Maybe Chuck Klosterman is too smart for me. I have a small ego and can accept that maybe his writing is above my head. I don't think that's the case (this is the part where Chuck Klosterman, were he in my position, would write 1000 words on whether the fact I don't think this is the case that he is smarter than I am shows I have a large ego), so I will work under that assumption. Chuck reflects on the incident of David Stern fining the Spurs $250,000 and wonders, naturally, if sports really matter. Chuck tends to do this circular, navel-gazing type wondering about sports quite often. Whether it is suggesting rule changes he thinks aren't good or wondering what our dislike for Chris Johnson says about us. Now Chuck uses the $250,000 fine enforced on the Spurs as a way of determining exactly why sports matter. It seems Chuck likes to over-think issues whenever possible.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich elected to not dress four of his best players
(Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green) so that they
could rest their legs at the end of a four-game, five-night road trip.
This outraged NBA commissioner David Stern, who fined the club $250,000
for committing a "disservice to the league and our fans."
This statement isn't of itself stupid, but if you are me and want to create a straw man argument saying if David Stern really cared about the league and the fans he wouldn't have simply swept the Tim Donaghy mess under the rug by finding him to be the lone gunman and insisting there was nothing else to be seen here, then you find the idea of Stern giving a shit about "the league and our fans" as fairly ironic. This is the commissioner who has presided over an era of officiating where, at best, important NBA playoff games were decided by poor officiating, and at worst, he presided over an era with a conspiracy by officials to fix certain playoff games.
The NBA is a league where one official (Joey Crawford) can clearly have a bias against one team/player, while also having pleaded guilty to falsely stating his income on his taxes from 1991-1993. Crawford resigned immediately after pleading guilty in 1998 and David Stern then reinstated him in 1999, with Crawford never missing a single game. People make mistakes, but mistakes over a three year span? An NBA official Crawford gets reinstated as soon as he possibly can for lying to the IRS, but the Spurs are committing a disservice to the fans by benching their older star players as they see fit. Would it have been a disservice to the league to not immediately re-hire Crawford?
The NBA is also a league where another official's name has somewhat become synonymous with him getting assigned to a game when the NBA has a certain outcome they want reached (Dick Bavetta). The fact Tim Donaghy stated another official on the crew for Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals had a reason for wanting the Lakers to beat the Kings, and Bavetta was a part of that crew, along with being on the crew for quite a few other NBA games with questionable officiating, doesn't bother Stern at all. Nothing to see here. Donaghy was the lone gunman and sweeping this under the rug wasn't a disservice to the league and the fans, but Gregg Popovich has ruined the NBA's fake good name by daring to rest his players and ruining the competitive nature of a certain game.
You get my point and I could go on. David Stern pretending to give a shit about the fans is hilarious to me. If he gave a shit about the fans he would explain his decisions with more than a statement and a brisk walk back to his ivory tower.
The initial debate was straightforward: Is it acceptable for the
commissioner to penalize a coach for not playing the players fans want
to see?
I wouldn't like it if I was attending an NBA game to see the Spurs' stars play, but I fully understand Gregg Popovich's reasoning for benching Duncan, Ginobili, Green, and Parker.
These smaller, less important debates focused on the following:
1. Should it matter that Popovich is the most respected coach in the league (and therefore warrants special treatment)?
No.
2. Would it have made a difference if the Spurs had still won the game (which they almost did)?
No, but it goes to show the competitive nature of the game wasn't negatively affected by the absence of the Spurs' star players.
3. Is the NBA schedule too taxing?
Sometimes.
4. Is Stern unnecessarily draconian?
Yes. He is a good example of a commissioner who believes he is above the game and also believes only he knows what is good for the NBA. So any decision he makes is a blessed decision and the right one.
5. Was Popovich consciously trying to poke the bear?
Who cares? It's his team and his right. If David Stern really cared about the fans and the league he wouldn't block trades. If Stern also wants to get involved with personnel moves, then he needs to get involved with personnel moves and begin to tell NBA owners which players they can or can not sign, as well as tell NBA owners how to run their team. He can't pick and choose when to do this. If the Warriors are making moves that hurt their team and therefore the NBA and Warriors fans, Stern has to stop those moves. I'm not advocating Stern do this, merely stating he can't pick and choose when to break out with the "disservice to the league and fans" argument simply when it is convenient for him to do so.
6. Would this have been less problematic if Popovich had warned the league of his decision in advance?
He shouldn't have to warn the league.
7. Did ticket buyers in Miami deserve a refund?
No. They have Wade, James, and Bosh. They shouldn't come to the game to see the Spurs stars anyway.
8. What responsibility does Popovich have to TNT (the network that
broadcast the game and potentially lost viewers because of who wasn't
playing)?
Some, but he has a bigger responsibility to his team.
9. How is this different from teams who tank games at the end of the year in order to qualify for the draft lottery?
Completely different. The Spurs are still trying to stay competitive and win games.
In fact, I suspect those minor issues were mostly being analyzed as a
way to avoid the deeper question this conflict demands, simply because
the answer is too big to reasonably confront.
As always with Chuck Klosterman, it can't be a simple discussion. There ALWAYS is a deeper issue that only he is smart enough to manufacture---I mean discover and then he will write a column about this issue.
The question is this: What are we really doing here?
Oh God, really? It's like Chuck can't help but navel-gaze. Chuck probably takes a piss and wonders what this piss means in the grand scheme of things. Did he just flush the toilet selfishly taking water away from someone else? Could he have pissed three times today instead of four times? What does the fact he pissed three times instead of four times say about him as a person? If Chuck is really selfish in how he goes to the bathroom then how come going to the bathroom made him feel better? Is Chuck not supposed to feel better because it may be selfish to people he has never met?
What I'm asking is, "When a dilapidated version of the Spurs plays the Heat in late November, what is actually at stake?"
A victory? A game to put on a SportsCenter graphic in June when the Spurs and Heat meet in the NBA Finals that shows the team's record against each other this year?
I'm wondering about the central purpose of pro sports, and how much of that purpose is directly tied to entertainment.
Some people watch sports because they like the competition and entertainment factor. It's entertaining to me when my team wins.
In order for a Spurs-Heat game to be entertaining, it has to be
competitive; in order for the game to be competitive, the outcome has to
matter; in order for a regular-season game in November to mean
anything, the outcome of the NBA title has to mean a lot. And if we're
going to accept the premise that the outcome of the NBA Finals is
authentically important (and that who wins the title truly matters), then this whole experience needs to be more than casual entertainment.
See, when I do my Chuck Klosterman "piss parody" I'm not too far off.
This is fairly typical Klosterman schtick. He takes something sports-related and then creates a bunch of questions out of it. At some point, a reader may actually think there is a discussion or a point being made when Chuck is really just churning ideas through his brain. This game is entertaining because sports are entertaining. This game could be entertaining without being competitive, depending on your point of view. Chuck is looking at this from a neutral point of view. As a Heat/Spurs fan, this game would be entertaining even if it weren't competitive.
Popovich is a beloved, admired coach who appears actively unconcerned
with the entertainment requirements of basketball (which is how most
serious fans would insist they want him to behave). He's exclusively
concerned with real competition over the long term, particularly in the
month of June; everything else is a distraction. Stern's essential rebuttal is that pro basketball only exists because
pro basketball is fun to watch (and if you ignore its entertainment
import, the rest of this will all disappear).
Chuck is clouding the issue. Popovich is concerned with running his team, while Stern wants a good product on the court. I get that. The issue is being clouded because Chuck is making these two positions be at cross-purposes when they possibly may not be. Perhaps a person finds basketball to be inherently entertaining, so regardless of the competitive aspect a person finds the game fun to watch. There aren't necessarily two competing visions present. Popovich could be unconcerned with entertainment, but the game still be entertaining, therefore meeting Stern's purpose.
What is present is David Stern overreaching because he is insecure about the product on the court. Stern believes the NBA has to be a superstar-driven league and fans won't show up if there aren't superstars on the court. I can see this view in this specific situation if this game didn't take place in Miami where the best player in the NBA was on the court.
That dissonance between Popovich and Stern is what forces my question.
Haha...this question isn't even being posed by Chuck. This question is forced to be asked.
If what makes sports entertaining is the degree to which the games
matter, should we value competition above all other factors, even if
doing so occasionally makes things less entertaining?
There you go assuming. What makes sports entertaining isn't necessarily the degree to which the games matter. Sports can be entertaining simply because you like watching two teams play. I haven't (this is embarrassing and sad) missed a Duke basketball game in about 10 years and I have missed two Carolina Panthers games throughout the franchise's (short) history. There have been some bad games in there that weren't competitive, but I was still entertained. The sport itself can inherently be entertaining. So a competitive game in a sport I like is entertaining, even if the game doesn't matter, and very rarely will valuing the competition of a game make the game less entertaining.
This AT&T commercial never ceases to disturb me (which, I will
grant, is mostly my own fault). We see a high school football player
involved with a marginally crazy play during practice, captured on the
phone of an anonymous peer who likes to invent unoriginal catchphrases.
The footage goes viral and the player becomes famous — so famous that he
gets recruited by Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops,
It's a commercial and not in any way reflective of real life nor should this commercial cause an internal debate any more than the DirectTV commercials should make us wonder if that passive-aggressive married couple are really commenting on modern married life.
I hate this commercial. It's glib and insidious. However, I only hate it because it's fiction.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd we are off topic now.
If a real kid got a scholarship to Oklahoma because of this kind of
scenario, I would be charmed. Anytime a real athlete's individual
performance outshines the unsophisticated concept of winning or losing, I
inevitably love it. His or her motives are almost an afterthought. I
only find it troubling when the scenario is fake.
Are the odds that Chuck Klosterman sees a therapist an even 100% or do you think it is as low as 99%?
Fiction is always more real to me.
Which probably explains why Chuck takes real life events and then creates fictional problems or quandaries (or at the least problems that are fictional in that no one else worries about them other than Chuck) to discuss in relation to these events. Fiction is more real to him, so creating issues that may arise around real life events seems like a natural part of his writing.
Just before Thanksgiving, a Division III basketball player for Grinnell
College scored 138 points in one game. The player, Jack Taylor, went
52-of-108 from the field; the rest of his team spent the entire game
relentlessly feeding him the ball so that he could launch trey after
trey after trey (their next-highest scorer had 13 points)...When I read about this game the next day, I was ecstatic. I've often
wondered how many points a basketball player could score if that was the
only goal,
So would David Stern fine an NBA team for doing this same thing Grinnell College did? It takes the competitive nature out of the game, but at the same time makes the game exciting, so I would guess Stern would not fine an NBA team for doing this. More importantly (to me), I find the idea of how many points a basketball player could score if that was his only goal as a boring question. Who cares? This seems like the pinnacle of taking a basketball game and turning it into a sideshow. It's just not my thing.
