As the debate continues on the legitimacy of the NFL’s sudden policy adjustment regarding mega-helmet-to-helmet shots, I was reminded that another sport is arguably more violent than football…
That sport is hockey.
While I was at the gym on Wednesday, I caught a highlight from a game between the Vancouver Canucks and the Minnesota Wild. In the highlight, the game literally stops and two players begin to have a fist fight. The referees are there, observing, like they were just suddenly transported to a frozen boxing ring in Atlantic City and given a new career. The players continue to brutally punch one another until the one guy falls on top of the other. The ref goes down to the ice with them, puts his hand on the top player’s back, and the whole thing is over.
Obviously, this is not a unique experience in professional hockey. I was struck, however, in this particular highlight by just how normal it seemed, by how sanctioned the brutality was. There is no other place in the world that I can think of where two men would be allowed to punch the shit out of each other with no one intervening and with no recourse.
The combination of this hockey fight and the constant barrage of moving images portraying human flying missile violence in football got me thinking about a topic that I think is more interesting than whether defensive backs and linebackers should be suspended for knocking out wide receivers. The question…
Why do we love to watch people commit violent acts in sports?
You’ve felt it before. I know I have. There’s no question that brawls in basketball, massive hits in football, bean ball wars in baseball, and even dirty plays in soccer are entertaining to watch. It’s exciting. It’s often unexpected. It can lead to higher drama, deeper rivalries, and more intense competition.
The root of the appeal of sports violence for us as human beings, I believe, is tied to two factors. First, the violence is sanctioned, and secondly, it does not directly involve us. In short, players get to do the kinds of things we’d like to do to our horrible bosses and our worst rivals, on a very primal level, but we cannot do. Even better, the players get away with it.
On top of this, many of these violent sports actions are almost superhero-like. I know I could never knock Josh Cribbs out with a helmet-to-helmet shot. I couldn’t even knock him out if I was given a huge anvil and a sleeping pill at my disposal.
Let’s not forget too that we immediately make the assumption that all professional athletes are rich.
The result is that, in multiple ways, we look up to professional athletes in general and especially in these hyper-dramatic situations, even if we don’t want to admit it. We wanted to be one of them when we were kids. We wish we were them now. Athletes are the heroes in action movies. They are superheroes. We are living vicariously through them, without any of the negative ramifications, the concussions, the terrible knees and debilitated backs, the absurdity of not being able to eat dinner without being bothered, or having the fact that your father-in-law just died reported on Twitter minutes before a game.
Violent hits. Action hero moves. Reckless hit batters. Wild West style fist fights at center ice … these are the things we root for because they are bigger than us. We can’t do them, but we wish we could.
Well, only sorta. Because deep down we know the truth. We can’t do them, not just because we aren’t physically capable, but because we know they really aren’t healthy. They actually shouldn’t be socially acceptable. In reality, we know the truth. Blindsiding a guy at 35 MPH in the head is insane. When we cheer for it, it’s fantasy.
This is sport. It plays to emotion, not rationality. And as long as we’re not involved, play on.
Most of the articles and blog posts you read about today’s Browns’ loss to the Steelers will speak highly of Colt McCoy. And I agree - McCoy played about as well as anyone could have hoped … aside from the two picks and the five sacks … but there is reason, at the very least, to be positive about what we saw today from a young QB that has not been terribly impressive in the past.
Because everyone else is going to write about McCoy, I don’t want to waste much more of your time by being redundant. Instead, I’d like to emphasize how the viciousness of professional football is impacting the competitive nature of the game.
Earlier in the season, we saw the Browns take advantage of TJ Ward’s shot to the head of Cincinnati’s Jordan Shipley. With the Bengals down a receiver, Carson Palmer and company struggled to move the ball. Ultimately, Cleveland won. Today, Pittsbugh’s James Harrison took both Josh Cribbs and Mohammed Massoquai out of the game with violent collisions. The Browns were behind almost the entire game - McCoy had to throw the ball a lot to play catch-up - and, as a result, he pass with both his #1 and #2 receivers in the locker room.
Football is a modern day gladiator sport. I understand that the players know what they’re getting into and all - or almost all of them - wouldn’t stop playing even if you told them there was a 90% chance they would spend the rest of their lives in a wheelchair. In other words, I won’t write about player safety - but I will write about competitive balance.
Simply put, there is no disincentive for a defensive player to purposely attempt to injure an offensive opponent. Harrison, surprisingly, wasn’t flagged for either hit. But even if he had been, the penalty would have only been for 15 yards. Those yards can make a big difference in a game, but they will never have the same impact that losing a “star” player can have.
