C Student in X's and O's

There's a lot of plays on that call sheet.

I have a confession to make. I don't really understand football.

I know a lot about football. I know that 4 yards a carry is a good average, that a facemask penalty is 15 yards, and that a slot receiver lines up off tackle. I could break down, in enormous detail, the differences between Dan Marino's 1984 season, Peyton Manning's 2004 season, and Tom Brady's 2007 season*. When a flag is thrown, I usually know what the penalty is. And recently, while driving home with the Rock Star, we tried to name every Super Bowl winner, and damn near got 'em all right (though I had a few out of order; it's tough to put those 70's Cowboys, Dolphins, and Raiders in the right order).

* In fact, I did.

But when I'm actually watching a game, I'm pretty sure that 90% of what is happening on the field is going over my head. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 60% of it is going over the head of a Pop Warner coach.

Football has always been an enormously complicated game - 22 players on the field have rather specific assignments on each play. Sometimes those assignments are simple, sometimes they have options and variations mid-play. How can you track all of them?

But today's NFL has taken to it another level. A few years back, ESPN Magazine broke down everything that goes on in the head of Peyton Manning prior to a snap. The defense is set up in a pass D - or is it a run D disguised as a pass D? The middle linebacker sneaks up one step...Manning keeps his eye on him. Strong safety takes two steps left. Manning barks out a few signals and changes the play...or did he? Hike. Linebackers shift, safety shifts, Manning throws a ball to an unoccupied spot in the end zone - where Reggie Wayne arrives a moment later to catch it.

Who could break that down as its happening? The answer is: nobody. Even Peyton Manning, sitting in a broadcast booth five years from now, won't be able to thoroughly break it down as he watches, say, Andrew Luck against the Steelers. To do so would require not only Manning's superhuman football IQ, but an inner knowledge of the workings of Luck's offense, detailed study of the Steelers pass coverage schemes, and certitude of the original called play, to know if Luck audibled or fake-audibled.

If Future Peyton doesn't know what just happened, what chance does an average fan have?

I bring all this up because, as you may have heard, the Giants and Patriots have a rematch of Super Bowl 42 coming up. The exhausting, mind-numbing coverage have focused almost entirely on non-football stuff. The Rematch. Eli playing in his brother's building. The personalities of the coaches. The history of Tom Brady's hair.

We do all this because, frankly, most of us can't have an intelligent conversation about zone blitzes, run blocking schemes and defensive audibles. That's why, on NFL Mondays all around the country, sports radio features non-stop discussions of things like clock management and body language. Few callers are smart enough to talk about a defense's failure to adjust to the right guard's interior blocking, so instead we call up and blame the loss on the head coach's sideline demeanor, or the fact that he went on it at 4th and 1 from his own 48.

We are, however, breeding a smarter generation of football fans. Tomorrow's football fans will have thousands and thousands of hours of Madden behind them - selecting defenses, calling plays, even strategizing seasons. This is much better preparation for Advanced Fanship than what I bring to the table.

I'm trying my best, I really am, to ignore all the silly stuff that has no impact on what happens between the lines. I like the way the Giants' offense matches up against the Patriots' defense; I worry about our safeties covering their tight ends; and I think, if Vince Wilfork brings his A game, look out.

But then I can't help noticing...the Patriots are 13-2 since Brady cut his hair...

Handful of Dust: An NFC Poetry Slam

Remember the Coffee Klatsch?

The Klatsch is a bunch of friends I worked with in the 90’s. Shin, Cormie, Stod, and I had many things in common: we worked in publishing, were literary dilettantes, admirers of select female colleagues, and nostalgic sports fans.

We also differed on important subjects, like war and economics and modern literature and Jennifer Aniston (for the record, I'm in favor of two, against one, and conflicted on another).

Anyway, back in 1990 when the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers met in the regular season Shin and I made a bet: if the Niners won I would write a poem in their honor; if the Giants won, he would do the same*. We repeated the bet for the NFC Championship game and later playoff games.

* Did I mention we were literary dilettantes?

The Niners won a classic game, of course, and I wrote a sports masterpiece that sadly, like most of Sophocles’ plays, is lost*. Shin repaid in January, and we went back and forth a few times over the years with various sports and teams.

* All the stars on those Niner teams had names that were also words, which I used to brilliant effect. Brilliant, that is, if you were a six year old who loved bad puns. There was ‘running Watters’ and ‘hit a Lott’ and ‘no white on that Rice’ and ‘Young arm’ (Steve) and "Young massive torso" (Bryant)...well, you get the point.

