Thu, November 1, 2007
RE$PECT
Let me begin by saying this: I am not ARCC Joe Mulder. I am merely ARCCPG* Jameson Simmons. By that I mean, I have no business holding an opinion about sports in general, especially sports like the NFL which rank below my .500 threshold of hate. If, in this week's forthcoming NFL picks column, ARCC Joe Mulder takes a stance on the following issue, I defer to his wisdom. In general, I defer to his wisdom on any sports-related issue – with the exception of robot baseball umpires.
Anyway, here's what's got my dander up. There's a guy out there named Randall Godfrey. Without getting into a bunch of stuff that I don't care about, let's just say Godfrey is an NFL player and last week his team played against the New England Patriots, coached by the Great Bill Belichick.
(Quick aside: I don't hate Bill Belichick, because I don't have time to parcel my NFL hate out onto individual players or coaches. Until Pete Carroll returns to the NFL, it's safe to assume that I will never care one whit about any NFL coach. However, if I were going to hate an NFL coach, based on what I've heard it would probably be Belichick – even though he gets points in his favor for calling to mind my favorite insurance investigator, Thomas Banacek.)
The Patriots beat Godfrey's team 52-7. Here's what Godfrey had to say about it afterwards:
"I said something to [Belichick] after the game. I told him, 'You need to show some respect for the game.' You just don't do that. I don't care how bad it is. You're up 35 points and you're still throwing deep? That's no respect.
[...]
"Most teams, you get up like that, you sit on the ball and try to run the time out. They're up 30-some points and they're throwing deep. That was blatant disrespect. I hope we can see them again, definitely. You don't see Joe Gibbs [Godfrey's coach] doing that. You can't even imagine that kind of stuff coming from him. Joe Gibbs. Bill Walsh. Bill Parcells. This isn't like college going for power rankings. This is the pros; you show some respect, show some class."
What the fuck is he talking about?
We've all had that experience, where your team is down by a lot and the other team seems to be just toying with you. And I can agree, it isn't a fun feeling. I've watched Bobby Bowden rout teams that way, and it makes you furious. (My memory is foggy, but let's say it was Miami. I'm sure that's happened once or twice.) And perhaps it isn't respectful, but it's kind of also their right. You know? The teams get 15 minutes a quarter to go out there and play whatever football they want to play within the rules of the game (or, in Belichick's case, at least near the rules). You don't have to like how they play. You can either play against them, and try to narrow their lead; or you can forfeit. The rules exist to establish an agreed-upon framework for what constitutes fair play. Beyond the rules there may be "unwritten rules" that govern whether or not a certain behavior qualifies as being a dick. Some players and coaches are going to push that limit; others may not. But the thing about unwritten rules is you can't go anywhere and look them up, to wave them in your opponent's face. Think he's being a dick? Fine; say so. But you can't seriously say, "You can't do that."
Now perhaps football coaches generally avoid running up the score like this, even though the rules would permit it. It seems logical to pull your starting players out of the game once your lead is large enough, to give them more rest and avoid injury. That gives you a better chance at next week's game. But you don't have to do it that way. Maybe you want to try out your long passing plays. Maybe you want to entertain your home crowd. Maybe you feel you have something to prove. (Belichick might.) Or maybe, in these days of player incentives and fantasy teams, it makes sense to play your best football no matter what the other team's score is. It's not really Belichick's responsibility to care how frustrated or sad Godfrey is that his team isn't scoring better. You don't fumble on purpose just because the other guy's having a bad day.
Here's the other thing: if you're so upset about your opponent's style of play, why not fight fire with fire? Instead of whining like a girl that he didn't show your team enough respect, you could make him pay for leaving his starters in. Tackle his quarterback too hard and smash his femur in five places. Sure, you'll get a big penalty, but it's not like you were going to win anyway. Disrespect the Patriots right back. Disrespect your elbow straight into someone's spleen.
Being an NFL player isn't necessarily easy. You have to work your ass off from high school onward to develop the talent and visibility it takes to make it to the pro level – all while avoiding getting caught using performance-enhancing drugs. You face the possibility of debilitating or fatal injury every week, and from what I hear, the league isn't doing a great job of taking care of retired players with health problems. That means you need to invest the money you make during your brief career, because only a select few players get to be TV announcers or product endorsers when it's over. But, for all that hardship, we pay the players with fame, power, and big piles of money. You can take that deal, or you can leave it and do something else with your life. You can't ask for respect on top of that – we never said that was part of the bargain.
*Athletic Reporter Co-Creator and Photoshop Guru. If Joe is "Arksie," does this make me "Ark-Pig?" Expect to see a lot less of that cute "Arksie" moniker around here.
© onebee · all rights reserved
Joe Mulder — Thu, 11/1/07 12:54pm
I agree, for the most part, with the great Gregg Easterbrook, who tackles this issue this week in his Tuesday Morning Quarterback. This particular paragraph pretty much sums up his (and my) feelings:
A couple other points that Easterbrook has mentioned in other columns that seem to apply here:
1) "Running up the score" shouldn't be quite as big a deal in the pros as it is in high school and college; the ostensible goal of college football is to educate (I know, I know; but, in theory that's true), while professional sports exists as a leisure activity to entertain fans, and the participants are highly paid.
