis and/or Ed Reed perform at least one act of violence which would be considered illegal in at least eight states.

3. After breaking two limbs and sending Joe Flacco to the hospital, Troy Polamalu punctuates the Steelers' 17-14 win by advocating for nonviolence.

4. At least one network broadcaster overuses the nickname "Matty Ice" to the point that 18.4 percent of Falcons fans are forced to concede that it is, in fact, the worst American innovation since Natural Ice itself.

5. Clay Matthews finishes Green Bay's 24-14 win with 15 tackles and a sack, after which he announces that he would like to be referred to as "Claymation," thereby allowing the inventors of Matty Ice off the hook.

6. Mark Sanchez throws for 154 yards and one touchdown, with three interceptions, in the Jets' 31-14 loss to the Patriots. Afterward, following a conversation with a potentially intoxicated Joe Namath, he declares Foxboro a "festering sewer" and guarantees a Super Bowl victory next season.

7. Rex Ryan spits in his hand before greeting Bill Belichick postgame. Belichick responds by removing his shoe and tossing it at Ryan's head while shouting, "Does this make you happy?"

8. Tom Brady throws for 365 yards and three touchdowns; afterward, he flies to New York by private plane to attend a showing of a Neil LaBute play with his wife, Tommy Hilfiger, and the dude who plays Nate on Gossip Girl.

9. The Bears-Seahawks game is marred by eight turnovers and twelve sacks and is generally considered the worst playoff game in NFL history. Jay Cutler throws for 565 yards with nine interceptions, and Matt Hasselbeck for 422 yards and seven picks.

10. The Bears win 6-4.

On Wildcard Weekend (and BCS Monday)

1. I don't think the Jets will defeat the Patriots, and I don't think the Steelers will defeat the Ravens, but I have to admit: About these playoffs, I don't think I would presume anything anymore. A week ago, I actually said that if I had a first-born child, I would immediately bet him/her on New Orleans, which is as good a reason as any to argue against me ever procreating*. I also did not imagine the Jets would defeat the Colts on the road, and especially in circumstances that required Mark Sanchez to actually make a clutch throw. In general, I find professional football an inferior product to the college game, but I think the NFL has accomplished something remarkable in the past few seasons: They've engendered such parity that we really have no idea about anything. This is the closest the NFL has come to approaching the wide-open nature of the NCAA tournament. It might not sustain itself, given the labor disputes and the delicate balancing act required to sustain it, but this hyperviolent lottery is fun while it lasts.

2. My instincts tell me that NFC Championship was played last weekend, and that Green Bay certainly appears to be the best team remaining, by a rather considerable margin. But I'm still not over the fact that the Arizona Cardinals played in a Super Bowl. Parity. Which is a solid concept, until it implodes and the Patriots beat the Seahawks 48-3 and we all hearken back to the good old days when the SB was the most lopsided major sporting event in America.

3. My uncertainty about the NFL carries over to Michael Vick. I could see him putting up three of the greatest quarterbacking years in NFL history over the next five seasons. I could also see him getting lazy, frequenting gentleman's clubs, and quitting at halftime of a game next season in order to (according to his agent) open a dog sanctuary in Virginia.

4. Twenty-five years ago, when the Chicago Bears advanced to the NFC Championship game, the first thing their defensive coordinator did was complain about the Los Angeles Rams' penchant for holding. And then he declared that the Rams' star running back, Eric Dickerson, would fumble three times. He was wrong; Dickerson only fumbled twice. The Bears won 24-0. So in case you're wondering what Rex Ryan is doing this week, he's doing what all children do: He's emulating his father. Which is why you won't hear anyone in the tabloids spending much time on Mark Sanchez's Nuke LaLoosh-like accuracy, or on any of the Jets' other inherent flaws. The more it's about Rex, the less it's about the fact that his team is inherently worse than the Patriots. In the modern age, in an era of endless distractions, I have no idea why coaches don't pull these kinds of stunts more often.

5. I predict Jamaal Charles will lead the NFL in rushing next season. I realize this is not a particularly bold prediction, but I would like to make it before anyone else so I can claim it as my idea. 

6. Oregon 38, Auburn 27. Though in the name of overpriced sportswear, I hope I'm wrong.
  
*I can provide several more reasons, as well as references upon request.

(Photo: NY Daily News)

On Football, Giants, Punters and Accountability

I have a non-popular take on Coughlin-Dodge situation. Good for the coach for holding accountable the player, who flat didn't do his job.--SI's Dominic Bonvissuto, via Twitter


A week ago, the Washington Redskins cut their starting punter. This would have been unremarkable except for the fact that the Redskins cut Hunter Smith because he botched the hold on a game-tying extra point. Smith was not having a particularly good season, but even so, he was cut because of one botched attempt to grip the pigskin, and he accepted the blame, in surprisingly eloquent fashion: "People that are my age -- and a little younger, and a little older -- want to blame somebody else, and they tend to want to self-protect," Smith said. This, of course, is a facile way of romanticizing the past, but even if you agree that it applies to modern society, I don't think it has anything to do with professional football.