It was totally fascinating, but nothing more. Personally, I'd be happy
if this became a trend in the low end of Division III basketball. I'd
like to see a space race to 200 points.
I don't get how Chuck Klosterman (of course this is the same guy who thinks we treat Chris Johnson poorly by expecting him to live up to the expectations that Chris Johnson himself set) can think one player attempting to score 200 points in a game should be a trend. This is the pinnacle of team basketball turning into a one-person sport and attempting to remove the competitive aspect from a team game.
I don't see why it would have been better for Grinnell and Faith Baptist
to play a 54-51 game that would be totally lost to history.
I don't think this performance was an abomination or anything of the like, and while a 54-51 game would be less historic, if this type of game planning for one player to score over 100 points occurred on a regular basis it would take some of the fun out of watching those games for me.
What if I saw a commercial in which a basketball team sacrificed every
traditional, competitive impulse so that one kid could score every
single point, and this was celebrated as a brilliant way to demonstrate
the power of a 4G network? I'm sure I would hate it. And I would hate
it because it would force me to consider what I'm supposed to like about sports, as opposed to just watching the games and feeling good.
The conclusion Chuck comes to is always about him. It's like he takes his own personal demons out on sports. Our feelings about sports have to be complicated because Chuck's feelings about sports are complicated.
Perhaps you think this is an imaginary problem. Perhaps you say, "Just don't worry about it and the problem will disappear."
This is the part where Chuck may just be smarter than I am. I don't understand what the problem truly is. Sports are entertaining, some games are competitive, other games are not competitive, and David Stern shouldn't tell an NBA team how to use their personnel. We all move on.
Right now, in pro football, there is strong statistical evidence that
insists teams should punt less on fourth down (even if it's fourth-and-4
and they're at midfield).
As a footnote, Chuck writes:
However,
isn't part of the reason the numbers suggest going for it on fourth
down at least partially because almost no one regularly does so?
Statistics aren't predictive; they can only show us what happened in the
past. So if going for it on fourth-and-4 at midfield is still a
relative rarity, isn't the available data for its rate of success
questionable? And isn't it buoyed by the specific situations in which it
occurs? I mean, what kind of team tends to go for it on fourth-and-4
from midfield? It generally seems like it's teams who are desperate (and
sometimes facing a prevent defense) or teams who feel confident that
they have the personnel and the play-calling acumen to succeed (most
notably the Patriots). But let's say every team started doing
this, all the time (which appears to be what the stat-heads want). Won't
the base rate drastically change in potentially unexpected ways?
I wouldn't say I agree with these points, but I do wonder what would happen if every team started going for it on fourth down in this situation. I can see how the results would change in unexpected ways. Regardless, I am being strong and avoiding Chuck's rabbit hole. Back to his navel-gazing...
But if you're one who believes that this axiom must be embraced
for its mathematical veracity, it probably means the reason you're
watching football is because you really care about the outcome.
But if you're the one who wants your team to go for it on fourth down then you are watching football because you care about the outcome of your team's game anyway. Maybe I'm different. I don't watch a game and want the Steelers to go for it on fourth down in a situation like this. I don't give a shit what the Steelers do. I only care about axiom's like "go for it on fourth down" as it relates to my team. I could be in the minority, but I suspect I'm not. This is where Chuck is missing the boat. He is taking the analytical view of going for it on fourth down and confusing it with the fan's view of going for it on fourth down. The fan's view is most fans don't solidly believe in one axiom and watch NFL games to make sure all NFL teams follow these axioms. Some do, but in watching a game between two teams a football fan doesn't cheer for then the actual competition is why that football fan is watching the game. These football fans don't care about the outcome, they just want to see a good game. If a football fan is watching a game involving a team they do cheer for, then naturally the outcome is what the fan cares about and going for it/not going for it on fourth down affects this outcome. So that would be why a football fan would care about the axiom of going for it on fourth-and-4 at midfield, because it affects the outcome of a game that fan cares about. Otherwise if the football fan doesn't have a preferred team in the game, then I would think that fan would care more about a competitive game.
It means you believe that the most important thing about a football game
is who wins and who loses, which is fine. Except that it makes the
whole endeavor vaguely pointless and a little sad.
Again, it depends on the game being watched. If I am watching Maryland-Georgetown play college basketball I want to see a good game. If am watching Duke-Georgetown I care about seeing a competitive game where Duke wins. Watching sports isn't always outcome-based, even though Chuck Klosterman finds it more convenient to assume all sports fans watch sports in this way.
For sports to matter at all, they have to matter more than that; they
have to offer more cultural weight than merely deciding if Team A is
better than Team B. If they don't, we're collectively making a terrible
investment of our time, money, and emotion.
I sincerely have no fucking clue what Chuck is talking about. I don't get why sports have to offer more cultural weight than merely deciding if Team A is better than Team B. Sports are entertainment and a diversion. They don't have to have more cultural impact than a movie or any other form of entertainment has to have a cultural impact. If a person likes this entertainment based on who wins the game than this isn't a terrible investment of time, money, and emotion because that person was entertained. The goal was achieved.
What matters is not the outcome of Miami–San Antonio, but how important that outcome was to begin with.
It was a regular season game. Heat and Spurs fans cared because they want their team to win as many games as possible in order to make the playoffs. The outcome matters in terms of how many wins the Spurs/Heat have at the end of the year and how important the outcome was is irrelevant. People watch sports, they don't care to figure out why they like sports. Why must Chuck always know "why?"
So within this debacle, who was justified? Who was on the right side?
Why does it matter who was justified? Why is there a "right side" on this issue? Doesn't the idea Chuck is looking for who is "right" when there isn't a certain right or wrong contribute to his own hopeless nature of trying to quantify those things which can't be quantified?
My natural, non-thinking inclination is to side with Gregg Popovich...I am emotionally motivated to side with him, because his position makes
it seem like sports are more important than the people watching them on
TV (which is what I want to feel).
I am really glad this is all cleared up, because I gave two flying fucks to read 1000 words on which side Chuck Klosterman was on and why he was on that side. Chuck thinks it is somewhat sad and pointless for people to watch sporting events merely to find out who wins and loses, but to watch sporting events to find out who is "right" regarding a specific situation isn't sad or pointless...even though it is impossible to know exactly whether Stern or Popovich are truly right.
Yet — in my head — I know that David Stern is right.
His edicts are sometimes infuriating, but they're always enforced for the same motive.
Ego? His love of power?
He always sees the biggest possible picture. Stern holds an inflexible
vision of how the NBA should operate, and he's never wavered.
This unwavering vision hasn't always helped the NBA or done anything to dispel the impression Stern is a dictator who will use his authority to turn the NBA into what he wants it to be, even if it means meddling in the affairs of teams and creating the competitive balance he wants to see in the NBA. The NBA is Stern's puppet and he doesn't mind if you see the strings attached. He probably prefers that actually. It gives his ego a boost. He denies trades, he sweeps officiating scandals under the rug, all while allowing terrible owners free reign as long as they kiss the ring.
The NBA will always provide the illusion of competitiveness,
which fans will unconsciously accept as viable entertainment. If you
turn on an NBA game, you will see the game you expect (and will be able
to pretend that it's exactly the game you desire).
We are all sheep according to Chuck Klosterman.
You will get what you think you want, and any question over what that
should (or should not) be will not factor into the equation. And if it
does, somebody will get fined $250,000.
So that's what's really going on here.
I'm so confused. This seems to have been a clusterfuck of words to me.
Chuck starts out deciding the conflict between Popovich and Stern isn't about sitting out the Spurs starters being benched, instead he says it's about what is entertainment versus what is competition. This leads to a discussion about how Chuck hates commercials, but if those commercials happened in real life then he would like them. Which leads back into a discussion of competition versus entertainment where Chuck decides a game isn't entertaining if the game is not competitive, but if you watch a game for the competition then that is sad and vaguely pointless. Sports fans only want to watch a game if it is a competitive entertaining game, but to want to watch a competitive game and care about the outcome is pointless. This would make sports pointless, which they clearly aren't since they entertain millions of fans. This leads to Chuck wondering if teams really should go for it on fourth down more often, but also wondering why fans care if teams go for it on fourth down more often. Then Chuck asks why the Spurs-Heat game was important at all and why we even care who won the game. Finally, we get to the final conclusion David Stern was in the right because he needs to keep up the illusion of competitive basketball, which Chuck thinks is pointless to care about anyway unless he doesn't like competition in basketball and enjoys it when basketball consists primarily one player trying to score as many points as possible. This would be something worth watching in Chuck's opinion, even though it removes part of the competitive nature of the sport out of the equation, which he claims is why basketball fans watch the sport.
I need a Valium.
Showing posts with label chuck klosterman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chuck klosterman. Show all posts
Monday, January 21, 2013
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
5 comments Every Man with a Beard is a Sex Addict and Other Things I Made Up to Be Just Like Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman is back to do some more naval-gazing about life and tell us more on how he believes his opinions reflect on the rest of the sports-loving world. Chuck Klosterman finds that he takes fantasy football too seriously sometimes, and because Chuck believes himself to be representative of every fantasy football fan, he assumes everyone who plays fantasy football has the same issue. Chuck wonders if fantasy football is ruining our perception of athletes. He wonders this because it seems like something that could happen and since it could happen this means must be happening. Chuck uses Chris Johnson as an example of how fantasy football is ruining our perception of athletes (along with including perhaps the worst and scariest picture of Chris Johnson available at the top of the article) and this is something Chuck seems to deeply believe normal, well-adjusted human beings are struggling with when playing fantasy sports. Chuck doesn't see well-adjusted fantasy football players as being able to see Chris Johnson as an overrated running back, while also see him as being that running back deep on their fantasy football bench.
Warning: This column has a high volume of unbridled pretension. It's all over the place.
I would never, under any circumstance I can currently imagine, write a column that argues against the concept of fantasy football...The number of years I've played fantasy football is now greater than the number of years I have not. I've been in one specific league since the latter half of Bill Clinton's presidency; it is, as far as I can tell, the longest manufactured relationship of my life
I have learned to listen to a sentence someone writes or speaks and then ignore everything said before the word "but," so the fact Chuck Klosterman starts off his column writing these words tells me in some way he will argue against the concept of fantasy football in this column.
I don't think worrying about individual statistics more than the outcome of any given game is philosophically troubling (in fact, it might be preferable). Fantasy football has increased my enjoyment of the NFL. I'll never stop playing. I love it.
Remember everything that is said before the word "but" is written or spoken.
But sometimes you have to love something in order to see its flaw.
And see because Chuck Klosterman has just passed his own test to see if he is enough of a fantasy football fan to write this column, he can now criticize fantasy football. Chuck Klosterman has created a test to determine if he is a big enough fan of fantasy football to write this column, and in a shocking turn of events he passed his own test and will now tell us (because he has the authority as given to him, by him) the flaw in fantasy sports.