That said,
2) Teams that delight in running up the score and pushing weaker opponents around tend not to be able to handle playing tight games against worthy competition, the best example of which is probably St. John's decisive victory over perennial bully Mount Union in the 2003 Division III football championship game.
Another good example, of course, is when the Patriots completely bitched out in the second half of last year's AFC title game.
But yeah, whining about losing 52-7 isn't very convincing; it seems like you could have done your talking on the field, and you chose not to. If you feel you're being "disrespected," you can pull a George Teague and do something about it. Yes, Teague got ejected, but all anybody remembers about that game is how he looked like a man and T.O. looked like a punk. I think that among NFL fans, this opinion is nearly universal.
Bee Boy — Thu, 11/1/07 1:16pm
The more I think about it, the more it seems like there's no way to make someone like Godfrey happy. Winning a game handily with second-strings while your actual players spend the last quarter on the bench might have resulted in a less lopsided score, but does Godfrey actually interpret "We can still beat you with our good players sitting out" as a sign of respect? I'm with this George Teague fellow. Do something about it, or shut the hell up.
I think Easterbrook oversimplifies the "bad sportsmanship" / "coaching sense" equation – sure the decision is controversial, but it's the coach's job to weigh the possibility of injury against other factors. Maybe this was Belichick's way of begging Washington's defense to show some sack. Maybe his kid has Brady in his fantasy league and he needed some long bombs. But considering Brady is still alive, it doesn't seem like Belichick did something psychotically reckless by leaving him in.
Brandon — Thu, 11/1/07 1:44pm
Maybe not psychotically reckless, but reckless nonetheless. There's very little to be gained by leaving Brady in a game that's virtually won (I suppose it's technically possible for a team to come back from a 38-0 beating in the 4th quarter, but even so, then you wait for a couple touchdowns before you put Brady back in), while there's much much more to be lost if he were to get hurt. You don't need him to win this game; you do need him to win the rest of your games. And you would look and feel like a fool if something bad happened to him in the final minutes of a game that's in the bag.
And while I agree that Godfrey needs to do more "Teague-ing" and less whining, I do think he has point in regard to throwing deep. I think the line between showing up and not showing up is "aggressively" trying to score; if you're running your normal offense and you keep scoring, well, you're just good and the other team stinks. But actively running deep patterns is overkill. It's the same in baseball; aggressive acts in a blowout, like stealing a base or swinging with a 3-0 count, are the things that get frowned upon, and that seems reasonable. If you pile on the runs simply by continuing to hit well and run the bases normally, then the other team has nothing to complain about except for their own suckitude.
"Mike" — Fri, 11/2/07 11:42am
I think this is a really interesting topic. I agree with much of what's been said, especially with respect to the differences between the pros and other levels of sports and to the utility of not getting Tom Brady hurt.
On Binocular Bill's behalf, though, I think there are a few more reasons to run up the score and keep Brady in besides that he's sticking it to the league for spy-gate.
First, I think he's setting up other teams to misplay "tendencies." By leaving Brady in when the game is out of hand, they can run plays like the 4th and short sneaks and get other defenses to key on that in a close game when the real play will be something else. They can also run different packages in specific situations (1st and 10, 3rd and long, etc.) in out of hand games than they might when the game is close...this would be especially effective from the same formation.
Second, Brady's backup sucked donkeys in his first appearance, and so I think Bill wanted one more TD before letting him throw passes to the Redskins.
Third, I think Bill's answer about what was he supposed to do is a good question. It isn't his fault that the Redskins can't stop him, if he kicks the field goal on fourth and 1 he's running up the score and if they just down the ball or something that's just as insulting as going for it. I think it's okay to treat pros like adults and say that since we're getting paid, we're gonna play until the game is over. This philosophy though, does not imply that starters should be left in to face injury – that's a tougher call, but it wasn't like Brady was taking a beating out there and (wild, unfounded claim alert!) QBs rarely get hurt on QB sneaks.
Finally, I think there is value to scaring the beejesus out of the rest of the league. I remember reading a quote from a baseball player (can't remember who now) who said that "When I got to the show, I thought Nolan Ryan would be 6 foot 6 and throw 900 miles an hour." I imagine that worked to Ryan's advantage against this guy. Now, if the Pats go up 14-0 on some teams, they may be psychologically defeated, rather than thinking, "Hey, the Colts came back on these guys, we can too."
Bee Boy — Fri, 11/2/07 1:25pm
Excellent points, all. In the interest of brevity, I'm only going to respond to my favorites: one and four.
I like this a lot. I completely forgot about the idea that the plays Belichick runs today are part of tomorrow's "game film" for opposing coaches. This should be a plot on Friday Night Lights. I love it. (Frankly, anything football-related would be a welcome plot on Friday Night Lights.)
This reminds me of Bates-ball. The style of play designed and fostered by Jay Bates in Sherwood Kiraly's excellent baseball novel California Rush. If you've read the book, you know that even though you loved and honored Davy Tremayne, you had to respect Jay's style. Jay was a dick, but he approached the game like no one else, and he won games. Belichick is like this – except more of a dick, and much harder to love despite his flaws.
To anyone who hasn't read California Rush: you absolutely should. If you like one or more of the following things, you will love this book: baseball; sports; male camaraderie; small-town life; charming, well-crafted characters; things that are awesome.