Friday, December 21, 2018

Marcus Spears is Right

Who asks the players? 


It's a very good question, and one that Marcus Spears asked when the discussion on Mike Greenberg's morning show turned to expanding the FBS playoffs from four teams to eight.


Commercially, it makes sense.  More revenue for college football, loosely defined.


Competitively, it makes sense.  The Lords of College Football can end the debate that sometimes pops up when the fourth of four teams gets selected, thereby leaving out a worthy team.  Few, if any, will care, if there is a controversy about the eighth and ninth teams, if only because it would be unlikely that any of them can get to the championship game and, also, because the Lords of College Football presumably would have gotten the selection of the first seven teams right.


But let's turn to the vantage point of the student-athletes.   One more game means, as Marcus Spears so capably put it, one more chance to get injured.  One more chance to get hurt and hurt one's stock in the draft.  One more chance to get banged up enough not to be able to be at one's best for the evaluation processes for the draft that start almost immediately after the college football season ends.  Implicit in this conversation is that college football players do not get paid, so the risk is all theirs.  Oh, sure, they get a "free education," but what does that really mean and what is that really worth?  Why?  Because some outstanding players are not great students or afforded the time to major in subjects that they can leverage into well-paying jobs after football.  Many are shoehorned into majors whose courses will not interfere with the football program and many get credit for playing football.  Why is this relevant?  Because the conversation is about economic risk -- it is all on the player.


Spears makes compelling arguments against expanding the playoffs.  Another pillar of his discussion is that the season once had 10 games in it, and now all of a sudden it's 12, 13, 14 and even 15 games.  That is a lot -- each additional game increases the chance for a life-altering injury for those who have the chance to play at the next level. 


Perhaps the answer is to shorten the "regular" season to 10 games and then have playoffs.  In this fashion, NFL teams will get plenty of film on each player, the playoffs still can be meaningful, but the economic risk is no worse for the participants.  Of course, the whole equation changes if the players were to get paid beyond their one-year renewable scholarships or have money put away for them for a life after football.  But right now, the risk is all theirs. 


So, despite how compelling an eight-team FBS playoff might be, right now the motivations for it are money and, yes, greed.  Until the risk profile changes, it is all about the schools' adding to their coffers with little regard for the young men who play the game.


That is not right and most certainly contrary to the mission of every university -- which is to help provide and improve the public good, and not to grab as much money as they can because it is easy to do so.

Monday, December 10, 2018

Why Soccer's Popularity is Growing at Such a Fast Clip in the United States

There are so many reasons:


1.  You don't have to be a giant to play the sport.
2.  More kids play soccer than football or baseball.
3.  Soccer is easier to understand than football or baseball.
4.  Climate change has made watching baseball difficult given the length of the game.
5.  Commercial breaks have made football and basketball much less watchable than they have been in the past.
6.  Kids play the FIFA Soccer video game, which is the best team sports' video game out there. 
7.  You can get most major European leagues' games live in the U.S.
8.  Those games require a time commitment of less than two hours.
9.  It is a global game.  The winner of the World Cup is the best in the world; the winner of the World Series is the best in the U.S.
10.  Baseball's post-season games usually go past most people's bed times and sometimes start after potential young fans' bed times.
11.  The violence within football that potentially maims the participants for life is disturbing and not a positive factor for the NFL.


There are many other reasons.  The average age of a fan of MLB is 55 years ago.  My family went to one game this year -- to say goodbye to Chase Utley -- whom we watched in his prime -- in July.  My 19 year-old son says that baseball was the game that I went to with my father; he goes to basketball and soccer games with me.  My 21 year-old daughter likes baseball; it's a dad-and-daughter thing, and we go a couple of times a year.  We like the sounds, the smells, the sight lines, and all of the things that go into the atmosphere of a baseball game.  Besides, with the ball's being in play for only 15 minutes out of the three hours plus you are at the stadium, you can catch up on life.


And soccer is diverse.  The fans are diverse. and what a better way to bring people together than to celebrate a truly international game?  Basketball at times can come close, but you cannot make the same arguments about football or ice hockey. 


