Category: Football

Patrick Mahomes: Victim of Racism?

Posted on Comments

Because I didn’t win the Mega Millions jackpot last night, it’s difficult this morning to feel sorry for the $45-million-a-year quarterback:

After an anonymous defensive coordinator called Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes a “tier 2” quarterback because of his “inability” to throw past his first read, discussions have been raised about the underlying message behind the criticism that other quarterbacks don’t receive.
The unnamed defensive coordinator was quoted by The Athletic’s Mike Sando in an article about quarterback tiers with votes from coaches and executives.

“We love Mahomes because of his unorthodox throws, not because of his natural pocket presence. And when that disappears, that is when they lose games. I don’t think that is a 1. I think that is a 2. Nothing against the guy. I love the kid. But take his first read away and what does he do? He runs, he scrambles and he plays streetball.”

The “streetball” comment, along with criticism of Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray for an “independent film study” clause in his contract, prompted discussion’s about the types of criticisms Black quarterbacks receive, compared to other quarterbacks.
When asked about those types of critiques, Mahomes said he wouldn’t read that far into it, but knows Black quarterbacks have had to fight to get to where they are.
“It always is weird when you see guys like me, Lamar, Kyler, get that on them and other guys don’t,” Mahomes said. “But at the same time we are gonna go out there and prove ourselves everyday to prove that we can be some of the best quarterbacks in the league.”
Mahomes added that he and other quarterbacks like him prove everyday that they belong behind the line of scrimmage throwing the ball.
“Obviously, the Black quarterback has had a battle to be in this position that we are to have this many guys in the league playing,” Mahomes said. “I think everyday we’re proving that we should have been playing the whole time. We got guys that think just as well as they can use their athleticism.”

To start with, Mahomes is half-white, so some might question his invocation of racial solidarity. However, it is perhaps not entirely wrong to suspect that the “streetball” criticism has some racial subtext. It could be pointed out, for example, that Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills and Justin Herbert of the L.A. Chargers are both quarterbacks of the “athletic/mobile” type — capable of “extending the play,” as the TV commentators say, and scrambling for extra yards — but because they’re both white, they don’t seem to be targets of the “streetball” criticism.

Watching Mahomes this past season, I was very impressed with him overall, even though I’m not generally a fan of that style of play. The divisional playoff game between the Chiefs and the Bills was one of the most exciting NFL games you could ever hope for, a seesaw struggle down to the wire, decided in overtime, with both quarterbacks doing their share of “streetball.” Mahomes ran the ball seven times for 69 yards and a touchdown, while Allen ran 11 times for 68 yards. On Kansas City’s first possession, the Chiefs came up on a 3rd-and-6 at their own 40, and Mahomes scrambled for 34 yards, giving them a first down at the Buffalo 26. When you’ve got a quarterback capable of that kind of run, it creates real problems for the opposing defense — a problem the New England Patriots experienced in their two losses to Buffalo last season — so maybe “streetball” isn’t an entirely bad thing. On the other hand . . .

Over the long haul, the traditional dropback quarterback style wins more consistently. This year’s Super Bowl featured two traditional “pocket passers,” Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams and Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals, so spare me your enthusiasm for the improvisational run-and-gun style as allegedly being the future of football, as if the traditional style were obsolete. And it should be pointed out that, in the AFC title game, where the Bengals beat the Chiefs in overtime, Burrow actually ran more (five carries for 25 yards) than did Mahomes (three carries for 19 yards). Why don’t analysts speak of Joe Burrow, rather than Patrick Mahomes, as the future of football? Isn’t it because many analysts are prejudiced in favor of the “streetball” style? Isn’t it because, as Rush Limbaugh once notoriously observed, most guys in sports media desperately want black quarterbacks to succeed, just to make some kind of “racial justice” statement? Therefore, if black quarterbacks do have a tendency toward the “steetball” style, most of the voices in sports media will be enthusiastic for that style of play, simply for political reasons. (Please notice the word “if” in that sentence.)

