TMQ: Gregg Teaches Us About the Game Day Experience

Despite another week of writing TMQ with factual inaccuracies contained within, Gregg Easterbrook is back for another week of TMQ. This week he suggests if you want to understand football then you should attend a football game in person. Given Gregg's history of seemingly not understanding football I am guessing he hasn't ever attended an NFL game. Then Gregg ends the column with the saddest news we have all been waiting to hear.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the NFL will not release to the public "All-22" game video -- high-angle shots that show all players on the field. The A22 views are so super-secret, the Journal maintained, that only NFL coaches and a few network insiders are allowed to glimpse them.

Psssssst, buddy -- wanna see what all 22 players are doing? Attend a game.

Ooooooooooo...in your face "All-22." Gregg cut you down so hard you should call yourself "Not All-22."

But to understand what's really happening, you must trek to a stadium and plunk into a seat.

(I bet many of your thought I would go the "football games are expensive to attend, shouldn't Gregg Easterbrook realize this" route. Normally this is a route I would go. Not today though! Sometime I just try to keep everyone off-balance)

While I greatly enjoy attending NFL games, I disagree with this in part. To really understand what is happening, a fan needs to watch the game in person and then watch a replay of the game. I love attending games, but many times there aren't replays of exactly what happened on the field like there are on television. A person can see all the players on the field and there's a better view in terms of seeing the entire field, but to really understand what is happening on the field a television and the ability to rewind and fast forward is incredibly helpful. So while I love attending football games, I think you can understand what is happening at home as well.

Television shows the little tetragon around the football, but TMQ's law holds that Ninety Percent of Football Action Occurs Away From the Ball. How the defense lines up, how receivers move through the secondary: television doesn't really convey this, nor does highlight film that focuses on the ballcarrier.

This is true, but television does give the viewer a chance to see a play again and get commentary on exactly what is happening on the field. An example from the last game I attended: A flag was thrown and a touchdown was nullified due to a hold. The crowd was booing so viciously I didn't get to hear who the hold was on or even if it was a hold (I couldn't see the hand motion the ref made for the call). Someone in the crowd said it was a hold on an offensive lineman. After the game I learned it was a controversial hold called on a wide receiver. I was at the game live, didn't get to see a replay and was focusing on the ball carrier, so I didn't see if the hold occurred or it was a bad call.

So in this case, I had a good view of the play, but I didn't get to see what happened because there was no replay of the hold call and I missed the call by the official. Attending a game is awesome, but because the field of vision for the viewer is so large, sometimes it is difficult to understand exactly what happened on a play. There is a reason coaches watch film after the game instead of rely on their memory from what they saw on the field. One of those reasons is due to film giving the coach a different angle and a closer perspective on what happened during the play...not to mention a person's memory isn't the greatest way to rely on information.

At games, your columnist rarely watches the ball.

This explains a whole lot.

Attend a game and force yourself to take your eyes away from the ball. Watch the line play or the secondary -- you'll see football in a whole new light. You may be able to point to who will catch the pass before the pass leaves the quarterback's hands.

This is very true. The trade-off for this is the inability to get a replay of something that you have may have missed. So attending football games in person gives a different perspective, but it isn't always a better perspective. It can be a more exciting perspective, but depending on your seats there could also be aspects of the game you miss. For example, if there something happening on the sidelines the television cameras would pick up, a spectator at a game could miss this.

(Or maybe I just don't pay good enough attention at a game...that could be possible too. I blame it on tailgating.)

But how did he get by his lonesome? Graham lined up as a slotback, inside a wideout. He ran a down-out-and-up, an unusual pattern for a tight end. The Atlanta linebacker on his side did not jam him, then chased him for a moment then let him go, because Graham was headed straight toward big-bucks cornerback Dunta Robinson. But Robinson never moved a muscle, letting Graham roar past, Robinson stood guarding no one. Was he in Cover 2?

If you are watching the game in person then you may not be able to see what defense Atlanta was playing, while if you were watching on television you can see the play at different angles and have the analyst explain what he believes happened on the play. We never get the answer to Gregg's question about what defense Atlanta was playing. This isn't a very good endorsement of the live experience since even while watching the game live this could potentially not be answered.