Most sports are pretty bizarre, when you step back and consider them. Pro football is no exception: These are grown men subject to militaristic regulation in service of a child's game. There is something inherently weird about that, which is why it always kind of skeeves me out to watch Tom Coughlin pace the sidelines. As far as I can tell, Coughlin is as old-school and militaristic as coaches get; he appears purposefully dour and unhappy in almost all public situations, and unlike Bill Belichick, there is not the underlying sense that his players have some surreptitious grasp of his humanity. Most of the time when I watch Tom Coughlin, he just reminds me of the football coach from Dazed and Confused.

Now, it's possible that perception is completely misguided. It's possible that I just don't understand Tom Coughlin at all, and that Tom Coughlin spends the off-season breeding puppies to deliver to blind children; but even if the public Tom Coughlin is the real Tom Coughlin, I do understand that there is a place for discipline and accountability in football. I just think that people who preach about it in ceaseless fashion are ignoring the fact that no job in America is grounded more in discipline and accountability than that of a professional football player. How many times have marginal players who have repeatedly risked their own health and safety in service of a chosen batch of laundry been cut for missing a single block, or a single catch, or a single kick? Nothing provides accountability more than an overzealous fan base, a highly-paid coaching staff, and a national television audience, which is why I'm certain that as soon as Matt Dodge was unable to punt the ball out of bounds at the end of that game yesterday afternoon, he knew as well as anyone that he'd failed to complete his assigned task. He is not a superstar; he does not exist in a bubble; his error did not take place in some faraway gentleman's club or in a dogfighting kennel. He didn't need an authority figure to berate him publicly to understand the ramifications of his mistake.* It is very possible that Matt Dodge will be associated with that single play for the remainder of his life. The same can not be said for Coughlin, who had the good luck to win a Super Bowl due to one of the most fortuitous plays in the history of professional football.

That's what sets professional football apart from the rest of the world: Sometimes--and especially for those whose job it is to kick a football to a precise area in space--the difference between doing your job and not doing your job is a momentary lapse of concentration in the midst of tremendous pressure. And the moment of accountability tends to last forever.  

*In truth, even Coughlin's attempt to accept the blame afterward felt kind of like a kick in the groin: I will take responsibility for the fact that the punter I've been utilizing all season is an inexperienced slack-off who couldn't handle his responsibilities.

(Photo: Alan Maglaque/US Presswire)

On Ben Roethlisberger, Dandy Don, North Dallas Forty, and Primal Urges

I wrote this piece for GQ.com.

"Two years ago in the snow in Pittsburgh, he threw two touchdowns in the fourth period to win by a single point. That night he checked into the hospital with a fractured jaw. There wasn't a pass he couldn't throw, a team he couldn't beat, a pain he couldn't endure, or a woman he couldn't fuck, given the right time and combination of pieces."—Peter Gent, North Dallas Forty
 
Near the beginning of the most brutal game of the most overtly violent season in the history of the National Football League, Ben Roethlisberger broke his nose. You could see it happen, because after being sacked by an angry swarm of Baltimore Raven defenders, Roethlisberger tore off his helmet and a rivulet of blood cascaded from his crooked proboscis. Weaving toward the sideline, a towel pressed to his nostrils, Roethlisberger looked a little like DeNiro playing Jake LaMotta, punch drunk and vacant, limping along on a badly injured foot that appeared to have been mummified by the trainers before the game.

Roethlisberger came back into the game, of course, because this is what Ben Roethlisberger does. If Tom Brady is the epitome of quarterbacking grace, and Peyton Manning is the prototype of quarterbacking subtetly and misdirection, Roethlisberger is the quarterback who epitomizes the brutality of his chosen profession.
 

Read More http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/201012/ben-roethlisberger-nfl-pittsburgh-steelers#ixzz17XYkLg3P

On Several Things I Pondered Over The Thanksgiving Respite

1. I understand why the question must be asked, but I'd like to think there's a dividing line between those of us who temper our irrational affinity for sports with a certain amount of perspective and sanity, and those who actually believe laughing in the midst of defeat is some sort of capital offense, and are probably the same the people who bother to phone death threats to college sports bureaucrats, and are in danger of some kind of grand, Buffalo 66/Big Fan-esque spiral of humiliation and ignominy.