Over the past week, Shin, Cormie and I – with a nudge from Stod and a whisper from BAM (our Stu Sutcliffe, sans tumor) – engaged in the nerdiest trash talking of the year. Here, I give you, the NFC Poetry Slam:

Pre Game Trash Talk

Shin:

The roars were audible from Brisbane to Nyack

When Alex said simply, "Boys, get on my back"

Smith ran round Osi and right over J. Tuck

Grabbed his crotch and said "Eat my PeePee, JPP, you miserable f*ck"

He's vanished his demons, fulfilled all his whims

Hell, he's almost Montana, much better than Simms.

Corm:

There once was a guy from New York

Who got mad when we called Simms a dork

He talked lots of smack

But took much of it back

Through a rhyme scheme that almost did work.

Keatang (last line should be read like you're Seinfeld's mother):

He was picked number one and the orchestras sung,

But for a half dozen years he played like horse dung,

A sweep left for a score,

To Vernon for one more,

And suddenly he's Montana and Young?

Shin:

Since the day I was born I have loved me some Giants*

Just the sound of the word is like a brand new appliance

So yes, I hate me some Dodgers

And they should have picked Rodgers

But they'll clobber New York in defiance

* ed: he refers to the San Francisco Giants

Corm (channeling Robert Burns, after Eli missed practice with a stomach ailment):

Wee, sleekit, cowring tim'rous beastie

Eli, what gurglins in thy breastie

Thou need na start excuse so hasty

Wi burbling belly

Fear the Niners wad rin an chase thee

Wi murdering prattle.

Corm (channeling Thomas Percy, letting Alex know he’s not quite there yet):

And when yon task be fifteen yeere old

Then shall you be crowned kinge

Brisbaine’s Tana, that was once uprore

You did to quiet bring.

First strike the Giants from the realm

Dared they opprest this land

To Canton then, throughe manly feates

of football, head and hand.

BAM (poor guy’s a Browns fan, and has no dog in this fight):

Now NFL Football it ain't my best game

The Cleveland Browns they're just f*cking lame

But on a bandwagon I jump

Both Giants and Niners I trump

So either team can win, I'm the same.

Post Game Loser’s Poems

Shin:

On account of how I now know more of their names

And that yesterday was the first in forever where I watched two football games

I can say Brady's a fighter, and, it looks like, a lover

Manning's a winner, maybe even better than big brother

The Harbaughs a nice story but that one is over

Victor from UMass should be rolling in clover

The Giants are mighty and making big millions

And they should send partial share to Kyle Effing Williams.

Corm (channeling T.S. Eliot):

January is the cruelest month

Giants from back east, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Niner brains with spring rain

Fall kept us warm, a season's

Generous dose of forgetful snow, feeding

a fan's life with dried tubers

Eli surprised us, coming over the middle

To Cruz balls dropped like rain, tween our colonnade

And ran to sunlight, into the Superbowl

We drank beer, and talked it over

Bin kar keine Niner, stamm aus New York echt Giant 20

We cannot say or guess, for no one knows

A heap of broken images, where Williams stands

And the dead season gives no shelter, no relief, 17

From this dry stone no water,

Only Eli, whose shadow rose to meet us

Ending our year in a handful of dust

Reverse Jinxing the Giants

About the New York Football Giants...

I feel like the backup second baseman on a team where the pitcher has a perfect game going. Nobody is supposed to say anything to the pitcher for fear of jinxing it. But especially not an insignificant person like the backup second baseman. The catcher might obliquely discuss strategy with the pitcher, the star hitter might exhort the lineup to score more runs, the shortstop might remind his teammates to stay sharp on the infield. But bench warmers should sit meekly in the corner and say NOTHING to NOBODY about NOTHING!

That's sort of how I feel about this run the Giants are on. After a 7-7 start where the G-Men lost to some bad teams, needed 4th quarter comebacks for 5 wins, and were, in total, outscored by the opposition, this team is suddenly playing like an elite football team. And fans are wondering if...

Well, hold on there. I don't want any jinxy-cat thoughts to float into my head. I dream of exorcising the Trey Junkin demons*. I dream of shutting up every Patriot fan who thinks SB42 was a helmet fluke. I dream of making Ray Lewis cry on the sideline, erasing the stain of Super Bowl XXXV. But I'm nervous about giving voice to these dreams - I have a fear of jinxing this team like I never have before.

* Watching the clip still hurts, not just because of the epic meltdown but because the Niners should have been flagged for pass interference on the play. Mike Pereira, who has been a great addition to the Fox broadcast team, was head of officiating at the time, and he made the official decision that it was a blown call, and the Giants should have had a second chance to line up - this time for a chip shot field goal - to win the game.

Regular readers know I didn't have this superstition aversion in January 08. I had multiple blogasms back then. But this time, well, let's say I'm knocking more wood than a carpenter with the yips.