I am increasingly uncomfortable with the way fantasy football changes our perception of people who are actually alive.
I don't have as long of a fantasy football resume as Chuck Klosterman has, but fantasy football has only provided an ancillary perception of a player for me. Maybe I am not obsessive enough, though I am in four fantasy football leagues, but I don't see LaDainian Tomlinson as "the guy who got me a lot of touchdowns in my fantasy league." I see him as "a Hall of Fame running back who was also a great fantasy pick for a long period of time." My perception of Tomlinson is not wholly changed by how many fantasy points he accumulated during his time in the NFL.
This wasn't a problem when I started in '90, because — at the time — only obsessives even knew what is was.
And please note how these "obsessives" weren't the ones who had their perception of a player changed by fantasy football...despite the fact they were "obsessive" about fantasy football. It is the current fantasy football participants who are ruining everything by changing the perception of players. Hmmm, not sure that logic passes my smell test.
But now 30 million people play every week, and there's a whole media industry constructed around it,
The industry has changed and sports fans now see Drew Brees in terms of him being a great quarterback, but also being an early round draft pick. I don't know if 95% of fantasy players change their opinion of Brees as a football player based on his fantasy performance though.
and there are FX sitcoms that use it as a narrative device,
"The League" is exaggerated. If Chuck has to use a fictional television show as proof of how crazy fans can be around fantasy sports then he has already lost this argument.
and it seems to be the primary way casual fans interact with the sport on a week-to-week basis.
Other than watching the games on television, which is what millions of people do every week as well.
There is a massive, ever-expanding class of Americans who cannot remember a connection to pro football that did not involve the drafting and owning of skill players who work on their personal behalf.
Is there Chuck? Is there a massive, ever-expanding class of Americans who can not remember a connection to pro football that didn't involve fantasy sports? Or is this a statement you are making without solid proof this statement is correct? Nearly every person I know is a fan of pro football AND THEN that person gets into fantasy sports. I know of no person who doesn't watch the NFL, but plays fantasy football. Perhaps I need to meet more people. So I am calling bullshit on this. I think this is a hypothesis Chuck has created and should test as to its veracity, as opposed to a statement of fact we need to accept as true.
And the result, I fear, has been the mild dehumanization of humans we were already prone to perceive as machines.
So now that Chuck has created a hypothesis and passed it off as a statement of fact, he can continue to create more proof that his "statement of fact" is true. It's always that tricky ability to form an opinion and pass it off as fact that gets in the way of a good persuasive essay.
What I'm proposing has more to do with how a few grains of personal investment prompt normal people to think about strangers in inaccurate, twisted, robotic ways.
The article that Chuck cites is a Grantland article written by Chuck Klosterman.
"No really everyone, normal fantasy football owners think of players as machines and lack the personal investment in these players. It's true because I wrote another article where I did this very thing! This isn't a problem that I personally have, but my personal problem is shared among a massive ever-expanding, yet largely specifically pinpointed group of people. My opinion and set of beliefs are in the mainstream because I consider myself to be in the mainstream, so there is no way my issue on how I treat NFL players in terms of their fantasy value is the outlier."
Again, Chuck Klosterman just cited his own article as proof of the dehumanization of football players by fantasy football owners. Chuck Klosterman is the empirical proof that Chuck Klosterman needs to show there is a massive, ever-growing group of people who see NFL players as robots and not human because of fantasy sports.
The person who is making me think about this is Chris Johnson.
Why is Chuck Klosterman thinking about a Canadian boxer when it comes to fantasy sports?
I'm kidding of course. Chuck is talking about the fantasy disappointment and even bigger NFL disappointment Chris Johnson, who plays running back for the Tennessee Titans. Johnson has been terrible this year because his offensive line hasn't blocked for him and he hasn't played well. Normal, well-adjusted fantasy owners realize this and don't see Johnson's lack of fantasy statistics as reflecting on him as an NFL player.
He was the fifth running back selected in the 2008 NFL draft (not the fifth player overall — the fifth running back). He was taken by the Titans in the first round, mostly because he ran a 4.24 at the NFL combine... The running backs drafted ahead of him were Darren McFadden, Jonathan Stewart, Felix Jones, and Rashard Mendenhall.
All of these running backs tended to be fantasy disappointments at some point or another, not completely due to circumstances within their control. Injuries and carry-sharing has made these players not consistent in terms of fantasy value. Of course, it is well-thought that Darren McFadden is an incredible talent, Jonathan Stewart is the most important running back on the Panthers roster (look at how they play with him on the field and without him), and Mendenhall is considered a starting running back in the NFL. So these players have a different persona apart from their fantasy value to most of the general public, but to discuss them in this fashion would ruin Chuck's attempt at a point. Normal, well-adjusted fantasy owners can separate the fantasy Darren McFadden from the skill set of the real Darren McFadden.
In 2009, he broke the league record for yards from scrimmage with 2,509 while scoring 16 touchdowns. He was the offensive player of the year on a team that went 8-8. But he held out during training camp in 2011 for a new contract, and he has not been the same player since getting that money.
Through three games this season, he's gained a paltry 45 rushing yards in 33 attempts.
Johnson's legacy will be of a player who got paid and for one reason or another, had his production drop off fairly quickly after that. In truth, Johnson's production declined in 2010 and continued to decline as the Titans offensive line struggled to run block for him. I say this as (what I consider myself to be) as a fantasy sports player, who like most people who play fantasy sports, is able to separate the player's legacy from his fantasy value.
This being the case, what are reasonable things to say about Johnson's career, assuming he never has another significant season?
He was a great running back for a while and then he wasn't a great running back anymore. That is a reasonable thing to be said.
An optimist might suggest he wildly overachieved — he came out of nowhere and was (briefly) the best runner in the league. A pessimist might say his early success was a statistical aberration and that he eventually became the player he always was (i.e., a fast guy who is only fast). A pragmatist would argue that he had a good career that was both surprising and disappointing, almost like someone who got hurt in his prime (even though the only true injury seemed to be to his motivation). I think all of these statements are justified. However, none of them are particularly common.
What world does Chuck Klosterman live in? These are the three most common reactions I get when I talk to people about Chris Johnson...or at least some variation of these three reactions. I know Chuck is going to argue there is a separate, more severe reaction from fantasy owners, but I don't believe that reaction reflects in any way on Chris Johnson the NFL player. Normal, well-adjusted fantasy owners can differentiate between Chris Johnson the NFL player and Chris Johnson the fantasy running back.
The most universal analysis of Johnson's career is the one being expressed by fantasy owners, which essentially boils down to this: "Fuck Chris Johnson."
This is not the universal analysis of Chris Johnson. I'm not even mad at him for being a terrible fantasy running back. I just bench him and move on. Only Tennessee Titans fans would say "Fuck Chris Johnson," while other NFL fans would have no opinion of him outside of their fantasy team. So this isn't the universal analysis of Johnson's career any more than "Aaron Rodgers is the Best" would be universal analysis of Aaron Rodgers' career. I'm going on a limb and saying every NFL fan isn't enamored with Aaron Rodgers. So there is not universal scorn for Chris Johnson just like there isn't universal praise for Aaron Rodgers. I am not sure what kind of people Chuck Klosterman is spending his time hanging around, but the analysis of Chris Johnson's career from NFL fans probably isn't "Fuck Chris Johnson." Only the most obsessive, abnormal fantasy sports fan would be unable to separate the player from the fantasy running back in this way.
This is because fantasy owners do not look at Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of Chris Johnson's life. They see Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves.
No, very few people do this. Stop making shit up in order to prove your theory to be correct. No sane person sees Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves, though I do enjoy the use of italics to indicate Chuck Klosterman super-duper means he is very, very serious about this statement. This use of italics in this fashion is from the Bill Simmons School of Journalism, as is speaking for a large group of people by reflecting one's own personal opinion as a shared opinion among this group of people. I am a fantasy owner and stop trying to pretend you speak for or know me. You don't speak for me. Go back to analyzing Van Halen's albums post-David Lee Roth.
They personalize his experience and hold it against him.
No, "they" don't. As commenter B.J. wrote me in an email,
if you start to "see Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves" and "personalize his experience and hold it against him", you've turned the corner into something dark.
I can't believe fantasy football owners are this dark. There are few things more frustrating to me than a writer who says, "Here is what everyone is thinking," and paints a group of people in a certain fashion like Chuck is doing here. Fantasy owners see Chris Johnson as a fantasy disappointment, then move on with their life. Normal fantasy owners don't see Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves. Perhaps the deranged, completely self-involved people that Chuck Klosterman knows do this, but otherwise normal fantasy owners can differentiate the two. We have to remember Chuck Klosterman just made a blanket statement about 30 million people who participate in fantasy sports and we can't get 30 million people to agree on anything, so there is a good chance Chuck is simply full of shit.
That's always what happens when something exists to you only as a commodity: You will care more about yourself than about the thing that you own.
This simply isn't a statement of truth. I don't personally view fantasy players as a commodity. They are a series of numbers with names attached and I am not delusional enough to believe these names reflect on me or the numbers beside the name reflect on that player's legacy.
In 2009, Chris Johnson had one of the greatest fantasy seasons of all time. As a result, people are going to remember him as a failure they hate.
I find it very difficult to believe fantasy owners hate Chris Johnson as a person and NFL player because he hasn't repeated his 2009 season. Mostly I would believe they are indifferent to him. He hasn't produced for their fantasy team and they wish he would.
Why were people thinking so hard about a running back's lack of production on a team that had yet to win a game?
Perhaps because Chris Johnson's increased production could take pressure off Jake Locker and this would help the Titans win a game? Maybe I am being too much of a sports fan about this, but if Chris Johnson plays well the Titans could win more games. That's why his lack of production is being discussed. Football is a team game and analysts have to discuss a player's individual performance in terms of why the team is winning or losing games.
At this point, what's more maddening than a running back who finishes a game with exactly 99 yards? Only the discovery that his backup had a one-yard touchdown.
In terms of fantasy sports this is maddening. In terms of whether the running back gets 99 yards, does this cause a person to reflect on himself or reflect on that player's career differently? Probably not.
But what's different about Johnson's 2009 campaign is that — because of fantasy — his profile became paradoxically exaggerated. His efforts particularly mattered to people who saw added value in the Titans being 8-8, because that meant they'd have no choice but to feed Johnson the rock for three quarters before throwing him garbage-time swing passes against all the prevent defenses Tennessee would inevitably see when trailing by 17.
If I could read minds as well as Chuck Klosterman can, I would be a millionaire right now.
His fantasy base had no geographic loyalty to where he played and no particular appreciation for his past. He was perceived more like an employee. Moreover, the connection these owners forged with Chris Johnson started from the premise that he was awesome — and not just that he was awesome, but that awesomeness was required in order for him to be satisfactory.