2. Which brings me to Boise State, and the worst column I've ever written. I was in college, of course, and Penn State's kicker missed a field goal to lose a game. I cannot remember the game, and I cannot remember the circumstances, but for some reason, this inflamed my sense of righteous indignation to the point that I ended my column with the emphatic declaration: "Leave (said kicker) alone." A few days later, I was at a fraternity party when some girls recognized me from my photo. "You wrote that column about (said kicker)?" they asked, and when I nodded in the affirmative, they giggled and walked off. And so went my first lesson in the dangers of overt self-righteousness; that column was the first of many missed attempts in my career. Which is why I am glad I fell asleep before the end of that Boise State game, because there is nothing more demonstrably more painful in sports than a kicker failing in a clutch situation; it is a nightmare come to life. It is us standing in our underwear. It is us forgetting our lines. It is a scenario that makes for great literature, of course--and I suppose there's a bit of irony in the fact that I shanked my first attempt at capturing those emotions in such a major way. I still wish I could take it back, that I could have tempered my thoughts in a more elegant manner, but I can't. I'm sure, at some minute level, Kyle Brotzman feels the same way.

3. It is amusing how everyone tacitly acknowledges that the NBA regular season is essentially meaningless until March/April, but the Heat appear to be dead in the water after eighteen games.

4. Just when I thought narrative journalism, I returned from frigid New England to read this excellent piece on Laura Hillenbrand, and this outstanding piece by Chris Jones on Randy Quaid, and this edifying two-part interview with magazine writer extroardinaire Michael Paterniti, who published this ridiculously good Thurman Munson profile a few days after I'd published my own Thurman Munson profile in the Akron Beacon Journal Sunday Magazine, which even now serves as a humbling reminder that I'm not too far removed from being the clumsy bozo who wrote all those terrible columns in college.

On Randy Moss

Randy Moss is the greatest football player I've ever seen in person. Back in 1997, I lived in Northeast Ohio, and a friend and I drove over to Kent State to watch Moss and Chad Pennington when they both played for Marshall. I'd never seen anything like it--Moss could break open whenever he wanted; he leapt over people, ran past them, and then ran around them. It was the closest thing I'd ever seen to a video game come to life.*

In retrospect, it seems absurd that Moss slipped to 21st in the NFL draft. Here was the extent of his moral transgressions up to then: A high-school fight that appeared to have been sparked by racist taunts, and a positive test for marijuana. I'm not sure why either of those things were enough to scare people away. My guess it was something more than that. My guess is that teams were scared away from Randy Moss because as with a lot of truly transcendent athletic talents, he's a pretty complicated figure.

I don't know Randy Moss. I've never spoken to him, and I've only heard him speak at length a few times, so everything that follows is pure dime-store speculation. But I find him fascinating, and not just because he may be (along with LeBron James) the greatest pure athlete of his generation. I find him fascinating because he seems to have an incredibly twisted relationship with authority. His whole existence is a John Mellencamp song; much of the time, he seems to be at war with his own psyche, which is what makes those past couple of press conferences so fascinating--there is nothing more intriguing than watching a man conduct a public disagreement with himself.

In 2002, Moss allegedly bumped a police officer with his car because he wanted to make a turn he couldn't make. In retrospect, that seems like a fitting metaphor. He was never consumed by vanity like Terrell Owens; he was never a self-promotional goofball like Chad Johnson. He didn't seem particularly violent, even after charges of domestic violence emerged. Moss has always seemed more interested in testing people, in pushing boundaries with the people in charge: Coaches, executives, media members. Maybe what he wants to see is how much they push back. Clearly, that's what he was doing with Brad Childress, who might have handled the whole problem with a single conversation, but who might have lost Moss's respect before Moss even landed in that locker room, given the way he's subjugated himself to his own quarterback.

And this, of course, is what's so extraordinary about Moss's time in New England, because Bill Belichick is a man who manages to earn his players' respect while at the same time making them fully aware that they are simply cogs in a much larger machine. But I think New England worked for Randy Moss because he is not simply guided by his own hubris. I think New England worked for Randy Moss because, while he may have been such a great athlete for such a long time that he has no concept of ordinary reality, he does understand that most of the people who guide his fate do see him as a cog in a machine. And maybe there's a certain peace in knowing that, rather than having it smoothed over, rather than having authority figures either subjugate themselves to him or overreact to relatively minor transgressions. Maybe the irony in this is that all Randy Moss needs to be happy is to feel he's being treated like an adult.

*At least until I watched Oregon's offense this season.