I'm a deeply rational guy. I don't believe in astrology or ghosts or sixth senses. I don't believe in black cats or unlucky numbers or curses. When someone has a feeling that something is going to happen, and that thing actually happens, I don't think it's because they have some sort of second sight - I think that a) they are incapable of recognizing the underlying rational thoughts that led to their feeling and b) they have conveniently forgotten the many times their feeling was wrong.

But when it comes to sports, I'm worse than a medieval peasant in the Transylvanian forest. For example, my daughter gave me some blue and white Mardi Gras beads to wear to the Cowboys game in Week 17. I wore them to MetLife Stadium and voila - Giants won the NFC East! Naturally I took them back to the stadium for the Falcons game and - they worked again!

Would they work on television? Sure enough, I wore them for the Packer game and even though Green Bay is 1,004 miles away from my living room, they worked! I'm sticking with the beads, baby.

I get this from my father. Poppa Keats is a religious man - he's a lector at his church, the pastor of his fire department, and wouldn't miss Mass on Sunday if he had to swim the Mississippi, climb Everest, and parachute from a skyscraper to get there. But he believes in a higher power - he believes the single biggest factor in the outcome of every Giants' game is whether or not he's watching. We frequently have conversations like the one we had Sunday night:

Me: What'd you think of the game Sunday?

Dad: Ah, I missed it.

Me: You missed it?! You missed the playoff game.

Dad: Well, I was watching, but Rodgers threw the TD pass to open the 2nd quarter so I turned it off. I put it back on again in the 4th, and he threw another one.

Me: Dad, I read a lot of articles about the game, and nobody seems to think your turning the TV off was a factor.

Dad: They won, didn't they?

In light of all this, I want to avoid any conversations of "If we win Sunday...". So in an attempt at a little counter-jinx, here's why the Giants won't win Sunday:

• The 49ers had a regular season point differential of +151! The Giants actually gave up more points than (400) than they scored (394). No team has ever won a Super Bowl with a negative regular season point differential.
• As for the myth that the Niners have a weak offense and the Giants a strong one...not really true. Niners are ranked 26th in offense and the Giants 8th, but that measures yards. In points scored they are 11th, the Giants 9th.
• You may have read this elsewhere, but the Giants are ranked Last in rushing. And not just rushing yards, but Last in yards per attempt, too. The Niner defense is ranked First in rushing yards allowed, and First in yards per attempt. That seems like a bad combo.

So yeah, the Niners struggled down the stretch, barely eking out wins against the Seahawks and Rams, and losing to the Cardinals. Sure, the Niners lost to two teams the Giants beat this year (Cowboys and Cardinals). And yeah, the Giants' point differential in each of the past four games is higher than their entire regular season combined (+15, +17, +22, +17), and they came against teams with a .500 record or better. And it's true that the last time these teams played the Giants best rusher and best linebacker were home nursing injuries.

But the important thing to note here is that I am not making any positive assumptions about this Sunday. I hope the gods (now that they are through with Tebow) are listening.

Tebow Has All the Tools...but One

Here at FreeTime, we like to kick them when they're up and lift them when they're down. This is partly because we're pathologically obsessed with The Overrated and The Underrated*, and partly because debate is sort of like Olympic diving - degree of difficulty matters.

* In fact, when I was coming up with a name for this blog, one idea was Overrated/Underrated, with every story focused on someone/thing that was overrated (Jeter! Clooney!) or underrated (John Adams! Eli Manning!). Notice how the Underrated guys need their full name spelled out?

Which brings us to the matter of Tim Tebow. I had a Tebow column halfway written on December 11, after the Broncos defeated the Bears. Tebow was riding high: the Broncos had won 7 of 8, his passing yards had increased 5 straight games, his TD-to-INT ratio was 8-1, and his critics were cowering in the corner. It was time to strike.

But alas, on December 12th I was diagnosed with a detached retina, and two days later had surgery. While I was recovering Tebow fell hard. The Broncos got crushed by the Patriots, trampled by the Bills, and in week 17, an important game against the Chiefs to guarantee a playoff spot, Tebow put up the following line:

6 for 22, 60 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 interception.

The Broncos scored 3 points and needed the Raiders to lose in order to backdoor the playoffs. I don't care how much you mistrust stats: that is some seriously crappy, unclutch, non-winning football. And as anyone who saw the game will attest, it wasn't just a statistical nightmare; it was an avert-your-eyes horror show.

So the moment had passed. I couldn't pile on then.

But now Timmy's back! He had his best game as a pro Sunday. It had the usual Tebow dramatics but with a twist: big passing numbers! He even broke John Elway's Broncos' record for playoff yards. So, it's time for me to enter the fray.