Considering this is the entire premise of fantasy sports, that a player is satisfactory enough to be placed in the starting lineup if he is going to give your team fantasy points, this group of sentences isn't convincing me of very much. It seems to me that Chuck is confusing the very premise of fantasy sports (that NFL players must be good to be in the starting lineup), with how fantasy owners feel about a player (the owner loves a player if he starts him and hates him if he is on the bench). The "awesomeness" is required because it is the very premise of fantasy sports. This isn't an indication a fantasy owner is judging a player's NFL legacy on whether he is on the bench or in the starting lineup.
A die-hard Titans fan might feel betrayed by the way Johnson is playing this year, but at least that fan loved him once; a fantasy owner never cares about the past, because he or she has no connection to anything outside the present.
There are some things that don't need to be over-analyzed. Knowing fantasy owners care about how the players on their fantasy teams perform, then translating that into fantasy owners judging a player's career based on fantasy statistics and finally seeing how this reflects upon him is excessive over-analyzing. Bill Simmons judges players by their fantasy career, but Bill Simmons also thinks jokes about "90210" are funny.
If you start from the premise that Chris Johnson owes you production, you will only remember the things Chris Johnson fails to do. Those failures will be the main thing you remember about his career.
Well, thank God Chuck Klosterman is here to tell me how I think. Otherwise, I wouldn't know what opinion I had on any topic. I wonder if Chuck knows my opinion of him as a writer?
I mention it because it's a dangerous impulse, and I am as guilty as anyone else. The moment you start looking at the lives of public figures as a hobby is the moment they stop existing as people.
I'm beginning to think Chuck is the only person guilty of seeing NFL players not as people in terms of fantasy sports. There comes a point when an analysis of a topic gets away from the writer. I think we reached that point a few paragraphs ago.
There was a time when I watched football in order to not think about my day-to-day life, but fantasy sports slowly changed that — in fact, my affinity for fantasy only makes it worse. I turn the players I draft into tiny parts of my life, which stops me from remembering that they have no relationship whatsoever to who I am.
It sounds like perhaps Chuck needs a therapist to discuss this topic with and leave the fantasy owners that he talks about in such general terms as having the same affliction as he does alone. He shouldn't lump them in.
Do I have any right to get angry at Chris Johnson? Does anyone? The fact that Johnson is killing fantasy owners should not factor into his legacy. But it will. I can see it happening, right now, before my eyes. It will end up being more galvanizing than the improbability of his 2009 greatness.
Perhaps those people who will factor his 2009 season into his legacy are people like Bill Simmons. Bill often confuses fantasy football with real football and enjoys lumping a player's fantasy legacy in with his NFL legacy. If you don't believe me go find the column Bill wrote about LaDainian Tomlinson after he retired. Because Bill Simmons does it, doesn't mean every fantasy owner does this. Contrary to the popular belief, Bill Simmons doesn't speak for sports fans everywhere.
"We can't change the present or the future," says Dylan in that same interview. "We can only change the past, and we do it all the time." He's totally, completely, undeniably right. And we're doing it to Chris Johnson, right now.
Ooooooooooooo....pretty deep stuff. A tree falls in the forest and Chuck Klosterman isn't around to hear it fall, does that mean the tree truly fell down and how does Chuck's reaction to this tree falling reflect on us as a society?
Warning: This column has a high volume of unbridled pretension. It's all over the place.
I would never, under any circumstance I can currently imagine, write a column that argues against the concept of fantasy football...The number of years I've played fantasy football is now greater than the number of years I have not. I've been in one specific league since the latter half of Bill Clinton's presidency; it is, as far as I can tell, the longest manufactured relationship of my life
I have learned to listen to a sentence someone writes or speaks and then ignore everything said before the word "but," so the fact Chuck Klosterman starts off his column writing these words tells me in some way he will argue against the concept of fantasy football in this column.
I don't think worrying about individual statistics more than the outcome of any given game is philosophically troubling (in fact, it might be preferable). Fantasy football has increased my enjoyment of the NFL. I'll never stop playing. I love it.
Remember everything that is said before the word "but" is written or spoken.
But sometimes you have to love something in order to see its flaw.
And see because Chuck Klosterman has just passed his own test to see if he is enough of a fantasy football fan to write this column, he can now criticize fantasy football. Chuck Klosterman has created a test to determine if he is a big enough fan of fantasy football to write this column, and in a shocking turn of events he passed his own test and will now tell us (because he has the authority as given to him, by him) the flaw in fantasy sports.
I am increasingly uncomfortable with the way fantasy football changes our perception of people who are actually alive.
I don't have as long of a fantasy football resume as Chuck Klosterman has, but fantasy football has only provided an ancillary perception of a player for me. Maybe I am not obsessive enough, though I am in four fantasy football leagues, but I don't see LaDainian Tomlinson as "the guy who got me a lot of touchdowns in my fantasy league." I see him as "a Hall of Fame running back who was also a great fantasy pick for a long period of time." My perception of Tomlinson is not wholly changed by how many fantasy points he accumulated during his time in the NFL.
This wasn't a problem when I started in '90, because — at the time — only obsessives even knew what is was.
And please note how these "obsessives" weren't the ones who had their perception of a player changed by fantasy football...despite the fact they were "obsessive" about fantasy football. It is the current fantasy football participants who are ruining everything by changing the perception of players. Hmmm, not sure that logic passes my smell test.
But now 30 million people play every week, and there's a whole media industry constructed around it,
The industry has changed and sports fans now see Drew Brees in terms of him being a great quarterback, but also being an early round draft pick. I don't know if 95% of fantasy players change their opinion of Brees as a football player based on his fantasy performance though.
and there are FX sitcoms that use it as a narrative device,
"The League" is exaggerated. If Chuck has to use a fictional television show as proof of how crazy fans can be around fantasy sports then he has already lost this argument.
and it seems to be the primary way casual fans interact with the sport on a week-to-week basis.
Other than watching the games on television, which is what millions of people do every week as well.
There is a massive, ever-expanding class of Americans who cannot remember a connection to pro football that did not involve the drafting and owning of skill players who work on their personal behalf.
Is there Chuck? Is there a massive, ever-expanding class of Americans who can not remember a connection to pro football that didn't involve fantasy sports? Or is this a statement you are making without solid proof this statement is correct? Nearly every person I know is a fan of pro football AND THEN that person gets into fantasy sports. I know of no person who doesn't watch the NFL, but plays fantasy football. Perhaps I need to meet more people. So I am calling bullshit on this. I think this is a hypothesis Chuck has created and should test as to its veracity, as opposed to a statement of fact we need to accept as true.
And the result, I fear, has been the mild dehumanization of humans we were already prone to perceive as machines.
So now that Chuck has created a hypothesis and passed it off as a statement of fact, he can continue to create more proof that his "statement of fact" is true. It's always that tricky ability to form an opinion and pass it off as fact that gets in the way of a good persuasive essay.
What I'm proposing has more to do with how a few grains of personal investment prompt normal people to think about strangers in inaccurate, twisted, robotic ways.
The article that Chuck cites is a Grantland article written by Chuck Klosterman.
"No really everyone, normal fantasy football owners think of players as machines and lack the personal investment in these players. It's true because I wrote another article where I did this very thing! This isn't a problem that I personally have, but my personal problem is shared among a massive ever-expanding, yet largely specifically pinpointed group of people. My opinion and set of beliefs are in the mainstream because I consider myself to be in the mainstream, so there is no way my issue on how I treat NFL players in terms of their fantasy value is the outlier."
Again, Chuck Klosterman just cited his own article as proof of the dehumanization of football players by fantasy football owners. Chuck Klosterman is the empirical proof that Chuck Klosterman needs to show there is a massive, ever-growing group of people who see NFL players as robots and not human because of fantasy sports.
The person who is making me think about this is Chris Johnson.
Why is Chuck Klosterman thinking about a Canadian boxer when it comes to fantasy sports?
I'm kidding of course. Chuck is talking about the fantasy disappointment and even bigger NFL disappointment Chris Johnson, who plays running back for the Tennessee Titans. Johnson has been terrible this year because his offensive line hasn't blocked for him and he hasn't played well. Normal, well-adjusted fantasy owners realize this and don't see Johnson's lack of fantasy statistics as reflecting on him as an NFL player.
He was the fifth running back selected in the 2008 NFL draft (not the fifth player overall — the fifth running back). He was taken by the Titans in the first round, mostly because he ran a 4.24 at the NFL combine... The running backs drafted ahead of him were Darren McFadden, Jonathan Stewart, Felix Jones, and Rashard Mendenhall.
All of these running backs tended to be fantasy disappointments at some point or another, not completely due to circumstances within their control. Injuries and carry-sharing has made these players not consistent in terms of fantasy value. Of course, it is well-thought that Darren McFadden is an incredible talent, Jonathan Stewart is the most important running back on the Panthers roster (look at how they play with him on the field and without him), and Mendenhall is considered a starting running back in the NFL. So these players have a different persona apart from their fantasy value to most of the general public, but to discuss them in this fashion would ruin Chuck's attempt at a point. Normal, well-adjusted fantasy owners can separate the fantasy Darren McFadden from the skill set of the real Darren McFadden.
In 2009, he broke the league record for yards from scrimmage with 2,509 while scoring 16 touchdowns. He was the offensive player of the year on a team that went 8-8. But he held out during training camp in 2011 for a new contract, and he has not been the same player since getting that money.
Through three games this season, he's gained a paltry 45 rushing yards in 33 attempts.
Johnson's legacy will be of a player who got paid and for one reason or another, had his production drop off fairly quickly after that. In truth, Johnson's production declined in 2010 and continued to decline as the Titans offensive line struggled to run block for him. I say this as (what I consider myself to be) as a fantasy sports player, who like most people who play fantasy sports, is able to separate the player's legacy from his fantasy value.
This being the case, what are reasonable things to say about Johnson's career, assuming he never has another significant season?
He was a great running back for a while and then he wasn't a great running back anymore. That is a reasonable thing to be said.
An optimist might suggest he wildly overachieved — he came out of nowhere and was (briefly) the best runner in the league. A pessimist might say his early success was a statistical aberration and that he eventually became the player he always was (i.e., a fast guy who is only fast). A pragmatist would argue that he had a good career that was both surprising and disappointing, almost like someone who got hurt in his prime (even though the only true injury seemed to be to his motivation). I think all of these statements are justified. However, none of them are particularly common.
What world does Chuck Klosterman live in? These are the three most common reactions I get when I talk to people about Chris Johnson...or at least some variation of these three reactions. I know Chuck is going to argue there is a separate, more severe reaction from fantasy owners, but I don't believe that reaction reflects in any way on Chris Johnson the NFL player. Normal, well-adjusted fantasy owners can differentiate between Chris Johnson the NFL player and Chris Johnson the fantasy running back.