On Pain, Injury, Violence and Why This Conversation Needs To Be Had

I don't know if this is the week the inescapable issue of NFL violence reaches its tipping point. I don't know if we all just obsess over it for a few days and then allow it to recede into the background, as Drew Magary so coarsely espouses here. I don't think we will, because there will be other hits on other days, and as a fan with something resembling a conscience, this is the first thing that goes through my head anytime I watch a football player lie dazed on the ground after a helmet torpedoes them directly under the chin. And maybe Magary's right, and maybe I'm still in the minority when it comes to that viewpoint, but I don't know, and I don't think that's going to be the case in the future, especially when the worst happens (which it will, and sooner than we think).

As usual, Posnanski captured our ambivalence over this issue about as well as anyone could. I mostly point you to him, but I'd like to add one thing, which is that football itself may need to undergo some changes, but changing the game itself is only a small part of the equation. You read James Harrison attempting to delineate the difference between "hurt' and "injure," and you read Brian Urlacher ranting about the prohibition of helmet-on-helmet assault as being the equivalent of flag football, and you realize it's the culture that needs to change.

Football has always been the realm of tough and stern and violent men, and that will never go away unless football goes away. But at some point--and this may take a generation, and it may take longer than a generation--people have to realize that the reason they play the game, and the reason many of us watch the game, is for the moments that happen between the hits. Sure, there is something that appeals to our primal instincts about watching two men collide with nihilistic impunity, but there's something much more beautiful about watching Adrian Peterson run a sweep, about watching Drew Brees throw deep, about watching Darrelle Revis blanket Brandon Marshall. I would rather see those things in a less physical and more prohibitive league--hell, I would rather have flag football--than lose the game altogether.

And I know there's an inherent element of physicality to each one of those actions, but toning that down or attempting to mute the impact of those hits--just having this conversation over the course of several months, or several years, until we strike the proper balance--will not somehow cheapen the game itself. The only thing that cheapens the game is the notion that devastating violence is somehow inescapable.

On Facemasks

So in the past three days we've reinforced a pair of truisms: 1.) Football (even terrible football, involving quarterbacks who once mocked me at pizza parlors while I was visibly drunk on Sambuca in college)* is the most popular sport in America, and 2.) Football is at a serious crossroads. "Isn't hitting hard part of football?" asks the Baltimore Sun's Kevin Van Valkenberg, in a blog post defending the defenders who are perpetrating violent hits that once went unnoticed. And he's right, of course, but I still see no way in which football can survive without undertaking some fundamental changes in the way it's played, or the way it looks. There's no more rationalizing these issues. So today, Joe Paterno advanced an idea that seems like a punchline to an octogenarian joke: Eliminate the facemask. He's not the first person to advance this idea; the idea behind it is that there's no better way to deter a defender than to ensure that a head-first hit will result in a severely deviated septum.

It's one of those ideas that won't ever be accepted by the mainstream; it sounds too counterintuitive, and it would look too strange, and my guess is the player's association wouldn't exactly be thrilled by the prospects of significant dental work displacing concussions. But maybe the best way to move the game forward is to drag it back in time.

*And can I just say, Kerry Collins now has more passing yards than Jim Kelly, Donovan McNabb, Phil Simms, Steve Young, Y.A. Tittle and Troy Aikman. If he had won the 2000 Super Bowl with the Giants, and then made the Super Bowl with the 2008 Titans, he would be a borderline Hall of Famer. As it is, he has to be considered as the most unnoticed decent-to-very good quarterback of the past fifteen years.

On the Backup Quarterback

My first intimate experience with the allure of the backup quarterback came in the Fall of 1979. The starter for Penn State that year was Dayle Tate, a promising prospect who stepped into the role at the worst possible moment--the season before, Penn State had lost the national championship game to Alabama, 14-7, on New Year's Day, on a goal-line stand that would hang over the program for several years afterward. Tate's predecessor at the position was Chuck Fusina, whose merits have previously been documented on this very blog; his successor, after a year of torment and mediocrity, would be Todd Blackledge. In the 1979 Penn State football press guide, Dayle Tate is wearing a plaid sportjacket; while I'm sure this jacket was perfectly fashionable during the Carter Administration, I now subconsciously connote plaid sportjackets with failure, and I associate Dayle Tate with the first shower of boos I ever witnessed in person at a sporting event.