If you'd been at the game watching all 22 players, you'd have known it would be a touchdown to Graham (unless he dropped the ball) the instant the tight end cut up the field past a stationary cornerback.

You would have to be watching Jimmy Graham and the secondary to know this, while not watching the football. Again, you have one chance live to see this and you may not be able to see it again depending on how close to the Jumbotron you are and if replays of the touchdown are even shown on the Jumbotron.

Tony Romo spun away from a blitzer and rolled into the left flat. If you'd been at the game, you would have seen the Buffalo corner on that side move toward the center of the field, because he thought Romo would spin the opposite way. That meant the Buffalo corner on the left failed to guard his man, totally ignoring Dallas wide receiver Laurent Robinson. From the all-22 perspective available only at the game, you would have cried "touchdown!" before the ball left Romo's hand -- because you would have seen a Dallas receiver all by himself, exactly in the place Romo was headed.

Incorrect...unless Gregg has some ability to see two places at one time. If you were at the game live you would essentially have had two choices, depending on where your seat is located. Some fans have a choice of watching the football or watching the receiver. If a person is watching the receiver while at a game, then he/she wouldn't know the football left Romo's hand and he/she wouldn't be able to yell "touchdown" because this person wouldn't know the ball was thrown. If a person was watching Romo, then he/she wouldn't know Laurent Robinson was open.

(For example, I love my seats at my favorite team's games, but I have a hard time watching the ball and the defense depending on where on the field the ball is being snapped.)

I am sure a person could watch both the person with the ball and those players away from the ball, but it would take some eye dexterity and good peripheral vision, as well as there being a good chance of missing something regardless. Seeing a football game live is great, but a fan still can't see every little thing that happens on every play. A fan at the game gets to see the entire field, but the lack of replay and the large field also causes fans to miss some action.

The single most important thing the league could do to improve the game-day experience is devote as much effort to getting cars out afterward as to getting cars in before.

No matter how great traffic control can be 70,000 people within one or two blocks from each other will always going to cause great amounts of traffic gridlock. I'm not sure this is the single most important thing the NFL can do to improve the game day experience.

For those who attend an NFL game, the contest may be great, while often the last thing that happens is a two-hour gridlock at the exit ramps because no one is directing traffic.

Gregg, of course, has no suggestions on HOW to do this. Just fucking do it. Thanks for the commentary.

And bear in mind -- you can appreciate the super-secret full A22 view by attending a high school game, with a $5 ticket and free parking.

Unfortunately, you would then have to see football played at very nearly its lowest level and that's why parking is free and the tickets are cheap.

Regarding Penn State, in advertising that aired during the Penn State-Nebraska contest on Saturday, Rodney Erickson, the university's interim president, began by declaring, "My heart goes out to those who have been victimized."

Yet the school's interim president spoke of child molestation at Penn State as factually established. So what does Penn State know that it is not telling? If Penn State already knows there are in fact victims, this scandal is even worse.

OR, and I know the mere idea of this just absolutely blows Gregg's mind, the interim president was just making a statement the Board of Trustees requested he make. I think speaking a statement about "possible victims" wouldn't go over very well since Penn State had already fired many of those prominent individuals who may have had knowledge of the Sandusky child molestation incidences. In that way, Penn State has already admitted some culpability and acknowledged there were victims. So really there's no need to overanalyze the statement. The school apologized in order to begin the process of healing and make it clear they care about the charges being brought.

So if Penn State already knows children have been "victimized," the cover-up is worse than assumed. And if Penn State already knows children were victimized, then the Penn State interim president went on television to ask for the nation's sympathy, yet is not disclosing everything he knows about the school's involvement.

OR...this was just the wording chosen in the statement the interim president read off the teleprompter.