As far as I’m concerned then, there is a stronger incentive for defensive players to injure offensive players than there is for them not to. This is problematic for perhaps obvious reasons. Not only does it change the competitive balance of the game, but it can also change the competitive balance of an entire season. Since teams play divisional opponents twice, sometimes three times if they both make the playoffs, there is an even greater incentive to harm players within the division.
I would argue that injuries are one of the main reasons there is so much parity in the NFL.
It is time for the NFL to institute new rules that allow defenders making illegal hits to be ejected from the game. The NBA does it already. MLB will toss pitchers out of the game for intentionally throwing at batters. The NFL is the most violent of all three of these sports, yet similar rules are not in place.
Why?
Probably because the NFL knows violence sells. And so does parity. So why would the league take real steps to extract both of those elements from the game? They wouldn’t. And they haven’t. And they probably never will.
Of course, most fans don’t truly care either. Players have short careers. They are easily replaced. We care, obviously, about our own children - and eventually, I suspect, this will catch up to the NFL and to football in general. Maybe. Time will tell.
Before I get started with this post, I have one relevant piece of house-keeping that needs to be addressed.
As those of you who know me well already know, I have had a rule for years that stems from a certain golfer and his branding. Stated simply, unless it’s the name on his birth certificate, I refuse to call another grown man by the name of an animal (like, say, “Tiger”) without batting an eyelash. Hence, you will only ever hear me use the name “Eldrick Woods” in the rare instance that I’m talking about golf or the less rare instance that I’m talking about hookers, party girls, phone sex, or why marriage is a bad idea.
Why am I bringing this up now? Because as of now (well, technically as of this post a couple of weeks ago), I am extending the same rule to this week’s unofficially-official Browns starting QB: Daniel McCoy. Because the only thing that sounds more absurd than calling another grown man “Tiger” is calling another grown man “Colt.”
With that out of the way, let’s discuss what Daniel McCoy is up against this Sunday.
According to our friends at Advanced NFL Stats, the Steelers are currently ranked 7th in the league in Defensive Efficiency. As I pointed out Sunday, through their first four games the Steelers are also forcing an average of 4 turnovers per game. They are 3-1, playing at home, energized by the return of noted John Kruk impersonator Ben Roethlisberger, and collectively out for revenge to make up for their pathetic loss to the Browns in Cleveland during the home stretch of the 2009 season.
All of this is bad news for Daniel. I know it, he knows it, fans know it, other writers know it.
I’ve started hearing grumbling from “the fans” about what a terrible idea it is to start McCoy Sunday against the ferocious Steeler defense. However, their reasoning is not because it makes the Browns an even more tremendous long shot in the game than they would have been with Jake DelHomme under center. And it’s not because they’re afraid that McCoy will end up getting injured as a byproduct of his lack of experience in this particularly hostile environment.
No, the main reason I’m hearing people complain about this is because of the effect it may have on McCoy’s psyche for the rest of his career.
The argument goes like this: Daniel McCoy is a promising young quarterback with an impressive NCAA resume. Instead of rushing him into the game to try to save the Browns’ offense, he should be brought along slowly, carefully, until he’s ready to be inserted into the starting line-up with a full understanding of the offense, a full sense of how the NFL is different from the NCAA, and the best possible chance at success. He should be mentored, nurtured, encouraged, and above all else, protected both physically and psychologically.
If McCoy is thrown into the fire too soon, the argument goes, it could shatter him mentally. He could be so traumatized by his own poor performance that his confidence erodes permanently. He starts to wonder if he has the talent to succeed at the next level, and this psychological injury starts to leak into his performance. It’s a vicious cycle, and by the end of it, Daniel McCoy never reaches his full potential, which is undoubtedly as a top-shelf NFL quarterback.
After deliberating about this long and hard, I have determined that it may in fact be the biggest crock of shit I have ever heard about either football or psychology.
Look, I agree with the sentiment that this is one of the three worst teams on the 2010 schedule for McCoy to begin his NFL career against (Steelers, Ravens, Jets). I also agree with the sentiment that no one should expect him to play well. But I absolutely disagree with the notion that this game will in some broad sense make or break him psychologically for the rest of his career.
One of the main reasons I disagree with it is because of the example on which these people are basing their theory: the one, the only, Body by Quinn.
In the revisionist history of Quinn apologists, BBQ’s career was derailed by mismanagement from the coaching staff, not by his by now almost universally accepted lack of talent at playing quarterback. Gassed by McCoy’s similarly impressive win-loss record in college, these Quinn apologists fear that McCoy will be unfairly “ruined” in the same fashion, beginning with his debut at Heinz Field this Sunday.