None of that season was particularly the fault of Dayle Tate. In 1979, Penn State went 8-4, which is a considerably better record than what they will likely finish with this season. They finished their season with a 9-6 victory over Tulane in the Liberty Bowl.* And it's true Dayle Tate's numbers are not particularly great--he completed 52 percent of his passes and threw eight touchdowns and 11 interceptions--and it's true Tate's backup was a freshman named Jeff Hostetler, who would wind up transferring to West Virginia and then winning a Super Bowl, but really, most of this wasn't Dayle Tate's fault. Penn State lost to four teams that Fall, and gave up an average of 31 points in those four games; when Hostetler did step in during the final regular season game against Pittsburgh, he went 6-for-16 with 72 yards and an interception.**

But this is not about rationality. This is about the essentially irrationality of sports fans, and nothing epitomizes this notion quite like the obsession with the backup quarterback. It happens every year, in cities and towns across America. It's happening now at Penn State, where a true freshman named Rob Bolden--clearly Penn State's best option at a quarterback position where none of the candidates have any real experience--has been tasked with holding together a team with an injury-riddled defense and an offensive line that would have trouble run blocking against a tigerless Siegfried and Roy.***It's happening perpetually in Philadelphia, where Kevin Kolb supplanted Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick supplanted Kevin Kolb who supplanted Michael Vick, and now Eagles fans are so confused they no longer know who to boo. And it happened most startlingly last night in San Francisco, where Alex Smith, the designated scapegoat for a team that's managed to lose games in every possible way, was booed so loudly that I half-expected to see him wear a plaid sportcoat to the postgame press conference. And who did San Francisco fans want to replace him with? David Carr, who, in his final year as a starter, four years ago, threw 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.****

Over at Deadspin, Barry Petchesky called it "The Single Saddest Moment of the NFL Season." And yet, at some level, it was also entirely predictable. Because the backup quarterback is a channel for all the fury and irrationality and egotism and certitude of the American sports fan. Because the backup quarterback represents hope when all hope is lost, an altered future when the future promises nothing but bleakness. Even if he's not as good, he's still better. It's a story that will never change, even when it doesn't make much sense.

*Which, with the exception of an option pass by an Afro'ed halfback named Joel Coles, was one of the more atrocious football games I have ever seen. 
**Pitt's quarterback was 17-of-32 for 279 yards. His name was Moreno. Or Marino. Or something. I believe he now spends his Sundays in a well-lit room laughing at unfunny jokes.
***I'm not sure if that metaphor makes any sense, but it's Monday, and this is my blog. So just go with me.

****On a side note, I think the implosion of the 49ers is one of the more intriguing stories in what's become a truly weird NFL season. Mike Singletary berating Smith on the sideline last night kind of felt like a Ditka v. McMahon moment.

On Video Games and Goal-Line Stands

I don't know if anyone outside of televangelists and Luddites still claim that video games warp the human brain. But in a way, all that fear-mongering of the 1980s was correct: Video games have warped my brain, because they've completely changed the way I think about sports. Today's example: The goal-line stand.

Sunday night, Jets-Dolphins: Rex Ryan's squad of drunkards and clowns has the ball at the Miami 1-yard line, and a one-point lead. Under two minutes to play. Dolphins with two time outs. And like many, I'm thinking: Don't score. Waste as much time as possible. (This is, of course, a strategy born of video games, because in EA Sports' version of college football, anything more than four seconds is enough time for an opponent to run Four Verticals and complete an 89-yard touchdown pass, somehow bypassing every safety backed off in a Cover Three prevent.) Which is what Rex Ryan tried to do, challenging a 12-men on the field call (something I was unaware you could even do), a challenge which, if successful, would have essentially enabled the Jets to run out the clock. The challenge failed. The Jets could have downed the ball, or dropped a foot short of the goal line, on the next two plays. Instead, they chose to score on the next play. And given the way the Miami offense had shredded the Jets' secondary all night, you just knew this was too much time. Miami drove downfield, and the Jets somehow stopped them on their own goal line, but it would have been much easier if Ryan had chosen to futz around for two plays, forced the Dolphins to burn their time-outs, and then punched it in. By embracing conventional wisdom, the Jets nearly lost the game.  

Monday night, Bears-Packers: Bears, tied 17-17, possess the ball on the Packers' doorstep, under two minutes to play. And I'm thinking: Let them score. Because this is what you do in the video game. Because this is always the best strategy in a pixelated world where offense can be generated in a matter of seconds. But as video game offenses have increasingly converged with real-life offenses, this is now the obvious choice in humanoid football, as well. The Packers have one of the four best quarterbacks in football. The Packers have five excellent ball-catching men. The Packers, with one minute and 45 seconds, had at least a 30 percent chance of driving downfield and scoring a touchdown. Whereas the Bears' kicker, Robbie Gould, had at best a 5 percent chance of missing a glorified extra point. This concept is now so simple, even a lunatic (or an insightful pro football writer like my friend Seth Wickersham) can see the logic. Video games no longer warp the way we think. Video games dictate the way we think.

On Braylon Edwards

So some people I've done interviews with in recent weeks have asked me, since I wrote a book about the 1980s, whether I think that was the moment when athletes became overly entitled, spoiled, insufferable bozos. I don't pretend to believe it's that simple. I think we often overreact, especially when athletes engage in harmless acts of self-aggrandizement. I think it's too easy to fall back on lazy stereotypes. I think most of the time, it's best to examine these things on a case-by-case basis.