In other football news, the Houston Texans are 7-3 and have the league's No. 1-ranked defense. The Lone Star NFL teams, sputtering in recent years, combined Sunday to outscore opponents 81-16. I was planning to write an item predicting something no one in the local space-time continuum has ever predicted -- that the Texans would make the Super Bowl. Now, with Matt Schaub reportedly out for the season, the Moo Cows are more likely once again to miss the playoffs.

I don't know if "likely" is the correct wording to use here. The AFC South is a pretty weak division and the Texans still get to play Carolina, Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Indianapolis, and Atlanta. Nine or ten wins probably wins the division at this point. I think there are probably two or three wins in those games and I think the Texans can do this. Maybe I am overestimating Matt Leinart's abilities.

In Tuesday Morning Quarterback news, half the season is in the books, meaning I am heading into my bye week. There will be no regular column next Tuesday, though a modest reminder of TMQ will appear.

How can half the season be in the books? Every NFL team has played nine games or more! So this isn't the first half of the season in the books if teams have played more than 50% of their games! Wouldn't over half of the season be in the books at this point?

Stats of the Week No. 3: Pittsburgh is on a 10-1 streak at Cincinnati.

Does this count as a streak if it is over a period of 11 years? I'm just wondering.

Stats of the Week No. 10: Buffalo and Detroit opened a combined 9-1 and since have gone a combined 2-6.

Remember the TMQ when Gregg asked if these two teams would be in the Super Bowl? Gregg would ask that you forget this, along with the Crabtree Curse and any factual errors that appear weekly in TMQ.

In NFL cheerleader terms, professionalism means skin or at least skin-tight. This propitiates the football gods. At Jersey/B, the cheerleaders wore tracks suits for a kickoff at 56 degrees, and the home team was hosed. At San Francisco, the cheerleaders wore bikini-styled summer outfits for a kickoff at 58 degrees, and the home team triumphed.

Notice how Gregg tries to mislead his audience by stating the kickoff temperature and not what the temperature range was during the game? That's because the Jets played at 8:30pm EST on a Sunday night and the 49ers played at 1pm PST on a Sunday afternoon. The Jets cheerleaders dressed the way they did in preparation for the colder temperatures when the game ended. The 49ers cheerleaders dressed the way they did because the game too place in the middle of the day. Of course Gregg doesn't mention this because he neglects to include any facts that may show his stupid theories are stupid.

Nobody draws 'em up better than Gary Kubiak. Houston leading 9-0 at City of Tampa, the Moo Cows had first down on their own 22. Houston faked a power run up the middle to Arian Foster, who then ran through the line and sprinted into the left flat, uncovered, for a swing pass.

Actually, I'm not sure this was a swing pass or not because Foster went into the flat but if I remember correctly he wasn't running towards a sideline. I wasn't at the game so I had to watch this on television, meaning I may have had a bad look since I couldn't see the entire field.

The sole thing that went wrong for Houston was a blocked PAT. This was a disaster for fantasy owners, because in the ESPN fantasy format a missed PAT is minus-10 points, five times as bad as your quarterback throwing an interception.

And people only play ESPN fantasy leagues. There are no other fantasy leagues.

Fitzgerald thought he lunged across, and argued vociferously for the touchdown. Zebras spotted the ball at the 1 -- and Arizona was better off at the 1! The Cardinals were able to grind another minute off the clock before scoring, get past the two-minute warning and force Philadelphia to spend a timeout. Had Fitzgerald been awarded the touchdown, Philadelphia's comeback chances would have improved sharply.

Would the comeback chances have improved sharply? A normal writer would use statistics to back this comment up, but Gregg isn't interested in providing proof for his statements. He's too lazy for that.

Stuffing the Falcons' run was sweet for New Orleans -- the sour part was a good decision but a bad play call by Atlanta. TMQ's lead last week was that bland straight-ahead rushes don't work on short-yardage downs. Atlanta's call was a bland straight-ahead rush to the power side of the formation, exactly what New Orleans expected. There was no misdirection -- and misdirection is essential on short-yardage downs, when the defense is cranked to charge straight ahead.

Just as I had anticipated, Gregg blamed the Falcons inability to get one yard on a lack of misdirection. As if defenders, who Gregg admits are geared up to run straight head, aren't going to get penetration if there is misdirection. The last thing Michael Turner needed to be doing was going away from his strength and running sideline-to-sideline instead of straight ahead.