Here’s my perspective: as far as I can tell, being a quarterback is as much mental as it is physical. To a certain extent, you either have it or you don’t.
If you’re the type of person who’s built to play QB in the NFL, you are not going to be scarred for life because you had to make an emergency start against a good defense before the team planned on ever having to play you. Conversely, if you are the type of person whose lifelong confidence can be shattered by throwing a bunch of interceptions in a game that basically qualifies as a free pass because you weren’t intended to play until at least 2011, you shouldn’t be an NFL quarterback.
Furthermore, if you’re this second type of person, then I think it’s the responsibility of the team that drafted you to figure this out as soon as humanly possible so that they can move on if necessary and find a real long-term solution at the position.
In that sense, having to start McCoy this Sunday—and in all likelihood, at least the next two Sundays after—could be one of the most valuable things the coaching staff / management could ask for. It will give them an opportunity to evaluate McCoy based not so much on how he’s progressed in his understanding of the offense since training camp, but on how he handles the adversity that will almost undoubtedly come from being brutalized for the next 2-3 games.
However, I remain steadfast in my belief that the anxious fans who fear for Daniel McCoy’s mental well-being have the causality backwards. More often than not, I would theorize, young players don’t fail ultimately because premature exposure to tough games weakens them; they fail ultimately because they were weak to begin with and tough games exposed that quality.
So when McCoy takes the field against the Steelers this Sunday, relax. It’s not going to affect Daniel McCoy’s career trajectory. Because on some level, the outcome was determined long ago.
After 12 weeks of fans’ calling for the head of Alpha Dog, it took the man with the plan one night to deliver the most absurdly effective comeback possible: a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
I’m not going to do much commenting on the game itself, because I was reduced to watching a confusing ESPN.com Gamecast in my apartment. But after basically declaring that Rob “Golden Axe” Ryan had no right to the pass he was getting from the fans a week ago, his defense held the Steelers to 6 points on two field goals, sacked world-famous John Kruk stunt double Ben Roethlisberger 8 times, and overall made Pittsburgh’s offense look like, well, the Browns’.
On the opposite side of the ball, the Browns rushed for a total of 171 yards, never turned the ball over, and even managed to overcome another typically unimpressive Brady Quinn throwing day (6 of 19 for 84 yards) to emerge with a victory.
To me, though, the most fascinating aspect of this game is what it does to Alpha’s status in the community and with the organization.
Joshua Cribbs said it before and after the game: if the Browns were to beat the Steelers, the city would essentially forgive them for the entire season. Obviously, I’m not in C-town right now, but I genuinely believe that it’s true. Insane and completely illogical, but true. I personally feel like they won a playoff game. And we’re talking about a team that’s freaking 2-11!
I don’t know that it was possible for Alpha to save his job at this point. But if it was, then he just did it. At the very least, he’s given anyone who is or will be in control of his employment status in Berea a lot to consider.
Yes, there’s the special joy that comes from beating those Terrible Towel-waving jackasses to the east — especially in the type of cold-weather, bare-knuckled, prison-yard game Pittsburgh is supposed to be engineered to win.
But beyond that, there’s the simple observation that Alpha Dog has taken a team that, by all accounts, should be slapping a postage stamp on every game left in an over-worked, injury-riddled season and is somehow getting them to play hard and with pride. Yes, the Chargers’ game on Sunday was never really in doubt. But the Browns didn’t quit and ended up hacking their way to a one-possession game where the offense looked surprisingly competent for stretches. They followed that up with a gritty 13-6 win in the coldest game ever played between the Browns and Steelers, with reserves and practice team guys playing key roles.
Granted, the Steelers are not what the analysts thought they were even a few weeks ago. They’ve now dropped games to the Chiefs, Raiders, and Browns. They’ve lost five straight games for the first time since 2003.
But as long as they have that logo, it doesn’t matter.
The question now becomes, was this primarily a stroke of luck for an embattled coach who happened to be playing the right team on the right week? Did this have more to do with the fact that his team is now full of guys who realize that they’re fighting for a job playing professional football next season? Or is there truly something to Alpha’s philosophy, approach, and relationship to the players that will allow them to be successful over the long term?
As we emphasized before the season began, it doesn’t matter what the fans think as long as the 60 guys in the locker room buy in. Against all odds, there seems to be some evidence that that is happening — ironically, even as Bill Belichick’s Patriots are beginning to show obvious signs of resistance to their coach’s philosophy.
I’m not ready to slurp the Kool-Aid on this yet. I guarantee there are some fans swigging it right now. But I will say that the remaining three games now become infinitely more interesting to think about than they were this morning.
Whether or not they’re interesting to watch is an entirely different conversation.
