the morality of fandom

i was lol yellowcarded for drunkenly raising some of these issues in inappropriate threads last season, but i guess i wanted to see what y'all thought. the following is from an email i wrote my dad, who is 75 and awesome (although he does not quite remember the steagles).

for reference, i grew up watching the steelers religiously; we turned the volume down on the tv announcers (who far too often included bob trumpy, a former bengal) and listened to fleming and cope on the radio. my dad would punch the floor when bad things happened. at some point in my youth my bedtime was 10pm except for monday night football, when i could stay up until halftime. basically i've been a football fan longer than you apart from brownie.

anyway:

North American pro sports have a lot to answer for in general, but the NFL seems to be the absolute worst. I love the Rooneys and probably the Maras and the entire fact of the Green Bay Packers (which is specifically litigated against such that no other team could ever be community owned). But then there's Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder (you should read this indictment of Snyder in the Washington City Paper -- he has since sued the paper for defamation, which is both typical and absurd). And while public financing of stadia/arenas is bullshit, at least the other sports offer more than eight games a year.

I think they blew their biggest advantage -- an utter monopoly on Sunday afternoons for 20 weeks a year -- by insisting on shit Thursday games on networks that no one gets, etc. Recognize your strengths! Parity has established that most teams have a chance to be relevant in a given year, but the number of actual kickass matchup games seems to be ever-diminishing. If you've been to a game recently, it is a nightmarishly boring three hours during which there is 15 minutes of action you can barely see while surrounded by 70,000 drunken assholes -- and that doesn't even count the Jets fans. Even on TV they've crossed a barrier with me since adding the commercial after the kickoff as well as the touchdown. About the only positive is that you can get some reading done while watching a football game, which you can't really do with hockey.

The nature of the sport itself seems to lend itself to bullshit. There are lots of drunk fans at baseball games, but there isn't a culture of tailgating for hours nor does the action on the field seem to engender the aggressiveness that football fans have. I guess I can understand that as a player in such a brutal game you need that mentality, but I am actually pretty tired of Ray Lewis' woofing and the sack dances and the crowing about stopping a five-yard run (which is better than average).

(That said, I think Chad Johnson/Ochocinco is kind of awesome. He's a freak, but unlike Terrell Owens, etc., none of the stuff he does is about showboating or being an asshole -- he's trying to be entertaining, and he does it well.)

Between all that and Dave Duerson, Jesus. Mike Webster? Justin Strelzyk? I'm waiting for an actual death on the field. Heath Miller took a hit against the Ravens last season that I was basically amazed didn't decapitate him. He had a concussion and missed a couple weeks. Even apart from the concussions, Earl Campbell can barely walk.

The average NFL career is 3.2 years, apparently. Look at our cousin Fast Willie Parker's career -- he basically had three and a half seasons as one of the better players in the league and was done at 29, well before he could benefit from free agency. The NFL just seems like the most egregious and obvious example of an industry that makes a tremendous amount of money while shitting on its community and its workers. I wish an extended lockout had made that more obvious and that the league had been compelled to reveal its books and show exactly what the owners earn for . . . doing nothing.

Of course if the Steelers are decent I'll probably still watch them, even with their rapey quarterback. But hey I'm from Pittsburgh.

Finding a lot to sympathize with in that. I eventually got sick of boxing, and am less excited about the NFL season than I've been in years.

Obviously he is just one guy and your point about longevity is a good one, but Willie Parker made over ten million dollars in his career. I'm not crying too much for that guy.

Football is a violent and sometimes deadly sport, and a football "career" is very temporary. Many players are ill-equipped for life after football. But along those same lines there are countless guys who rose out of poverty and/or turned their lives around.

In the '60s there were plenty of guys who suffered terrible injuries, but not very many who earned Willie Parker money. I'd guess there was a lot less participation in charity work then as well.

And I don't remember anyone writing articles titled "has the game gotten too violent?" back when Dave Duerson and the Bears were crushing fools in the '80s. He suffered his injuries long before people gave a shit about broken down old retired players, before the game was "too fast" and the players were "too strong". They played with inferior equipment on shitty fields, and didn't know anything about nutrition or fitness. The game has gotten worse, but it's also gotten better.

And I don't remember anyone writing articles titled "has the game gotten too violent?" back when Dave Duerson and the Bears were crushing fools in the '80s.

^ good point, there weren't. And those Bears played a hyper-violent style that would cause hundreds of thousands of fines per game if played now. Wilber Marshall literally almost killed Joe Ferguson in one game in '85 (the guy was unconsious before he hit the ground), and for all his religious leanings, Mike Singeltary was a Tatum-style headhunter. The dirtiest play was when Richard Dent tried to decapitate Louis Lipps with a forearm in '86 or '87, and very nearly succeeded. The game is quite a bit safer now.

There was plenty of dirty hits back in the day, but they also didn't teach that modern technique of DBs launching themselves like a missile helmet first at any receiver like they do now. I think the emphasis on turnovers probably starting with the Ravens defense at the beginning of the decade really changed the game, especially considering they quit letting the Dbs even touch the receivers.

They need to bring back the running game, as that would cut down on the crazy blindside hits. The over emphasis on passing has left way too many people running timing routes right into a cruise missile that the safety has been waiting on all week to lay out after watching the same play over and over in the tape room.

That's my take and being a big NFL fan nearly watching every weekend since like 79-80.

they also didn't teach that modern technique of DBs launching themselves like a missile helmet first at any receiver like they do now.