The most universal analysis of Johnson's career is the one being expressed by fantasy owners, which essentially boils down to this: "Fuck Chris Johnson."
This is not the universal analysis of Chris Johnson. I'm not even mad at him for being a terrible fantasy running back. I just bench him and move on. Only Tennessee Titans fans would say "Fuck Chris Johnson," while other NFL fans would have no opinion of him outside of their fantasy team. So this isn't the universal analysis of Johnson's career any more than "Aaron Rodgers is the Best" would be universal analysis of Aaron Rodgers' career. I'm going on a limb and saying every NFL fan isn't enamored with Aaron Rodgers. So there is not universal scorn for Chris Johnson just like there isn't universal praise for Aaron Rodgers. I am not sure what kind of people Chuck Klosterman is spending his time hanging around, but the analysis of Chris Johnson's career from NFL fans probably isn't "Fuck Chris Johnson." Only the most obsessive, abnormal fantasy sports fan would be unable to separate the player from the fantasy running back in this way.
This is because fantasy owners do not look at Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of Chris Johnson's life. They see Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves.
No, very few people do this. Stop making shit up in order to prove your theory to be correct. No sane person sees Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves, though I do enjoy the use of italics to indicate Chuck Klosterman super-duper means he is very, very serious about this statement. This use of italics in this fashion is from the Bill Simmons School of Journalism, as is speaking for a large group of people by reflecting one's own personal opinion as a shared opinion among this group of people. I am a fantasy owner and stop trying to pretend you speak for or know me. You don't speak for me. Go back to analyzing Van Halen's albums post-David Lee Roth.
They personalize his experience and hold it against him.
No, "they" don't. As commenter B.J. wrote me in an email,
if you start to "see Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves" and "personalize his experience and hold it against him", you've turned the corner into something dark.
I can't believe fantasy football owners are this dark. There are few things more frustrating to me than a writer who says, "Here is what everyone is thinking," and paints a group of people in a certain fashion like Chuck is doing here. Fantasy owners see Chris Johnson as a fantasy disappointment, then move on with their life. Normal fantasy owners don't see Chris Johnson's career as a reflection of themselves. Perhaps the deranged, completely self-involved people that Chuck Klosterman knows do this, but otherwise normal fantasy owners can differentiate the two. We have to remember Chuck Klosterman just made a blanket statement about 30 million people who participate in fantasy sports and we can't get 30 million people to agree on anything, so there is a good chance Chuck is simply full of shit.
That's always what happens when something exists to you only as a commodity: You will care more about yourself than about the thing that you own.
This simply isn't a statement of truth. I don't personally view fantasy players as a commodity. They are a series of numbers with names attached and I am not delusional enough to believe these names reflect on me or the numbers beside the name reflect on that player's legacy.
In 2009, Chris Johnson had one of the greatest fantasy seasons of all time. As a result, people are going to remember him as a failure they hate.
I find it very difficult to believe fantasy owners hate Chris Johnson as a person and NFL player because he hasn't repeated his 2009 season. Mostly I would believe they are indifferent to him. He hasn't produced for their fantasy team and they wish he would.
Why were people thinking so hard about a running back's lack of production on a team that had yet to win a game?
Perhaps because Chris Johnson's increased production could take pressure off Jake Locker and this would help the Titans win a game? Maybe I am being too much of a sports fan about this, but if Chris Johnson plays well the Titans could win more games. That's why his lack of production is being discussed. Football is a team game and analysts have to discuss a player's individual performance in terms of why the team is winning or losing games.
At this point, what's more maddening than a running back who finishes a game with exactly 99 yards? Only the discovery that his backup had a one-yard touchdown.
In terms of fantasy sports this is maddening. In terms of whether the running back gets 99 yards, does this cause a person to reflect on himself or reflect on that player's career differently? Probably not.
But what's different about Johnson's 2009 campaign is that — because of fantasy — his profile became paradoxically exaggerated. His efforts particularly mattered to people who saw added value in the Titans being 8-8, because that meant they'd have no choice but to feed Johnson the rock for three quarters before throwing him garbage-time swing passes against all the prevent defenses Tennessee would inevitably see when trailing by 17.
If I could read minds as well as Chuck Klosterman can, I would be a millionaire right now.
His fantasy base had no geographic loyalty to where he played and no particular appreciation for his past. He was perceived more like an employee. Moreover, the connection these owners forged with Chris Johnson started from the premise that he was awesome — and not just that he was awesome, but that awesomeness was required in order for him to be satisfactory.
Considering this is the entire premise of fantasy sports, that a player is satisfactory enough to be placed in the starting lineup if he is going to give your team fantasy points, this group of sentences isn't convincing me of very much. It seems to me that Chuck is confusing the very premise of fantasy sports (that NFL players must be good to be in the starting lineup), with how fantasy owners feel about a player (the owner loves a player if he starts him and hates him if he is on the bench). The "awesomeness" is required because it is the very premise of fantasy sports. This isn't an indication a fantasy owner is judging a player's NFL legacy on whether he is on the bench or in the starting lineup.
A die-hard Titans fan might feel betrayed by the way Johnson is playing this year, but at least that fan loved him once; a fantasy owner never cares about the past, because he or she has no connection to anything outside the present.
There are some things that don't need to be over-analyzed. Knowing fantasy owners care about how the players on their fantasy teams perform, then translating that into fantasy owners judging a player's career based on fantasy statistics and finally seeing how this reflects upon him is excessive over-analyzing. Bill Simmons judges players by their fantasy career, but Bill Simmons also thinks jokes about "90210" are funny.
If you start from the premise that Chris Johnson owes you production, you will only remember the things Chris Johnson fails to do. Those failures will be the main thing you remember about his career.
Well, thank God Chuck Klosterman is here to tell me how I think. Otherwise, I wouldn't know what opinion I had on any topic. I wonder if Chuck knows my opinion of him as a writer?
I mention it because it's a dangerous impulse, and I am as guilty as anyone else. The moment you start looking at the lives of public figures as a hobby is the moment they stop existing as people.
I'm beginning to think Chuck is the only person guilty of seeing NFL players not as people in terms of fantasy sports. There comes a point when an analysis of a topic gets away from the writer. I think we reached that point a few paragraphs ago.
There was a time when I watched football in order to not think about my day-to-day life, but fantasy sports slowly changed that — in fact, my affinity for fantasy only makes it worse. I turn the players I draft into tiny parts of my life, which stops me from remembering that they have no relationship whatsoever to who I am.
It sounds like perhaps Chuck needs a therapist to discuss this topic with and leave the fantasy owners that he talks about in such general terms as having the same affliction as he does alone. He shouldn't lump them in.
Do I have any right to get angry at Chris Johnson? Does anyone? The fact that Johnson is killing fantasy owners should not factor into his legacy. But it will. I can see it happening, right now, before my eyes. It will end up being more galvanizing than the improbability of his 2009 greatness.
Perhaps those people who will factor his 2009 season into his legacy are people like Bill Simmons. Bill often confuses fantasy football with real football and enjoys lumping a player's fantasy legacy in with his NFL legacy. If you don't believe me go find the column Bill wrote about LaDainian Tomlinson after he retired. Because Bill Simmons does it, doesn't mean every fantasy owner does this. Contrary to the popular belief, Bill Simmons doesn't speak for sports fans everywhere.
"We can't change the present or the future," says Dylan in that same interview. "We can only change the past, and we do it all the time." He's totally, completely, undeniably right. And we're doing it to Chris Johnson, right now.
Ooooooooooooo....pretty deep stuff. A tree falls in the forest and Chuck Klosterman isn't around to hear it fall, does that mean the tree truly fell down and how does Chuck's reaction to this tree falling reflect on us as a society?
Saturday, September 29, 2012
9 comments What Do These Rule Changes Suggested by Chuck Klosterman Mean When Compared to How We Feel about Sports and How Does That Reflect on Our Existence?
Chuck Klosterman has some rule changes for the NFL he admits are terrible. I like how he is writing an article suggesting NFL rule changes and then admits what he is writing is complete shit. As if admitting what he is writing is terrible can be a ready-made excuse for a low quality column. It doesn't work that way in my world. Chuck has made some rule changes he is super-serious about or he is kidding about. Not that it matters really. The fact I don't like these rule changes in the NFL, what does that say about me as a sports fan and how much navel-gazing is too much navel-gazing and is it possible to overuse italics to show emphasis?
Here's something I hate about myself:
Here's something I hate about myself. I spend my time reading articles I don't like and telling everyone why I don't like them. Enough with the therapy, get to the ideas.
Whenever the NFL introduces a new rule, I'm automatically against it. My natural reaction to any change in the rule book is to assume it's wrong.
Well, great. We get along then because my natural reaction is to assume the rule changes Chuck suggests are wrong.
And yet — despite this reflexive disagreement with every change made by other people — I annually find myself inventing potential rule changes that I'd undoubtedly be against if they were proposed by anyone who wasn't me.
But what does this say about Chuck? Let's spend 30 minutes focused completely on Chuck Klosterman and why he would react this way to rule changes not proposed by him. Or does the fact I am focusing 30 minutes on how Chuck reacts say more about me as a blogger? Or does the fact I just called myself a blogger admit a natural inferiority complex when it comes to "real" writers and that's why I am criticizing Chuck? Or am I criticizing Chuck because the way he writes sometimes makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a pair of sharp scissors? Or do I want to stab myself in the eye with a pair of scissors because my natural inferiority complex causes me to hate myself, as well as those sportswriters I consider better than me?
Two things I notice in the first paragraph as a person who rarely reads anything Klosterman writes:
1. He and Bill Simmons love using italics in their writing. It is by far their favorite way to show emphasis.
2. I can see why Chuck and Bill get along. Both seem fairly self-centered and very focused on their own reaction to an event/person/place/thing and what this means in terms of the event/person/place/thing as a whole. It's all very self-centric.
Here are three rule changes that I would consider wrongheaded, except for the fact that I thought of them …
"These ideas suck, but I thought of them, so they don't suck, even though I think they suck."
What If Red-Zone Field Goals Were Decreased in Value?
Then this may be stupid because it would be de-incentivizing an offense getting closer to the opposing team's goal line, while rewarding teams who can't get as close to the opponents' goal line.
As an example, I will pretend two teams are playing, the Patriots and the Ravens. Let's say a red-zone field goal is worth only one point while a field goal out of the red zone is worth the standard three points.
The Patriots get in the Ravens red zone seven times on the day. Three times the Patriots score, one time the Patriots give the ball up on downs, and three times they kick a one-point field goal for a total of 24 points.
The Ravens get in the Patriots red zone three times on the day, but are stopped outside the red zone three times. The Ravens kick a one-point field goal, score a touchdown twice, and make three field goals outside the red zone for a total of 24 points.