To top it off, the extra blocker at the point of attack was skinny wide receiver Roddy White, while running back Michael Turner took the handoff four yards deep in the backfield, meaning he would have to fight just to reach the line of scrimmage.

I'm trying to think of a way a running back can't take the handoff four yards deep in the backfield outside of the snap going straight to him.

Atlanta might have employed some misdirection; or simply had Matt Ryan sneak, starting the play much closer to the line of scrimmage; or play-faked and gone deep for the win.

Because a power running team whose strength isn't deep passes should go against what they do well on fourth down in overtime.

TMQ's law holds: Do a Little Dance If You Want to Gain That Yard.

My law holds as well: Do a Little Dance If You Want to Get Hit for No Gain.

On Monday Night Football, the Vikings punted directly to Randall Cobb, who already had a kick return touchdown this season, and he ran the punt back 80 yards for a score. Deliberately kicking out-of-bounds on every punt would net around 35 yards of field position for the punting team, and eliminate the chance of a touchdown return.

So Gregg thinks every NFL team should punt every ball out of bounds? This would also eliminate the chance of a fumbled catch and probably wouldn't be the best strategy overall.

Chargers leading 3-0 in the season's first Thursday game, Oakland faced fourth-and-1 on the Bolts' 34. Normally, strong-legged Sebastian Janikowski would attempt a field goal, but Janikowski has been nagged by injuries. Hue Jackson sent out the punting unit. Not even in the ultra-conservative NFL would a team punt on fourth-and-1 from the opponent's 34.

Despite the fact Gregg says no team in the NFL would punt from that spot, every week in TMQ he highlights teams who punt at or near this yardage marker.

I noted Mike Shanahan had a sterling won-loss record when John Elway was his quarterback, but has been an average NFL coach with anyone else. Mike Glowacki of Centreville, Md., writes, "As an NFL head coach, Bill Belichick is 131-40 with Tom Brady as his quarterback and 52-63 with anyone else. If you want to be a great coach in the National Football League, it may help to have a great quarterback."

Much like him realizing this year that tight ends get split out wide, Gregg is a little late on the idea it helps a coach to have a great quarterback. I am sure Gregg believes TMQ was the first to bring this idea to the forefront of modern society.

Start the Cave Man: The 1-7 Dolphins facing second-and-goal from the Redskins 1, guard Rich Incognito pulled left and wiped out megabucks Washington safety LaRon Landry; left tackle Jake Long wiped out Geico celebrity linebacker Brian Orakpo;

Ah yes, this is a great example of Gregg's inconsistent use of the word "megabucks," which is used only to trick his audience into believing megabucks and highly drafted players are underachievers. What Gregg actually means is megabucks and #1 overall pick Jake Long wiped out megabucks and typically excellent linebacker Brian Orakpo.

Reggie Bush jogged left for an untouched touchdown.

Gregg means: Megabucks and highly drafted Reggie Bush jogged left for an untouched touchdown.

If Penn State's trustees and new administration really cared about shame at the school, the remainder of the football season would have been canceled.

Why in the hell would Penn State punish the current players and the students at Penn State even more for the actions of the coaches of the football team? I can see arguments for canceling the entire season, but I also don't think this is fair to the current players. It just seems like the administration would be punishing the football players for mistakes the administration made.

Ending the Nittany Lions' football program would prove contrition.

(Penn State) "We're sorry one of our coaches molested forty children. We are going to end the football program to show how sorry we are."

(The public) "Wow! What a gesture. I guess they really showed us how sorry they were. No need for a trial, all is made up by the ending of the football program. Have a good day and carry on, Penn State."

Commentators, including May and Robert Smith of ESPN, have expressed the view that McQueary is a loathsome figure. It is hard to disagree. Perhaps there is some mitigating fact about McQueary not yet known publicly. Based on what is known, he appears to be so heartless and selfish that he considered his career prospects in the football program more important than stopping an apparent act of child abuse.