I mean, I get what the NFL is trying to do. There's more attention than ever paid to the transgressions of modern athletes, and since sports are a business, this business must be carefully controlled. But I do find Roger Goodell's crusade to rid the NFL of misbehavior a little Orwellian, largely because this new standard of "personal conduct" seems remarkably arbitrary. I don't understand what's truly "bad" and what isn't. Case in point: Braylon Edwards drove drunk in a city with so many readily available car/limousine/taxi services--not to mention construction/traffic/bridge closure issues--that he should be suspended simply for violating the league's common sense clause. And there was no punishment for this. Not really. The Jets suspended him for exactly 17 plays, and in a moment of refreshing honesty, their general manager essentially admitted they weren't suspending him any longer because they wanted to win a football game. Which they did.

So it would seem that DUI--apparently the most common of NFL transgressions--is not a suspension-worthy offense unless someone is killed in the process. And I understand that there are union issues that complicate these matters, but this lack of a defined standard, I think, makes it more difficult to Goodell to consistently take the moral high ground...to defend, say, the suspension of Ben Roethlisberger for a large chunk of a season for incidents in which he was never officially charged. And it also makes it more difficult to forward the notion that an NFL defensive back named Tanard Jackson, who apparently endangered no one (perhaps not even himself, depending upon his choice of drug), is somehow being more "selfish" than a man who drives while intoxicated for no apparent reason at all.

On Changing One's Mind

This is Andy Reid’s finest moment. His critics come off as disingenuous and/or obtuse. We beg for powerful, prideful and wealthy men to demonstrate the courage to admit their mistakes and quickly correct them.--Jason Whitlock

I've always thought the signature moment of the Bush era was that press conference during which the president struggled to come up a single mistake he'd made. In the end, that's how the '00s will be defined; by our nation's hubris, by a gale force of American exceptionalism, followed by a protracted humbling like none we'd seen in our lifetimes.

All of which brings me to Andy Reid.

The coach of the Philadelphia Eagles is, by all accounts, a mercurial dude at the helm of a franchise fraught with a deep racial and cultural history; no city is more conflicted about its sports teams (let alone its own identity) than Philadelphia. (I have many friends from Philadelphia, but I don't pretend to understand all the complexities.) Bringing Michael Vick into this powder keg of craziness seemed like a curious social experiment. And so, yes, a great deal of this is Reid's fault; it was his (questionable) decision to jettison Donovan McNabb, and it was his decision to bequeath the job to Kevin Kolb, and it was his decision to install Michael Vick as the backup. But to criticize Andy Reid for changing his mind, for making a decision based entirely on football, for reversing his course to do something entirely rational based on the results of the previous two weeks, is completely baffling.

And yet it also explains why we live in the world we do. It explains why politicians are so reluctant to change their positions even in the face of utterly rational discourse that proves them wrong; it explains why Barry Bonds will never admit to injecting himself with horse tranquilizers, and it explains why even when athletes/politicians/public figures do apologize, they refuse to even admit what they are apologizing for. At some point, changing one's mind became a greater weakness than holding to an irrational decision. For that reason, I'm with Whitlock: I'm hoping the Eagles make the Super Bowl.

On Choosing the Wrong Guy

A little over a decade ago, I wrote a story that seems particularly embarrassing in retrospect: I was working in Cleveland, and the Browns had the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, and they were deliberating between Ricky Williams and Tim Couch. Well, I went to Kentucky and wrote a profile of Couch, who was something of a local legend. And I am not an expert on anything, let alone quarterback play, but I thought he looked great. I remember watching him throw a ridiculous touchdown pass to receiver in the back of the end zone; I remember the way the ball soared toward the heavens, and then the way it cradled softly into the wideout's hands, like a baby rabbit swathed in cotton dropping from a low tree branch. I thought he had every possible tool a quarterback needed to possess, and so did everyone I spoke to about him; I thought there was no way the Browns could pass him up, and I said so, and fortunately I was gone by the time things fell apart and Tim Couch became the latest in a series of Northeast Ohio-based punchlines involving Playboy playmates and Butch Davis.