Those hits are against the rules and a major focus of the commish' office and the attempt to clean up the game.

As for the running game, rushing ypg has essentially stayed the same since 1986. Somewhere around 115 ypg per team. Last year it was 114.

that's a deceptive way of looking at it because even if the rushing numbers are about the same, the passing numbers sure as shit arent. this is more of a passing league than ever before

I don't think it's deceptive so much as it's lazy research. :)

i maintain that the best way to ensure player safety would be to force every stadium to grow the grass knee high. think about it!

My point is that passing has been a focal point for the last thirty years. The last few years have included some of the top passing seasons in NFL history, but there were also a number of big seasons in the '90s and '80s.

Tons of the rushing yards now are really gained on big runs when they catch someone in a dime package.

Thing is to really run the classic run game, you got to have precision that even the head coaches say isn't really quite as possible when there is so much turnover.

Tons of the rushing yards now are really gained on big runs when they catch someone in a dime package.

fwiw attempts per game have also held fairly steady for the last two decades.

'things are safer than before' doesn't really excuse anything

Tons of the rushing yards now are really gained on big runs when they catch someone in a dime package.

yeah, the pats take advantage of that situation a lot. i think they're one of the best situational running teams in the league. their run blocking is nothing special and neither are their backs, but they always seem to get solid gains because they run in favorable situations. plus running to drain the clock will never go out of fashion.

Thing is to really run the classic run game, you got to have precision that even the head coaches say isn't really quite as possible when there is so much turnover.

― earlnash, Wednesday, August 24, 2011 12:32 AM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

parcells was talking about this a few years back when Dr. Z asked him why you don't see anything like the 80s Giants power running game in today's league - parcells said there simply isn't enough time for it anymore, it requires so much attentive coaching and practice time that can't be spared.

'turnover' in this context meaning players, due to injuries, or coaching, or something else?

xp to earlnash's post, or anyone else's interpretation of it

Player turnover going team to team from free agency.

Run game blocking is a whole lot of movement in tandem and to run stuff like the old power sweep plays Green Bay and many others used to run, you got to be precise. I'd imagine the total speed pickup on defense would make this even more so.

Passing game is complex, but in a way most of it is just terminology, knowing what route to run when.

Kind of the death of the power running game happened with the Steelers, as they kept leading the league in rushing and defense and just couldn't get over the top. I even remember reading interviews with Cowher talking about when they won it with Big Ben how they had to start changing the offense opening up things more, as he referenced that very fact.

The DB changes after the 2004 AFC Title game kind of changed football. After that, you could really run your offense in a shotgun and live off the short pass just like you would a run game and get those 3-5 yard pickups, as you can't manhandle anyone that close to the line, so you pretty much let them catch it and then tackle them. Beyond that, how many games have you seen change on some of the penalties tied to that kind of contact? They call tons more pass interference calls now and I would say some team almost look for DBs that are idiots to exploit in that way just as much as ones they can toast for big plays.

Some of the injuries is that these guys are way freaking bigger and yet at the same time way faster than ever before. That's just kinetic energy.

fast willie was not the best example of players getting screwed -- he did make money, though somewhat less than one might expect for a player who was a first-round fantasy pick for a couple years. but he is a decent example of how small the window is, how disposable the players are, and how the money he made pales beside the nfl's revenues. i mean, aj fucking burnett is making more this year than willie made in his career, and the nfl rakes in rather more money than mlb (and aj will have less trouble walking when he's 50).

obviously the players buy into everything (apart from the rare jake the snake or tokin' ricky williams) -- the machoism, the masochism, the adoration -- and no one is forcing them to do it. but i'd feel better about watching ppl maim themselves if the league and owners -- who are making the *real* money -- showed any concern for the damage that is wrought.

There was plenty of dirty hits back in the day, but they also didn't teach that modern technique of DBs launching themselves like a missile helmet first at any receiver like they do now.
― earlnash, Wednesday, August 24, 2011 3:55 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark

Have you seen the stuff Jack Tatum did? Dick Butkus? Dick Butkus went helmet to helmet all the time.

Thought I would bump this given the Frontline doc from last night. I've been feeling kinda bad about being an NFL fan lately but I don't know how to make myself stop watching the games.

Do issues like this ever arise for NASCAR? How has the NHL approached these issues?

If I don't feel guilt for watching boxing, should I feel guilt for watching the NFL?

I definitely feel guilty for watching boxing, which is why I don't do it much anymore ... but every once in awhile I'll watch a fight and really enjoy it. I'm sure if boxing was a billion dollar corporate enterprise like the NFL things would be a little different. I'm not sure how big the MMA is now but I assume that it's considerably smaller than other major sports?

I think the people running MMA are making bucks hand over fist, but the fighters not really so much.

"Do issues like this ever arise for NASCAR?"

It happened big time when Dale Earnhardt died about a decade ago. I'd say some of the changes that have been made in the last decade or so to make the sport safer (and really to save some money on engineering) have lost a bit of the edge on what people liked about the sport, similar to football.

I have absolutely no guilt or hesitancy about watching the game.

I guess I don't understand why I should feel guilt watching people do something potentially harmful to themselves. I don't feel guilt watching Jackass, or astronauts, or shark cage divers, etc. As long as the risks are known to the participants (as they are now in the NFL), and the choice to participate is free, what is the guilty part in watching? This is even setting aside the lucrative nature of playing in the NFL.