I absolutely think McQueary is in the wrong. I won't defend McQueary and he was absolutely in the wrong. Just imagine though...imagine if you saw your boss in the same situation he saw Sandusky, wouldn't a little bit of your thought process on how to resolve this moral dilemma go to "If I tell about this, at some point I can't stay anonymous anymore. I will have to testify to what I saw. If for some reason Sandusky is cleared of the charges I am alleging, I can pretty much kiss my coaching career goodbye and could also face a civil suit if my accusations came to light." Choosing your coaching career over what you saw is selfish, but this thought would go through many people's heads when weighing the options to bring this incident to light.

I know this thought would never go through Tim Tebow's head, because he is perfect and all, but for most people this would come to their mind. It doesn't excuse McQueary's decision to seemingly not do much about what he saw, because the answer to this moral quandary seems very obvious. Most people would probably not worry about their career and talk about what they saw, or at least I hope so, but it is very easy to judge McQueary for his quandary while resting comfortably in our homes not having to make this call.

Of course McQueary is involved with the Penn State cover-up and is completely culpable, and I'm not defending him, but I think before calling the police the idea of making sure you saw what you did and could prove what you saw would go into the decision process. Complicating this is when you tell your boss's boss what you saw, he starts to take control of the situation. Would you as McQueary then feel comfortable going over Paterno's head and contacting the police when you see no resolution? Morally, you should do this if it isn't resolved, but once McQueary contacted Paterno about what he saw concerning Sandusky he would essentially be saying a football coaching legend is now culpable for ignoring child rape. Paterno runs the university and at this point by going to the police McQueary would be accusing his boss of child molestation and also accusing a coaching legend of inaction once he learned about this molestation. I'm not excusing McQueary and his silence is absolutely condemnable. I just get irritated by people in situations about moral quandaries acting as if the answer to the quandary is easy. The answer does seem absolutely easy to us, but we all saw how Penn State covered this up, so if McQueary had reported it do we even know action would have been taken?

I know all of these questions had already been asked. Morality quarterbacks sometimes tend to irritate me. Would I have reported it to the police? Absolutely. I also wasn't in that situation so it is easy to be definitive in saying what I would do.

Any player deeply involved in football culture is told over and over again -- by words, by actions and by peer pressure -- that football coaches are godlike figures, and this message is reinforced with physical pain, including the punishment drills nearly all football players endure.

This man who a grand jury alleges would not protect a child is the product of a system that psychologically conditions large numbers of American boys and men, and look what that system turned McQueary into.

Along with stopping high school boys from going to college and causing concussions that cause large amounts of high school boys to become too stupid to test well, football also causes a person not to tell anyone if they see a child being molested. For such a terrible and morally bankrupt sport, Gregg sure loves to write about it every week on Tuesday.

DeSean Jackson was suspended for oversleeping. Most high school districts don't allow an athlete to participate in a game if he or she is late for school on game day. So are the Eagles a professional franchise or a high school team?

So the Eagles shouldn't have punished Jackson at all for sleeping in, which actually means he probably was protesting his lack of a new contract? Is that what Gregg is saying here?

TMQ thinks the kickoff return fumble -- the "krumble" -- is the most damaging turnover, since a team that just scored gets immediate possession deep in opposition territory.

What Gregg doesn't realize is this is one of the best reasons for a punter not to kick the ball out of bounds on every punt attempt, which is exactly what Gregg had suggested earlier in this TMQ.

Cam Newton started only 14 Division I games in college, yet is also playing well. But he's tailed off from a hot early season, throwing for just 212 yards and a 61.7 passer rating as the Panthers were punched in the nose at home, 30-3, by Tennessee.

Newton threw for 256 and 290 yards with 127.5 and 117.6 passer ratings in the two games before this weekend. But no, he's tailed off recently if "recently" is defined as "this past week."

Lately, defensive coordinators have been using a regular Cover 2 secondary, while having a linebacker or third safety to "spy" Newton, following wherever he goes. This is frustrating Newton, who in college did not face defenses designed specifically for him.