Baseball and football have serious issues.  Their leadership should remember that about 45 years ago among the most popular sports were boxing and horse racing, the latter because the track was the only place one could place a bet legally outside Nevada.  Fast forward to today, and whither boxing (a shadow of its former self and suffering in comparison to MMA) and horse racing (you can bet anywhere, and tracks are fewer and farther between; the sport lives for its major events)?  This is not to argue that football and baseball could suffer the same fate, but it also is not to argue that such a fate is impossible.  Baseball should consider shortening its games; football should consider all sorts of technology to protect its participants.  And both should do it fast.


Just look at Atlanta -- the soccer team there is more popular than the Braves, and the Braves had a great season with some of the game's rising stars.  And yet. . .


Pick a soccer team, learn the game, relate better to your neighbors and co-workers, and your kids.  You will be glad that you did.

Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Kaep

Mark Sanchez. 


The Redskins signed Mark Sanchez to back-up Colt McKoy after Alex Smith broke his leg.  They also signed troubled and perhaps felonious linebacker Reuben Foster after the 49ers released him owing to additional charges of domestic abuse.  Sanchez has participated in most teams' rodeos, that is, teams looking for insurance QBs have thought of him, worked him out, or even signed him.  He has become the Harry "Suitcase" Simpson of the NFL.


The reason that teams sign him is that they believe he is predictable (sure he is -- he has thrown as many interceptions in his career as touchdowns) and accepts the role of a backup quarterback.  That and he is still young enough to function but old enough to have more reps as a starter than anyone else available. 


The problem is that he is not any good.  Teams keep recycling him, but he just does not play any better than his past statistics suggest he would.  They sign him because he led the Jets to road playoff wins -- plural -- when he was their starter.  But he is no longer that quarterback, and when he was that quarterback he wasn't THAT good.


Last night, Mark Sanchez was thrust into action after McCoy broke his fibula against the Eagles.  What also exacerbates the Redskins' situation is that their offensive linemen seem more injury prone that octogenarian widows walking to the corner store for bread during an ice storm.  Sanchez, well, looked like Sanchez and not, say, Frank Reich off the bench for the Bills (you can Google what he did), and the Redskins lost.  He is not even as good as the proverbial "replacement player" anymore.


Which brings us to Colin Kaepernick.  In golf they have a saying that someone is "the best player never to have won a major."  Right now, Kaep is the best available QB who does not get signed.  Remember, he did QB his team to a Super Bowl (even if his performance in a subsequent season or two was among the worst in the league).  By the logic that gives Mark Sanchez additional opportunities to play quarterback in the league, teams should be shoving each other out of the way to sign Kaep.  But they don't.


Why not?  Is it because he is a run-pass-option quarterback and some teams don't run that offense?  Is it because his last body of work was not good?  Is it because of his role in leading NFL players in kneeling to protest racial injustice?  Is it because he once wore socks that portrayed policemen as pigs?  Is it because of the looming media feeding frenzy that might ensue if a team signs him?  (Some respected pundits suggested that this was the case with Tim Tebow -- that teams refrained from looking at him because they did not want a media circus -- that is, until Tebow proved that he could not play quarterback well in the NFL).  Some say it's because management won't want to be called racists if they sign Kaep and then bench him or let him go.


It could be a little of all of the above.  If you want a pure dropback passer, Kaep probably is miscast.  If you base it on his recent body of work, you have a point, but remember, the question is not one of whether he can start for your team as the #1 quarterback for a full-season, but whether he might be able to vie and hold a back-up's job (with the possibility -- perhaps -- of someday becoming a starter again).  Many back-ups are back-ups precisely because they did not fare well as starters; Kaep is no different.  The kneeling?  For me, this is a serious issue -- as the President of the United States threw down a gauntlet to the NFL about saluting the American flag.  Some owners will not want to draw that criticism; others must disagree with Kaep's point of view and just wouldn't want him around.  The socks?  They are a corollary to the kneeling, go hand in hand.  The feeding frenzy?  Another compelling reason. It's hard enough to coach an NFL team let alone field endless questions about a back-up quarterback.  Typically, in a league as conservative as the NFL, the back-ups are expected to be seen and not heard.  Draw too much attention to yourself for non-football reasons, the argument goes, and they will find someone who is lower maintenance.


With all that said, the Redskins are desperate.  Kaep has shown he can run and at times pass very well.  Who are the alternatives?  The team was willing to take a chance on Reuben Foster, so why not be willing to take a chance on Colin Kaepernick.  The Redskins are well-equipped to handle all the attention from the media -- after all, they are in Washington.