Who’s promoting stereotypes here? Is it me or Mahomes? Is it the anonymous defensive coordinator, or the sports media’s “racial justice” cheerleaders? It seems to me that some people are making an implicit argument for a double standard, where a more risky type of offensive approach must be encouraged, simply because this style of play is what black quarterbacks (allegedly) do best. Embedded in this implicit double standard is an apparent belief that black quarterbacks can’t succeed in the more traditional dropback “pocket passer” role. And so we’re in this hall of mirrors where it’s difficult to say that enthusiasts for the “streetball” style are less racist than critics of that style.

Can’t we just play football? Or is it no longer possible to have any area of human existence exempt from the madness of identity politics? Football fans ought to be able to cheer for our favorite teams without having to worry about suspicions of racism — “RAAAAACISM!” — lurking around every corner. Because I’m a Patriots fan, of course I want Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to lose, just as I’m sure Chiefs fans want the Patriots to lose, and for the same reason: Both teams are regularly in the playoff hunt in the AFC, so we want to see our conference rivals get taken down a notch or two. On the other hand, when the Chiefs are playing the Bills, it’s my duty as a Patriots fan to cheer for the Chiefs, because the Bills are our division rivals. Therefore, on Oct. 16, when Buffalo travels to Kansas City, I will be cheering for the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, despite the “streetball” style of their tragic mulatto quarterback. (The phrase “tragic mulatto” is from a book entitled Dreams of My Father, by a certain politician you may have heard of). Perhaps, if the Chiefs beat the Bills — and thus indirectly help the Patriots in the AFC East standings — I will praise Mahomes as “articulate and bright and clean.” On the other hand, if the Bills beat the Chiefs, I might say something less flattering about Mahomes. Racism is strictly situational, you see.

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Say what you will about this win-at-all-costs mentality, by making victory the only standard of judgment, athletic competition tends to work against racism, because football fans only care about the color of a player’s jersey, not his skin. Patrick Mahomes ought to try to encourage this attitude, rather than leaping to suspicions of racism every time anyone criticizes him.




 

What Do Smart People Do?

Posted on

Smart people learn. That’s the basic difference between smart people and everybody else — a superiority in learning. And as every NFL analyst has commented, Mac Jones is a very smart quarterback — “borderline genius,” one NFL executive called him. His greatest strength in his rookie season was in what the analysts call “processing.” He could very rapidly analyze what the defense was doing, and get the ball to the right target. Making a quick read and getting rid of the ball — it’s the difference between completing a pass and taking a sack.

Oh, but the haters gonna hate! And guess what? Mac listens to the haters, too, then does what it takes to make them shut their mouths.

He’s got a “weak arm,” can’t throw the deep ball, the haters say.

So Mac Jones spent the past five months working on his diet and strength training, then came back for OTAs (voluntary Organized Team Activities) leaner and stronger than he’s ever been. And, oh, yeah — working with legendary throwing coach Tom House. During OTAs, it was reported that Mac stayed late after every practice, working on his deep ball. Keep in mind, he did all this extra work despite:

A. Having thrown for 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns his senior season at Alabama, leading the Crimson Tide to an undefeated season and the national championship;
and
B. Putting up numbers in his first year with the Patriots that made him not only the best rookie QB in the league for the season, but the best rookie QB since Dak Prescott entered the league in 2016.

So, a very good rookie quarterback put a lot of work into getting better during the off-season, including organizing informal practice sessions with his receivers, to help build the vital team chemistry.

Smart people learn, and all that work Mac Jones did is clearly paying dividends, as this week’s mandatory mini-camp sessions show.

