Letters to the Editor
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Block in the Back
King,
I agree - I hate that call completely takes away from most runbacks. I would like to see it remain for any chopblocks (lower body from behind). As far as what to call it, looks like cross-checking to me.
On coaches taking calculated risks rather than deal with a coin flip in OT - it's amazing how long it has taken for coaches to figure this out. I generally despise the NFLs overtime playoff format - college is so much more exciting and FAIR, but if the result is more ramblin, gamblin Marshall Tucker Band coaching in regulation, then roll em.
Could you explain your quote in the Salon decade reprise article?
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one more thing...
Wouldn't that be a 'Sex Party of Supposed Risk Taking' if Mike Tice made the call?
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2-point conversion
King, another excellent column today.
Two other factors make going for 2 an even better percentage play than you identify. First, the kick can be missed. I would give that about a 2% chance. Second even if you miss the 2-point conversion you can still try an onside kick. The game is not irretrievably lost even if you miss the conversion. The chance of recovering the kick and then scoring is probably around 4 or 5%. Also, I am almost certain that Mike Tice tried this successfully a couple of years ago in a late season meaningless game for the Vikings. He may not be the only one and we know that college coaches have been doing this for years.
Thanks for noting the utter ridiculousness of Aikman's point about time being left on the clock. Because of the onside kick possibility that actually factored in the Bucs favor in calculating which option was superior.
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Vikings clock management
At the end of the Vikings/Giants game, the vikings ran a play on 3rd and 7 rather than going for the kick. The anouncers (FOX) of course immediately, and incorrectly, jumped on them, stating that they should have kicked the field goal there. Their reasoning - if you have a bad snap, you can try again. What about, if you run a play and get 10 yards closer, the chances of making the field goal skyrocket (especially with a kicker who's having an off day). I made up that skyrocket, bit. I wonder if I'm right.
The anouncers then failed to comment on the actual mistake - they kicked with 10 seconds left on the clock, leaving the giants a chance to score.
They also didn't comment on the stupidity of the squib kick that followed - which incidentally rolled out of bounds, giving the Giants the ball on the 40 with 10 seconds left.
I merely bring this up because it's the sort of thing that you've commented on before.
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please add the following to your SNF drinking game
take a drink any time Maguire/Theismann/Patrick says
"when we sat down with this guy last night ... " or "When I talked to him yesterday ..." .
ugh, we know you got a chance to talk to them, guys. you're big shot tv "personalities." enough already.
unrelated: punch yourself in the face any time Peter King calls the Patriots the "Men of Belichick", the Packers the "Men of Fav-ruh", the Bucs the "the Gruden-men", etc.
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"Illegal block in the back" & other football term changes
I stopped payiing attention to football some time ago, and started paying attention again maybe five years ago. I was confused at first. Gone was the penalty "clipping" (with the funny signal that made it look like the player had thrown themselves at the backs of the other player's legs) and replaced by "illegal block in the back." It took me a couple of times to realize it wasn't about an illegal block in the backfield.
I actually think "illegal block in the back", though a bit cumbersome, is better than "clipping"--it's more descriptive of what actually happened.
What I don't like is the replacement of the descriptive "wide receiver" with the non-descriptive and redundant "wide-out". Are sports fans perceived as so stupid that a four-syllable term is too long for them?
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The revolution is coming...
Of course the Bucs were right to go for it from the one yard line. Mike Alstott is a far better percentage from that distance compared to OT. But in the NFL, change comes so slowly. It will come, it just needs chances like this to show the way.
In baseball, sabermetrics and moneyball have become hot issues in the past decade. It is logical that the statistical revolution should happen there, as baseball people worship stats above many things. A simple analysis of them yielded new insights, thank you Bill James.
I recently read that the Seattle SuperSonics have hired someone to do this kind of statistical analysis in the latest issue of Wired (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/posts.html?pg=3). Eventually the idea will catch on with other NBA teams.
But the NFL is probably the most conservative major sport. Only recently have blacks been allowed to play QB in significant numbers, for example.
The NFL is perfect for this type of analysis. There is break between every play and one can divide up each of those plays into all sorts of categories. Down, distance, substitutions, formations, etc. There are websites that do this already. Someone in the NFL will eventually figure out that there are new ways to think about things. Then we will finally see some changes. Or at least someone will be in the coach's ear saying he doesn't need to go for 2 in the first quarter cause some dumb chart says so. Save it for Mike Alstott in the 4th.
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USC started it?
I realize comparing College FB to the NFL is sometimes like comparing apples to oranges, but couldn't you argue that the current 'go for it' condition was started by Pete Carroll at USC against Notre Dame? That happened the week before Dick Vermeil's TD choice against the Raiders. That would also make 3 straight occurances that could move this directly into the 'trend' category.
Also: I don't bother to listen to ESPN's monday night crew anymore. Only 2 weeks ago, with Buffalo leading by 9 with 10 minutes to go, and having controlled the time of posession for the entire game, the enlightened broadcasting crew pretty much claimed the game was over, and that Buffalo had "dominated" the game. Of course, the Patriots then scored 2 TD's in 5 minutes and won the game. Good Job guys!