I am sure defensive coordinators didn't game plan to stop Cam Newton at Auburn considering he was their best offensive threat. It could be the NFL athletes are better at game planning against Newton, but no, I am sure it is that Newton didn't see any defenses designed to stop him in college. Sure, I believe that.

(College teams have little choice but to go with similar game plans every week, because of practice-time limitations.)

And they can't practice different defensive strategies either apparently.

Panthers linemen Geoff Hangartner and Byron Bell just brushed their men, then turned around to watch Newton go down.

Don't you mean undrafted Byron Bell and unwanted Geoff Hangartner? That's right, Bell was undrafted and Hangartner was cut from the Bills roster in the preseason. Gregg won't call out these players as being undrafted or unwanted players when they make a bad play because he wants to keep forcing his audience to believe only undrafted or unwanted players do well in the NFL.

Then Gregg brings up whether the Warp Speed offenses of college offenses like Toledo and Houston will end up in the NFL and then he tries to disprove the very question he asked. He must have needed to kill space. Also, you know in a couple of years when a team in the NFL succeeds running the Warp Speed offense Gregg will act as if he was the first one to propose if an NFL team would run it. He would do this despite the fact he admits in this TMQ some NFL teams already run quick-snap offenses.

The Bills had 16 takeaways in their first five games, and four takeaways since. There is a big luck component to takeaways. Increasingly it seems Buffalo had good luck with takeaways early, and now is being exposed as second-echelon.

So all of those positive things Gregg said earlier in the year while bragging about the Bills and mentioning how they have undrafted players on their team, will he take those back or admit these undrafted players haven't sustained success? Of course not. He wants you to believe the undrafted free agents were key to the Bills' success but had nothing to do with their recent slide. Gregg accentuates the positive that makes him look correct and then ignores signs he may actually be incorrect.

But the Flying Elvii botched the line call. Right tackle Sebastian Vollmer turned inward to double-team. That left 180-pound Danny Woodhead to block Jets' linebacker Jamaal Westerman, and soon the zebras were signaling safety.

Doesn't Gregg mean "that left undrafted 180-pound Danny Woodhead to block Jets' linebacker Jamaal Westerman"? I wonder if Gregg remembers he wrote this about Woodhead last year:

Woodhead was the all-time, all-division NCAA rushing leader, but he was not drafted. He spent two seasons with the Jets, mostly on the practice squad, then was waived. This season, he has gained 907 yards rushing and receiving for the Patriots -- his rushing average is 5.6 yards per carry -- and, though "too small," has become one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs.

I know this is one play, but shouldn't one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs pick up Westerman? What's even more interesting is prior to calling Woodhead one of the NFL's best blitz-blocking backs, Gregg said the following when criticizing the Jets:

On a very amusing play, Woodhead at 5-foot-8, 189 pounds and Welker, at 5-9, 185 pounds, lined up as blitz-blocking backs! The Jets believed this, ignoring Woodhead as he snuck through the offensive line for a 35-yard reception.

So in summary, Gregg thinks the Jets were stupid for believing Woodhead would be a blitz-blocking back, even though Woodhead in Gregg's estimation is one of the best blitz-blocking backs in the NFL. Gregg was also not surprised one of the best blitz-blocking backs in the NFL was not able to block a linebacker. I think I'm confused as to whether Woodhead is good at blitz-blocking or not. I think Gregg is even more confused than I am.

With the student body 63 percent female http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/macmurray-college-1717/student-life, that means about a quarter of the school's boys are on the football team.

That appears to be hyperlink in there somewhere that never got hyperlinked. This brings me back to the question of whether anyone edits TMQ or not. I say that no one edits TMQ or else Gregg wouldn't get away with saying some of the things he says. This is because no reasonable person could read TMQ and let Gregg's fictional, non-researched statements like "Julio Jones is a diva" stand without some sort of verification this statement is true.

Next Week: No regular column next week -- my bye week -- though check in for a TMQ placeholder. Regular column resumes on Nov. 29.

One whole week without TMQ! Who in the world will get my blood pressure to be raised in the interim?