Both teams would have scored 24 points, but the Patriots would be forced to make the choice between going for it on fourth down or kicking a one-point field goal three times. I'm not against a head coach having to make a difficult choice during a game, but the Patriots would be better off not making it inside the red zone. In fact, the Patriots would be better off losing yardage on third down to move the ball back out of the red zone in certain situations (Third-and-goal on the 18 yard line for example).
I don't like this idea since it gives teams who can't get to the red zone as often an advantage in that they get the opportunity to score more points by kicking a field goal and don't have to make the choice between a lower value field goal and going for it on fourth down. Now granted, a field goal is more difficult outside of the red zone (or should be), but I think a defense should be rewarded for doing their job well and not punished by increasing the value of longer field goals.
It's simply not interesting to watch someone kick a ball off the ground,
I would disagree. I think it is exciting to see a field goal attempt.
and it's problematic that the outcome of so many pro football games is decided by players who could not possibly compete at any other position on the field.
I don't see how this is problematic at all. Kicking field goals is a part of the game of football, so in the realm of kicking the football field goal kickers can compete. You could say the same thing for offensive linemen. Get rid of offensive linemen because they could never kick a field goal. Get rid of a quarterback because he could never play linebacker.
One possible adjustment would be narrowing the goal posts from 18 feet, six inches to a straightforward 15 feet. However, there are a couple of unavoidable issues with this suggestion. The first is that it would require stadium crews to swap out new goalposts whenever a college game was played on the same field;
Yes, let's make sure the stadium crew doesn't have to swap out goalposts on those 1-2 occasions when a college game is played on an NFL field, and instead just change the entire rules of football. That makes so much more sense to change the entire rules of football as opposed to having stadium crews do a little extra work 1-2 times per year. It's like killing an ant with an atom bomb.
The more militant option is decreasing the value of short field goals: If the line of scrimmage falls inside the 10, any ensuing field goal should be worth only two points.
Absolutely. Because teams need to be punished for getting closer to their opponent's goal line. That makes sense to de-incentivize good defense by rewarding teams who can't get in the red zone, but have a quality placekicker who can consistently make 40-49 yard field goals. While we are at it let's make some rule changes to baseball, runs that are scored on singles are only worth 0.5 runs, while a run driven home on a home run is worth 1 run. In basketball, baskets made in the paint are worth 1 point, while baskets at half-court are worth five points.
There are at least four. The first is that this change would be impossible to get used to (I think it would take me at least 15 years to stop thinking all field goals aren't three points, particularly since I still sometimes refer to the Colts as playing in Baltimore).
We wouldn't want the rule change that Chuck Klosterman suggested to confuse Chuck Klosterman.
Still another is that it rewards offenses for having drives that stall outside the red zone. But the most troubling scenario revolves around teams that are down by three late in a game and inadvertently advance the ball inside the 10. Do they then take a sack on purpose? It might come across as farcical.
This is one of those ideas better left in the "idea" stage where it just stays in Chuck Klosterman's head and never makes its way to a keyboard.
There's no way this rule wouldn't make football more watchable;
Unless you are an NFL fan who likes logic and aggressive defenses.
It would also give bend-but-don't-break defenses more confidence, since they'd have a greater opportunity to end long drives without giving up any points whatsoever.
And we all know while watching a kicker kick a field goal is very boring, nothing is more exciting than a bend-don't-break defense. In an age where the rules have changed to cause defenses to be less aggressive with receivers, it would be a welcome change to see defenses play even less aggressively.
I would love to have a discussion on how this rule would be integrated with Chuck's Rule #2 which helps defenses become more aggressive. So he suggests Rule #1 which would cause more teams to use bend-don't-break defenses, then suggests Rule #2 (which I will get to in a minute) that helps the defense become more aggressive.
The fact that some field goals would be worth more than others feels weird, but that type of structure exists in basketball and clearly makes the game better.
Except it is different in basketball. The three-point line doesn't reward teams who play bad defense but rewards teams who play great offense. That's not what this NFL rule does. It doesn't reward teams who play great offense and rewards defenses who give up a lot of yardage. Teams who give up a lot of yardage are rewarded for this, while teams who don't give up a lot of yardage and hold the opposing team to long field goals are punished.
Now, the idea of teams losing yards on purpose is hard to justify. It looks bad to retreat. But of course, that already happens on occasion (whenever teams consciously take a safety).
A team consciously takes a safety maybe 5-10 times per year.
Let's say any successful field goal from inside the 10 was worth one point less than field goals from the 11. The Green Bay Packers are faced with third and goal from the 7. Is it to their mathematical advantage to try to score a touchdown (and thereby settle for a 2-point kick if they fail), or would they be better off losing four yards on purpose to get an (almost guaranteed) extra point?
What a great rule! The Packers have a choice between giving up on third down or trying to score a touchdown. Any rule in football where a team purposely would lose yardage to earn more points isn't a rule I can support.
Would they be better served to throw the ball into the end zone twice (and risk coming away with nothing)? And what if instead of the Packers, it were the Jets or the Browns?
OR! What if, we just kept field goals at three points and didn't turn the NFL into a game based entirely on strategy and kept it a game of strategy and skill?
What If Offensive Holding Were Legalized and the So-called "Mel Blount Rule" Were Eliminated?
Offensive linemen would now be allowed to hold (but not tackle) defensive pass rushers inside the tackle box; meanwhile, defensive backs could make unlimited downfield contact on receivers, up until the point when the ball is in the air.
Great, so NFL games would turn into wrestling matches at the line of scrimmage and cornerbacks would see if they could knock the opposing wide receiver down and then hold the receiver down so he can't get up to catch a pass. Completion percentages would be at around 40% and any long passes would rarely get completed. Anything to take the excitement out of the game of football I guess.
The Problem With This Idea: It would contradict some basic ideas about how football is played.
This is just a minor drawback of course. I would suggest football be played in raw sewage and the players throw a canned ham around instead of a football, but one big drawback is this would contradict the entire set up for how football is played.
It might also affect the running game in a context that's hard to predict (for example, draw plays might become unstoppable).
You mean the draw play would be unstoppable when the offense goes four-wide, the offensive line could hold the defensive players, and the wide receivers could block the defensive players to where they conceivably can't get to the runner in time? Yeah, I could see how that is an issue.
The Reason This Idea Is Not Totally Insane:
None. It is totally insane.
But there would be some massive benefits to the abolition of these rules, one of which could save the game's future.
So these rules that are insane and Chuck Klosterman isn't really serious about implementing, unless you agree with these rules, in which case he is super-serious about implementing them in order to SAVE THE GAME OF FOOTBALL.
It's incessantly (and accurately) argued that referees could feasibly call holding on every single pass play; it's really just a matter of whether or not the ref sees the infraction clearly enough (or whether it happens to be especially egregious). This would end that arbitrary judgment call.
I don't really see holding as an arbitrary judgment call. When I think of officiating calls that are arbitrary judgment calls, I think of the charge rule in college basketball. The charge call isn't clearly defined and seems to one that could go either way. Usually when I see a flag thrown for holding I see there was indeed holding on the play and the reason for the call is fairly clear.
If holding were legal, quarterbacks would be able to stand in the pocket much, much longer.
And we all know we want to see the quarterback standing in the pocket for a longer period of time while his offensive linemen try to wrestle defensive players to the ground.
But if a defensive back could essentially hand-check a receiver as he runs his route, the ability of that receiver to get separation would drastically decrease. In other words, it would be easier for the quarterback to accurately throw the ball downfield, but much more difficult for any receiver to break open.
What I would anticipate would then happen is the cornerback would essentially spend time knocking the receiver down, tripping him or doing anything to gain an advantage. Remember, Klosterman didn't say the wide receiver could commit offensive pass interference, so the receiver could conceivably not push off or try to create separation as the defensive player knocked him to the ground or off his route. The game of football would turn into the quarterback sitting back in the pocket waiting for a player to get open and these new rules would pretty much eliminate the threat of any long passes being completed.
I suspect the impact on passing statistics would be negligible;
I suspect you are wrong. The impact on passing statistics would be to where it would be much more difficult to complete a long pass. The short passing game might not be affected as much, but the defense would be taught to knock an offensive player down if they see him running a pass pattern deep.
the numbers might decrease a little, but that's OK. It's become too easy to throw for 4,000 yards in a season.
It might be too easy to throw for 4000 yards in a season, but I don't know if this rule change is the solution to this problem.
Obviously, concussions can happen at any time. But when do they happen most dramatically? It's usually when a wideout is sprinting unencumbered on a crossing route and a strong safety blows him apart when the ball arrives late.
Gregg Easterbrook claims concussions happen more often on kick and punt returns, while Chuck Klosterman claims concussions happen most drastically when a wideout is sprinting and a safety hits him hard when the ball arrives late. Clearly, I think more research needs to be done before I believe either point of view is correct.
What I do know is a strong safety could still blow apart a receiver using Klosterman's new rule. In fact, because contact with the receiver is allowed downfield, the safety could just blow up a receiver even if he isn't targeted for a pass. Hakeem Nicks could be running a post pattern and the opposing safety could simply come over and blow him up. Under the current rules there is a punishment in the form of a penalty for doing this, but under Chuck Klosterman's new rules there is no punishment for doing this. In essence, Klosterman has created a rule which (assuming he is correct about when concussions happen most drastically) will cause more concussions.
If cornerbacks could keep their hands on a receiver for most of the play, this kind of hyper-violent collision would happen more rarely (because WRs simply could not run free over the middle of the field).
Completed passes would also happen more rarely and defensive backs could also knock the shit out of a receiver if he does get open. I'm not sure making it legal for a defensive back to collide with a receiver is going to cause collisions to happen more rarely. The most effective way to eliminate violent collisions is to penalize them like they are currently penalized.
Meanwhile, letting offensive linemen hold would also decrease the likelihood of quarterbacks absorbing death blows from unblocked edge blitzers (because linemen could at least reach out and get a hand on the guy as he flies into the backfield).
Offensive linemen can already get a hand on a guy as he flies into the backfield to hit the quarterback. They would get called for a penalty of course, but they can still get a hand on an edge blitzer. Most of times when a quarterback absorbs a death blow it comes from an unblocked rusher who the offensive lineman or running back couldn't get to in time. So I'm not sure if the new rule allowing holding would necessarily prevent edge blitzers from hitting the quarterback hard.
in fact, it might make the game simultaneously safer and more physical. Football would still look like football.
Football wouldn't look like football if the offensive linemen and the defensive backs could legally hold the opposing player. Taking restrictions off the contact allowed in the secondary would not prevented the hit by James Harrison on Mohamed Massaquoi a few years ago. Part of what keeps receivers safe is the defense players know they can't hold a receiver or take a cheap shot on a receiver running a pattern without being called for a penalty. Now if you took the penalty away as a punishment, how that does that make football safer? Players would get hit hard even if they aren't targeted for a pass...in fact, since Chuck suggests the contact is allowed before the pass is thrown, receivers who aren't targeted for a pass would get mauled most frequently.