I was thinking about this last night, as I watched the Saints play the 49ers. Because many of the principal players in that game are proof that no one knows anything about anything when it comes to evaluating NFL talent. When it comes to scouting, at least 30-40 percent of the time, the expert's opinion is no better than mine. We have access to more information than ever before, and it doesn't make that much of a difference, as much as the experts would like to convince us otherwise. We see what we want to see. In the end, it's all a guess. And in the case of the experts, the hive mentality still wins out. Drew Brees, once lightly regarded, is now the greatest clutch quarterback since Joe Montana.* Alex Smith, a No. 1 draft pick, a failure many times over, appears to have channeled the mojo of Steve Young. And, of course, there is Reggie Bush, who had a no-good, terrible, very bad week, and who remains the greatest college football player I've ever seen, but apparently is never going to be much more than a situational player in the NFL, and certainly not as good as Mario Williams, whom the Houston Texans chose over Bush.

A few years ago, some cultural critic wrote that Reggie Bush "possesses the kind of greatness a child can see." I agreed with him at the time, and I agree with him now. His point was that the NFL seems to gravitate toward counterintuitive decision-making, I suppose because it makes it seem like the scouts and the talent evaluators, in fact, know far more than normal humans do. It gives them a patina of expertise; it justifies their existence, and the existence of the NFL combine, and all those bizarre mating rituals at which muscular young men strip off their shirts and run through a maze of traffic cones. But more information doesn't mean more success. In certain cases, I see no reason not to cling to what I see, even when the result proves irrational. If I had to do it over again, I still would advocate for Tim Couch over Ricky Williams, and I still would advocate for Reggie Bush over Mario Williams. Some things just make sense, even when they don't.

*Really, was there anyone watching that game who thought Drew Brees, given eighty seconds, even against the 49ers' ravenous defense--and one of these days, Mike Singletary's eyeball is actually going to pop right out of his head--wasn't going to win this game? I would have bet five thousand dollars on it, if I had five thousand dollars and a bookmaker in my pocket rather than four dollars and a receipt from a sports bar in the Kansas City International Airport.

On Inconsequential Things That Matter To Me

1. J-E-T-S

Listen: I think Rex Ryan is a fascinating personality, and I think it would be an outstanding story if a coach who preaches positive reinforcement could actually prove successful in the National Football League*,** but this season could be a train wreck. What if Mark Sanchez doesn't just look like Vincent Chase? What if Mark Sanchez is Vincent Chase, and this season is his Medellin?***

2. Arian Foster

From the WSJ:

"There's the mysterious New-Age first name: His father, Carl, says it's short for Aquarian, refering to the water bearer bringing in the Age of Aquarius that, he says, "we're living in." There's a tattoo on his arm that reads: "Against All Odds." He has an obsession with writing poetry about the moon and the stars and he recently named his one-year-old daughter Zeniah Egypt, a consequence of a fascination with ancient Egyptian culture he says he developed from watching the Discovery Channel."

Good Lord, I hope this wasn't a one-week fantasy football flirtation.

3. The Heisman

Years ago, back in college, I wrote an incredibly long and overwrought story about the Heisman Trophy. I remember my attempts to grill the Heisman PR person about the criteria for the award, and the Heisman PR person would tell me only that the award is meant to go to "the most outstanding player in college football." There are no other criteria. The Heisman, in other words, is a nebulous award, capable of being defined in different ways by everyone who votes for it. Which also means the people who give out the Heisman are free to define this award however they want. This is how Gino Toretta and Reggie Bush can wind up winning the same trophy. Therefore, I don't think it really matters if they now give the 2005 Heisman to Vince Young, or if they don't; the Heisman is the most arbitary award in sports. It's the sporting equivalent of that awful Mark Cuban reality show from a few years ago--there are no rules at all.

But it does seem like a moral quandary that Reggie Bush no longer possesses a Heisman Trophy, and O.J. Simpson still does.

*I inadvertently watched fifteen minutes of an NFL pregame show the other night, and was actually shocked by the number of needless utterances of the phrase "National Football League." It's like there's an unspoken quota among NFL analysts. It's become such an established part of their lexicon that they feel naked and unprepared it they don't needlessly utilize it.

**I think there is a legitimate discussion to be had about this Ines Sainz situation (and I'm glad that talented female writers like Johnette Howard are making their voices heard), but it strikes me that what Ryan and his assistant coach engaged in was the plot of a Corona commercial.

***Which means in 2012, Sanchez will date a porn star and enter a rehab facility. That sounds about right.

On the Impending Demise of the NFL. Or Not.

There are times when the National Football League scares me a little.

Don't get me wrong. I will watch any football game, anywhere, at any time of day. And while my preference tends toward college football, I am a heterosexual American male between the ages of 18 and 64, and therefore understand it is my civic duty to spend Sunday afternoons in the fall obsessively checking the Jacksonville Jaguars injury report on NFL.com, because I have paid one hundred dollars for the privilege of choosing an imaginary team of players whose results are dictated by an arbitrary scoring system, and whose ups and downs somehow manage to dictate my daily mood.* Given that the NFL is perhaps the most universally popular corporate entity in our nation's history, it's hard to imagine it ever not being such. This is one reason it scares me: The NFL is so unbelievably huge, so obscenely powerful, so dynamically slick, that it seems like we are only two decades from being separated into classes based on our knowledge of the Tampa 2 defense. 