Now let me stipulate a few things first:

1. I like Tim Tebow. He seems like a genuinely good guy in a sports world filled with bad guys.

2. I like the Tebow story. It is like every sports movie every made - the underdog who is told he can't do it but pulls it off in dramatic fashion.

3. I especially liked the fact that Tebow beat Ben Roethlisberger, who is, let's say, not a good guy.

Finally, he has many qualities that are useful in an NFL quarterback. Useful, but not necessary. For example:

1. He is big and strong, which is useful but not necessary (see Drew Brees).
2. He is very good at running the ball, which is useful but not necessary (see Peyton Manning)
3. He is fiery and animated, which is useful but not necessary (see Eli Manning).
4. He had great success in college, which is useful but not necessary (see Tom Brady).
5. He is a morally upright person, which is useful but not necessary (see Ben Roethlisberger).

Those five quarterbacks won 8 of the last 10 Super Bowls. All but the injured Peyton made the playoffs this year, as usual. And while all of them are different, they share one thing in common: they are really really good at throwing a football.

And that's my problem with the Tebow Debate. It's become, like most sports arguments, a litmus test on Stats vs. Winning*.

* And unlike most sports arguments, a litmus test on religion. But I'm not going there. For that, I recommend this piece by Fran Tarkenton in today's Wall Street Journal.

But all of this ignores the most important question: Can a quarterback have long-term success iin today's NFL if he can't throw well? And Tim Tebow cannot throw well:

• His YPA (yards per attempt) is 6.4, 29th in the league behind, well, pretty much everyone but Curtis Painter. YPA is arguably the single most important passing stat.
• His completion % is 46.5%, 34th among the 34 QBs who threw enough passes to qualify. He is the only QB in the league under 50%.
• TD % is 4.4 (meaning, he throws TDs on 4.4% of his passes). Not bad, at 13th in the league, but still beyond such stalwarts as Christian Ponder, Mark Sanchez, and Matt Moore
• His INT% is solid. At 2.2 he is 9th in the league.
• But that is offset by his QB rating. At 29th, he is behind Colt McCoy, among other mediocrities. QB rating measures efficiency and loves a low INT %. But the rest of Tebow's game is so horrendous, the paucity of picks doesn't help much.
• His Yards Per Game is 34th. The only starter in the league who is lower is Josh Freeman.

And finally, there is Game Winning Drives*. Ah, the fans say, what do you have to say now, Smart Guy? He's tied for the league lead with 6, which is impressive. But there are two problems with that. One is that a guy like Aaron Rodgers has only one - not because he can't do it, but because he's so damn good all day long he generally spends his final drive taking a knee.

* Definition: An offensive scoring drive in the 4th quarter or OT that puts a team ahead for the last time.

But the other is this: do you know who has been better than Tim Tebow at game winning drives? Go ahead, I'll give you a minute. No, it's not Eli Manning, who also has 6 but was the starter in more games. It's not Alex Smith, with 5, though he was good, too. Drew Brees? Good guess, but he only had 4.

No, the best comeback quarterback in football this year was John Skelton. Casual fans don't even know who he is, but football fans know he took over the Cardinals' starting job in November. He played in 8 games for the Cards this year, starting 7 - and had 5 game-winning comebacks. 5 comebacks in 8 games? That's amazing...but something tells me he won't be on the cover of Madden next year.

Finally, the last worrisome thing for those who picture a Tebow plaque at Canton someday...

Tim Tebow isn't playing in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, or even the first decade of this century. He's playing at time when explosive passing attacks have taken over the sport. You've seen all the stats elsewhere, but this paragraph by Gregg Easterbrook captures well what a passing league the NFL is right now:

It's the year of offensive stat-a-rama throughout the NFL. There have been five 5,000-yard passing seasons in NFL history; three of them were this year. Drew Brees and Tom Brady both eclipsed the previous passing yards record in the same season. Records were set for passer rating, completion percentage and team yards from scrimmage. In the regular season, NFL teams averaged 235 gross passing yards per game, surpassing the previous high of 221 in 1995 and way above the 1971 average of 156 yards. Three of the top five rushing teams missed the playoffs while all the top five passing teams made the postseason. Detroit just gained a spectacular 882 yards passing in two games over six days -- and lost both because opponents gained 928 yards passing. The Packers and Patriots, with the league's lowest-rated defenses, just used scoreboard-spinning to win the conference top seeds. The league's No. 1 defense, the Pittsburgh Steelers, is already out of the playoffs, torched by Denver. In this year of offensive stat-a-rama, even a sputtering offense trumped the best defense!

I like Tim Tebow. It's a truly great sports story. And I'll be rooting for him this weekend against Patriots.

But enjoy the show now. This is the modern NFL, where a quarterback has to be able to consistently throw balls into very tight spots. And that is the one thing Tim Tebow cannot do.