What If We Eliminated Overtime During the Regular Season?
What if we did this? What would this say about us as football fans who feel the need to have a definite winner and loser? Let's discuss this for 10,000 words.
In baseball, the 10th inning seems like the ninth inning — but every possession in an NFL overtime game adopts a conservative walking-on-eggshells posture, and the game inevitably ends on an anticlimax.
So change overtime, don't eliminate it completely. Keep overtime the same as it is now except give the second team with the football a chance to beat the score the opposing team put up, but the second team doesn't have the option of kicking a field goal. If Team A gets a field goal on their drive, then Team B can win the game with a touchdown, but doesn't get the option to tie the game with a field goal. Both teams get a possession and there is an actual choice to be made about whether a team wants the ball first upon winning the coin flip.
I mean, who says "no" to this?
The Problem With This Idea: Sports fans (and especially American sports fans) have a philosophical problem with disputes that end in ties. They want clear, irrefutable outcomes.
We are crazy that way in that we like to watch a competitive event and have a clear winner and loser.
The Reason This Idea Is Not Totally Crazy: Ties are deeply underrated. They make the divisional races more complex and they can have mixed, multiple meanings (whereas wins are always good and losses are always bad). Yet the larger reason they're compelling is that they force head coaches to make authentically difficult choices. Should they (or should they not) play for the tie in a deadlocked game against a superior opponent?
I can accept this reasoning, but why not change overtime to where coaches have to make authentically difficult choices rather than eliminate overtime completely?
In 2005, Jon Gruden faced this latter situation while coaching the Buccaneers in a game against the Redskins. Tampa Bay went for two and won the game 36-35. Now, this was ostensibly viewed as an ill-advised decision. Gruden would have been crucified had it failed. But that not-so-meaningful game remains unusually memorable. It was a far more compelling conclusion than either team winning on a cheap kick. And this kind of scenario happens all the time if we remove the possibility of OT.
This scenario could also happen all the time if overtime were set up in a way where each team gets one possession.
But if overtime did not exist, real choices would have to be made. Coaches would have to decide if they were willing to accept a tie instead of risking a loss (and they'd have to face the media scrutiny either way).
This is true. If overtime didn't exist then coaches would have to accept a tie instead of risking a loss. This could be done in overtime as well.
(I do love Chuck Klosterman's overuse of italics. I wonder if Bill Simmons got this writing trait from Klosterman or if Klosterman got this writing trait from Bill Simmons. Either way it brings me much joy to mock.)
As I've already noted, I'm not sure how I would feel about any of these changes if another man were advocating on their behalf.
"My ideas are stupid if they were coming from anyone else, but take them seriously because they are coming from me! Or don't take them seriously at all if you think they are bad ideas because I'm not really being serious...unless you like my ideas to improve the NFL, in which case I could not be more super-serious."
My guess is that most people reading this column are likely thinking, These are OK arguments for generally bad ideas. And this might be true — I certainly would not be comfortable in a world where my worldview dictated reality.
Chuck is so open-minded he believes even the ideas which he thinks should be implemented to improve the NFL should not be implemented because they are his own ideas. Of course Chuck also thinks these previous three ideas would have been stupid if they had come from someone else. So apparently these previous three ideas should in NO WAY be implemented by the NFL since coming from someone else they are stupid ideas and Chuck doesn't want his own worldview to dictate reality.
Critics will say that you should not fix something that isn't broken. But how do we know what isn't broken?
Because the NFL is the most popular sport in America and fundamentally changing the rules of the game when there is no apparent need to do so could affect the popularity of the NFL. People overwhelmingly like the product, which is a sure sign the NFL isn't broken. Sure, slight tweaks to the game are never a bad idea. We know the NFL isn't broken because it is the most popular sport in the United States. I don't know my car is broken, but I can take it a guess it isn't broken because it is still running and getting me from Point A to Point B.
I have no issues with "fixing" the NFL. I don't think making fundamental changes to the way the NFL presents the game of football makes sense, especially when I'm not convinced those rule changes would make the game any more exciting or safer. So these ideas that Chuck Klosterman believes suck, do 66.7% suck. The overtime item I will give him a pass on.
Here's something I hate about myself:
Here's something I hate about myself. I spend my time reading articles I don't like and telling everyone why I don't like them. Enough with the therapy, get to the ideas.
Whenever the NFL introduces a new rule, I'm automatically against it. My natural reaction to any change in the rule book is to assume it's wrong.
Well, great. We get along then because my natural reaction is to assume the rule changes Chuck suggests are wrong.
And yet — despite this reflexive disagreement with every change made by other people — I annually find myself inventing potential rule changes that I'd undoubtedly be against if they were proposed by anyone who wasn't me.
But what does this say about Chuck? Let's spend 30 minutes focused completely on Chuck Klosterman and why he would react this way to rule changes not proposed by him. Or does the fact I am focusing 30 minutes on how Chuck reacts say more about me as a blogger? Or does the fact I just called myself a blogger admit a natural inferiority complex when it comes to "real" writers and that's why I am criticizing Chuck? Or am I criticizing Chuck because the way he writes sometimes makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a pair of sharp scissors? Or do I want to stab myself in the eye with a pair of scissors because my natural inferiority complex causes me to hate myself, as well as those sportswriters I consider better than me?
Two things I notice in the first paragraph as a person who rarely reads anything Klosterman writes:
1. He and Bill Simmons love using italics in their writing. It is by far their favorite way to show emphasis.
2. I can see why Chuck and Bill get along. Both seem fairly self-centered and very focused on their own reaction to an event/person/place/thing and what this means in terms of the event/person/place/thing as a whole. It's all very self-centric.
Here are three rule changes that I would consider wrongheaded, except for the fact that I thought of them …
"These ideas suck, but I thought of them, so they don't suck, even though I think they suck."
What If Red-Zone Field Goals Were Decreased in Value?
Then this may be stupid because it would be de-incentivizing an offense getting closer to the opposing team's goal line, while rewarding teams who can't get as close to the opponents' goal line.
As an example, I will pretend two teams are playing, the Patriots and the Ravens. Let's say a red-zone field goal is worth only one point while a field goal out of the red zone is worth the standard three points.
The Patriots get in the Ravens red zone seven times on the day. Three times the Patriots score, one time the Patriots give the ball up on downs, and three times they kick a one-point field goal for a total of 24 points.
The Ravens get in the Patriots red zone three times on the day, but are stopped outside the red zone three times. The Ravens kick a one-point field goal, score a touchdown twice, and make three field goals outside the red zone for a total of 24 points.
Both teams would have scored 24 points, but the Patriots would be forced to make the choice between going for it on fourth down or kicking a one-point field goal three times. I'm not against a head coach having to make a difficult choice during a game, but the Patriots would be better off not making it inside the red zone. In fact, the Patriots would be better off losing yardage on third down to move the ball back out of the red zone in certain situations (Third-and-goal on the 18 yard line for example).
I don't like this idea since it gives teams who can't get to the red zone as often an advantage in that they get the opportunity to score more points by kicking a field goal and don't have to make the choice between a lower value field goal and going for it on fourth down. Now granted, a field goal is more difficult outside of the red zone (or should be), but I think a defense should be rewarded for doing their job well and not punished by increasing the value of longer field goals.
It's simply not interesting to watch someone kick a ball off the ground,
I would disagree. I think it is exciting to see a field goal attempt.
and it's problematic that the outcome of so many pro football games is decided by players who could not possibly compete at any other position on the field.
I don't see how this is problematic at all. Kicking field goals is a part of the game of football, so in the realm of kicking the football field goal kickers can compete. You could say the same thing for offensive linemen. Get rid of offensive linemen because they could never kick a field goal. Get rid of a quarterback because he could never play linebacker.
One possible adjustment would be narrowing the goal posts from 18 feet, six inches to a straightforward 15 feet. However, there are a couple of unavoidable issues with this suggestion. The first is that it would require stadium crews to swap out new goalposts whenever a college game was played on the same field;
Yes, let's make sure the stadium crew doesn't have to swap out goalposts on those 1-2 occasions when a college game is played on an NFL field, and instead just change the entire rules of football. That makes so much more sense to change the entire rules of football as opposed to having stadium crews do a little extra work 1-2 times per year. It's like killing an ant with an atom bomb.
The more militant option is decreasing the value of short field goals: If the line of scrimmage falls inside the 10, any ensuing field goal should be worth only two points.
Absolutely. Because teams need to be punished for getting closer to their opponent's goal line. That makes sense to de-incentivize good defense by rewarding teams who can't get in the red zone, but have a quality placekicker who can consistently make 40-49 yard field goals. While we are at it let's make some rule changes to baseball, runs that are scored on singles are only worth 0.5 runs, while a run driven home on a home run is worth 1 run. In basketball, baskets made in the paint are worth 1 point, while baskets at half-court are worth five points.
There are at least four. The first is that this change would be impossible to get used to (I think it would take me at least 15 years to stop thinking all field goals aren't three points, particularly since I still sometimes refer to the Colts as playing in Baltimore).
We wouldn't want the rule change that Chuck Klosterman suggested to confuse Chuck Klosterman.
Still another is that it rewards offenses for having drives that stall outside the red zone. But the most troubling scenario revolves around teams that are down by three late in a game and inadvertently advance the ball inside the 10. Do they then take a sack on purpose? It might come across as farcical.
This is one of those ideas better left in the "idea" stage where it just stays in Chuck Klosterman's head and never makes its way to a keyboard.
There's no way this rule wouldn't make football more watchable;
Unless you are an NFL fan who likes logic and aggressive defenses.
It would also give bend-but-don't-break defenses more confidence, since they'd have a greater opportunity to end long drives without giving up any points whatsoever.
And we all know while watching a kicker kick a field goal is very boring, nothing is more exciting than a bend-don't-break defense. In an age where the rules have changed to cause defenses to be less aggressive with receivers, it would be a welcome change to see defenses play even less aggressively.
I would love to have a discussion on how this rule would be integrated with Chuck's Rule #2 which helps defenses become more aggressive. So he suggests Rule #1 which would cause more teams to use bend-don't-break defenses, then suggests Rule #2 (which I will get to in a minute) that helps the defense become more aggressive.
The fact that some field goals would be worth more than others feels weird, but that type of structure exists in basketball and clearly makes the game better.
Except it is different in basketball. The three-point line doesn't reward teams who play bad defense but rewards teams who play great offense. That's not what this NFL rule does. It doesn't reward teams who play great offense and rewards defenses who give up a lot of yardage. Teams who give up a lot of yardage are rewarded for this, while teams who don't give up a lot of yardage and hold the opposing team to long field goals are punished.
Now, the idea of teams losing yards on purpose is hard to justify. It looks bad to retreat. But of course, that already happens on occasion (whenever teams consciously take a safety).