But then I wonder whether perhaps I am exaggerating a little. I wonder if perhaps this moment, right now, is the most popular the NFL will ever be. I am wondering if we are witnessing the zenith of the Roman empire. I am wondering if this could be the NFL's last season as the most dominant sports cabal on the planet. I am wondering if in ten years, Super Bowl officials will be begging Superchunk to play their halftime show.

Most likely, I'm being crazy**. But, as Mike Freeman points out here, the NFL is facing a tumultuous offseason. A lockout appears imminent. Ticket prices are through the (domed) roof. Dissent is growing. These are all major factors, but this is not what scares me most about the NFL, either; what scares me most about the NFL was made manifestly clear while watching the Eagles-Packers game on Sunday afternoon.

There was a period during that game when it seemed like someone was getting hurt on every play. Out went the Eagles' quarterback, Kevin Kolb. Out went the Packers' running back, Ryan Grant. And out went the Eagles linebacker, Stewart Bradley, who stood up after a hit, walked three steps, and then drunkenly tumbled to the grass. Clearly, he had a concussion, and while the NFL insists its getting serious about concussions--and while I have no reason not to believe them--there is a moment like this in every NFL game, a moment when you sit on your couch, watching your 56-inch high-definition three-dimensional televisual device, and you think to yourself, It is inherently inhuman for men to collide like this. And then DeSean Jackson makes a one-handed catch behind his back, and you forget all about it. But it's there, and it's most apparent on Sundays, and it's getting to be harder and harder to forget.

It's impossible to imagine an America without the mythology of professional football, without mud and dirt and helmets colliding and bodies sprawled in the grass. Then again, forty-five years ago, Don Draper's entire evening hinged on the results of a heavyweight fight. That seems like as much a relic of the Mad Men era as the notion of smoking during pregnancy, another pastime that doctors declared too unhealthy for humans to practice.

*All of which is to say--without delving into the most boring topic any American male can ever bring up--that my fantasy team is absolutely horrible. This is what happens when you attempt to choose your roster via IPhone from a wedding reception.

**Superchunk would never play halftime.

(Photo: AP)

On One-Hit Wonders

I was driving on a two-lane road in South Carolina, listening to a football game on the radio. It was February 3, 2008, and that game happened to the Super Bowl, the first one of my lifetime that I didn't see on television. I was on my way to watch Len Bias's mother speak to a group of high-school students when David Tyree made the last catch of his pro career; I specifically remember, despite the apopleptic exhortations of the radio broadcasters, not being able to comprehend exactly what had happened. There was too much to describe without the pictures to accompany it. How does a man catch a football with his helmet?

You may have heard that Tyree retired today, completing one of the most distinctive careers in sports history. Here's what makes it distinct, at least to me: Over at Yahoo!, Chris Chase examines whether Tyree's catch was indeed the greatest in NFL history; I disagree with his logic, but what I found most interesting is the comparisons he makes, likening to Tyree's catch to clutch plays made by Franco Harris, Dwight Clark, Alan Ameche, and Bart Starr. Three of those men are Hall of Famers. The fourth, Dwight Clark, is a two-time Pro Bowler. Most of the time, this is how it works; it's almost unthinkable for a marginal player to wind up with the ball in his hands in the final moments of a game.* The most memorable catch in baseball history was made by Willie Mays, in part because it was made by Willie Mays.**

David Tyree was not Willie Mays, or Franco Harris, or even Dwight Clark. David Tyree played 83 games in his NFL career, and made 54 catches. He never averaged more than 13.2 yards receiving per game over the course of a season. Pro Football Reference rates him as the 8,413th best receiver since 1950. The only reason he earned the cache to call a press conference announcing the end of his career is because of a single play that essentially won the Giants, a prohibitive underdog, the Super Bowl over what otherwise would have been the greatest team in the history of the National Football League. And that one moment, in itself, makes David Tyree the greatest one-hit wonder in the history of sports. He is to athletics as Dexy's Midnight Runners are to pop music. He will be remembered as long as professional football exists. And if sports are all about establishing a legacy--hello, LeBron--what could possibly comprise a better career than David Tyree's single towering accomplishment?

*There are exceptions, of course, like, say, Steve Kerr, but Kerr played 17 seasons in the NBA and was one of the best shooters in league history.
**Even Bill Mazeroski, long defined by one hit, actually played 17 seasons and had more than 2,000 hits in his career.