A team consciously takes a safety maybe 5-10 times per year.
Let's say any successful field goal from inside the 10 was worth one point less than field goals from the 11. The Green Bay Packers are faced with third and goal from the 7. Is it to their mathematical advantage to try to score a touchdown (and thereby settle for a 2-point kick if they fail), or would they be better off losing four yards on purpose to get an (almost guaranteed) extra point?
What a great rule! The Packers have a choice between giving up on third down or trying to score a touchdown. Any rule in football where a team purposely would lose yardage to earn more points isn't a rule I can support.
Would they be better served to throw the ball into the end zone twice (and risk coming away with nothing)? And what if instead of the Packers, it were the Jets or the Browns?
OR! What if, we just kept field goals at three points and didn't turn the NFL into a game based entirely on strategy and kept it a game of strategy and skill?
What If Offensive Holding Were Legalized and the So-called "Mel Blount Rule" Were Eliminated?
Offensive linemen would now be allowed to hold (but not tackle) defensive pass rushers inside the tackle box; meanwhile, defensive backs could make unlimited downfield contact on receivers, up until the point when the ball is in the air.
Great, so NFL games would turn into wrestling matches at the line of scrimmage and cornerbacks would see if they could knock the opposing wide receiver down and then hold the receiver down so he can't get up to catch a pass. Completion percentages would be at around 40% and any long passes would rarely get completed. Anything to take the excitement out of the game of football I guess.
The Problem With This Idea: It would contradict some basic ideas about how football is played.
This is just a minor drawback of course. I would suggest football be played in raw sewage and the players throw a canned ham around instead of a football, but one big drawback is this would contradict the entire set up for how football is played.
It might also affect the running game in a context that's hard to predict (for example, draw plays might become unstoppable).
You mean the draw play would be unstoppable when the offense goes four-wide, the offensive line could hold the defensive players, and the wide receivers could block the defensive players to where they conceivably can't get to the runner in time? Yeah, I could see how that is an issue.
The Reason This Idea Is Not Totally Insane:
None. It is totally insane.
But there would be some massive benefits to the abolition of these rules, one of which could save the game's future.
So these rules that are insane and Chuck Klosterman isn't really serious about implementing, unless you agree with these rules, in which case he is super-serious about implementing them in order to SAVE THE GAME OF FOOTBALL.
It's incessantly (and accurately) argued that referees could feasibly call holding on every single pass play; it's really just a matter of whether or not the ref sees the infraction clearly enough (or whether it happens to be especially egregious). This would end that arbitrary judgment call.
I don't really see holding as an arbitrary judgment call. When I think of officiating calls that are arbitrary judgment calls, I think of the charge rule in college basketball. The charge call isn't clearly defined and seems to one that could go either way. Usually when I see a flag thrown for holding I see there was indeed holding on the play and the reason for the call is fairly clear.
If holding were legal, quarterbacks would be able to stand in the pocket much, much longer.
And we all know we want to see the quarterback standing in the pocket for a longer period of time while his offensive linemen try to wrestle defensive players to the ground.
But if a defensive back could essentially hand-check a receiver as he runs his route, the ability of that receiver to get separation would drastically decrease. In other words, it would be easier for the quarterback to accurately throw the ball downfield, but much more difficult for any receiver to break open.
What I would anticipate would then happen is the cornerback would essentially spend time knocking the receiver down, tripping him or doing anything to gain an advantage. Remember, Klosterman didn't say the wide receiver could commit offensive pass interference, so the receiver could conceivably not push off or try to create separation as the defensive player knocked him to the ground or off his route. The game of football would turn into the quarterback sitting back in the pocket waiting for a player to get open and these new rules would pretty much eliminate the threat of any long passes being completed.
I suspect the impact on passing statistics would be negligible;
I suspect you are wrong. The impact on passing statistics would be to where it would be much more difficult to complete a long pass. The short passing game might not be affected as much, but the defense would be taught to knock an offensive player down if they see him running a pass pattern deep.
the numbers might decrease a little, but that's OK. It's become too easy to throw for 4,000 yards in a season.
It might be too easy to throw for 4000 yards in a season, but I don't know if this rule change is the solution to this problem.
Obviously, concussions can happen at any time. But when do they happen most dramatically? It's usually when a wideout is sprinting unencumbered on a crossing route and a strong safety blows him apart when the ball arrives late.
Gregg Easterbrook claims concussions happen more often on kick and punt returns, while Chuck Klosterman claims concussions happen most drastically when a wideout is sprinting and a safety hits him hard when the ball arrives late. Clearly, I think more research needs to be done before I believe either point of view is correct.
What I do know is a strong safety could still blow apart a receiver using Klosterman's new rule. In fact, because contact with the receiver is allowed downfield, the safety could just blow up a receiver even if he isn't targeted for a pass. Hakeem Nicks could be running a post pattern and the opposing safety could simply come over and blow him up. Under the current rules there is a punishment in the form of a penalty for doing this, but under Chuck Klosterman's new rules there is no punishment for doing this. In essence, Klosterman has created a rule which (assuming he is correct about when concussions happen most drastically) will cause more concussions.
If cornerbacks could keep their hands on a receiver for most of the play, this kind of hyper-violent collision would happen more rarely (because WRs simply could not run free over the middle of the field).
Completed passes would also happen more rarely and defensive backs could also knock the shit out of a receiver if he does get open. I'm not sure making it legal for a defensive back to collide with a receiver is going to cause collisions to happen more rarely. The most effective way to eliminate violent collisions is to penalize them like they are currently penalized.
Meanwhile, letting offensive linemen hold would also decrease the likelihood of quarterbacks absorbing death blows from unblocked edge blitzers (because linemen could at least reach out and get a hand on the guy as he flies into the backfield).
Offensive linemen can already get a hand on a guy as he flies into the backfield to hit the quarterback. They would get called for a penalty of course, but they can still get a hand on an edge blitzer. Most of times when a quarterback absorbs a death blow it comes from an unblocked rusher who the offensive lineman or running back couldn't get to in time. So I'm not sure if the new rule allowing holding would necessarily prevent edge blitzers from hitting the quarterback hard.
in fact, it might make the game simultaneously safer and more physical. Football would still look like football.
Football wouldn't look like football if the offensive linemen and the defensive backs could legally hold the opposing player. Taking restrictions off the contact allowed in the secondary would not prevented the hit by James Harrison on Mohamed Massaquoi a few years ago. Part of what keeps receivers safe is the defense players know they can't hold a receiver or take a cheap shot on a receiver running a pattern without being called for a penalty. Now if you took the penalty away as a punishment, how that does that make football safer? Players would get hit hard even if they aren't targeted for a pass...in fact, since Chuck suggests the contact is allowed before the pass is thrown, receivers who aren't targeted for a pass would get mauled most frequently.
What If We Eliminated Overtime During the Regular Season?
What if we did this? What would this say about us as football fans who feel the need to have a definite winner and loser? Let's discuss this for 10,000 words.
In baseball, the 10th inning seems like the ninth inning — but every possession in an NFL overtime game adopts a conservative walking-on-eggshells posture, and the game inevitably ends on an anticlimax.
So change overtime, don't eliminate it completely. Keep overtime the same as it is now except give the second team with the football a chance to beat the score the opposing team put up, but the second team doesn't have the option of kicking a field goal. If Team A gets a field goal on their drive, then Team B can win the game with a touchdown, but doesn't get the option to tie the game with a field goal. Both teams get a possession and there is an actual choice to be made about whether a team wants the ball first upon winning the coin flip.
I mean, who says "no" to this?
The Problem With This Idea: Sports fans (and especially American sports fans) have a philosophical problem with disputes that end in ties. They want clear, irrefutable outcomes.
We are crazy that way in that we like to watch a competitive event and have a clear winner and loser.
The Reason This Idea Is Not Totally Crazy: Ties are deeply underrated. They make the divisional races more complex and they can have mixed, multiple meanings (whereas wins are always good and losses are always bad). Yet the larger reason they're compelling is that they force head coaches to make authentically difficult choices. Should they (or should they not) play for the tie in a deadlocked game against a superior opponent?
I can accept this reasoning, but why not change overtime to where coaches have to make authentically difficult choices rather than eliminate overtime completely?
In 2005, Jon Gruden faced this latter situation while coaching the Buccaneers in a game against the Redskins. Tampa Bay went for two and won the game 36-35. Now, this was ostensibly viewed as an ill-advised decision. Gruden would have been crucified had it failed. But that not-so-meaningful game remains unusually memorable. It was a far more compelling conclusion than either team winning on a cheap kick. And this kind of scenario happens all the time if we remove the possibility of OT.
This scenario could also happen all the time if overtime were set up in a way where each team gets one possession.
But if overtime did not exist, real choices would have to be made. Coaches would have to decide if they were willing to accept a tie instead of risking a loss (and they'd have to face the media scrutiny either way).
This is true. If overtime didn't exist then coaches would have to accept a tie instead of risking a loss. This could be done in overtime as well.
(I do love Chuck Klosterman's overuse of italics. I wonder if Bill Simmons got this writing trait from Klosterman or if Klosterman got this writing trait from Bill Simmons. Either way it brings me much joy to mock.)
As I've already noted, I'm not sure how I would feel about any of these changes if another man were advocating on their behalf.
"My ideas are stupid if they were coming from anyone else, but take them seriously because they are coming from me! Or don't take them seriously at all if you think they are bad ideas because I'm not really being serious...unless you like my ideas to improve the NFL, in which case I could not be more super-serious."
My guess is that most people reading this column are likely thinking, These are OK arguments for generally bad ideas. And this might be true — I certainly would not be comfortable in a world where my worldview dictated reality.
Chuck is so open-minded he believes even the ideas which he thinks should be implemented to improve the NFL should not be implemented because they are his own ideas. Of course Chuck also thinks these previous three ideas would have been stupid if they had come from someone else. So apparently these previous three ideas should in NO WAY be implemented by the NFL since coming from someone else they are stupid ideas and Chuck doesn't want his own worldview to dictate reality.
Critics will say that you should not fix something that isn't broken. But how do we know what isn't broken?
Because the NFL is the most popular sport in America and fundamentally changing the rules of the game when there is no apparent need to do so could affect the popularity of the NFL. People overwhelmingly like the product, which is a sure sign the NFL isn't broken. Sure, slight tweaks to the game are never a bad idea. We know the NFL isn't broken because it is the most popular sport in the United States. I don't know my car is broken, but I can take it a guess it isn't broken because it is still running and getting me from Point A to Point B.
I have no issues with "fixing" the NFL. I don't think making fundamental changes to the way the NFL presents the game of football makes sense, especially when I'm not convinced those rule changes would make the game any more exciting or safer. So these ideas that Chuck Klosterman believes suck, do 66.7% suck. The overtime item I will give him a pass on.
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