You hear that, haters? Mac Jones is dropping dimes, he’s throwing the deep ball with pinpoint accuracy. It’s not just one or two people saying this, it’s everybody who watched the Patriots practice this week and it’s still only June. We’re 95 days away from the first game at Miami and, at least so far as the passing game is concerned, New England’s offense is firing on all cylinders. What I found most interesting in the comments of those who watched the Patriots this week is that Mac’s most impressive throws were to tight end Jonnu Smith and slot receiver Tre Nixon. Neither of those guys made much of an impression last season. In fact, Nixon — drafted in the seventh round out of the University of Central Florida — spent last season on the practice squad. Smith, acquired in free agency from the Titans, had just 28 catches for 294 yards, and was overshadowed by Hunter Henry, another free agent tight end acquired from the L.A. Chargers. So these two previously underutilized receivers, who need to show the coaches something extra if they want to make the final 53-man roster, seemed to get extra attention from Mac.

The Patriots’ quarterback is Mister Team Player, you see.

It’s very early, of course. They don’t even start practicing in pads until training camp opens in late July. The AFC is stacked with talent at quarterback — Patrick Mahomes at Kansas City, Joe Burrow at Cincinnati, Josh Allen at Buffalo, on and on — and Mac Jones might be lucky to rank in the Top Five in the conference for 2022. Also, there are still a lot of unanswered questions for New England on defense, plus some doubts about the reshuffled offensive line. Insofar as one player can make a difference, however, Mac Jones is doing everything necessary to make the Patriots a better team this season. Let me tell you something else smart people do: They don’t bet against Mac Jones.

Kid’s gonna be a champion, I tell you.




 

‘New System’? Off-Season Excitement Has New England Patriots Fans Wondering

Posted on

Let’s face it, this has been a stressful off-season for fans of the New England Patriots (of which I became one after they drafted Mac Jones). First, there was the demoralizing blowout loss to Buffalo in the wild card playoff game, then the departure of several veterans via free agency and trades, followed by some perplexing choices in the NFL draft. Oh, and I almost forgot — longtime offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels left to take the head coaching job at Las Vegas, taking with him several assistants and front-office people. No matter how deep your trust in Coach Bill Belichick, these events might have shaken your faith.

So today I’m lying down for a nap and scrolling YouTube when I see a “Patriots Beat” video with my favorite guys Evan Lazar and Alex Barth, with the provocative title, “Are the Pats Switching to Shanahan-Style Offense?” The gist of it is, based on what they’ve seen in OTAs (Organized Team Activities, which are voluntary spring drills) and a remark by wide receive Kendrick Bourne that the offense is switching to a “new system,” Lazar deduces that the Patriots are adopting the offensive style pioneered by Kyle Shanahan, who has been head coach at San Francisco since 2017.

 

What’s funny about this video is that, while Lazar is usually the overthinking worrywart of this duo, and Barth is more laidback, in this case the roles are reversed, with Lazar obviously optimistic about the “new system” on offense, while Barth is the one deeply worried.

Doing some research (i.e., a quick Google search and watching a YouTube video) has me on the optimistic side. Look, if your offensive coordinator leaves, isn’t that as good a time as any to change your offensive scheme? Also, isn’t it possible that (a) the Patriots had become too predictable on offense and (b) this new Shanahan-style offense might be better suited to the type of personnel the Patriots have now? From what I’ve seen, based on a quick scan of this system, it might be ideal for a running back like Damien Harris, who’s very good at making cutback runs. The Shanahan scheme uses “zone blocking” in the running game with the specific goal of creating the kind of seams that a back like Harris can exploit.

In the passing game, the Shanahan scheme uses a lot of pre-snap motion and play action to mislead defenders, and I could see how this would appeal to Belichick’s idea of what the Patriots can accomplish with quarterback Mac Jones and their current corps of receivers.

On the other hand, as my brother Kirby says, we must consider the possibility that “Evan Lazar is full of s***” and maybe the Patriots aren’t switching to the Shanahan-style offense. Then again . . .

If Bourne says it’s a whole new system, what is it? We are now 101 days from New England’s season opener against the Dolphins. So in less than 15 weeks, we’ll find out what it means. Can’t wait . . .




 

The Fresh Prince of Foxborough?

Posted on Comments

It’s a comparison Jonnu Smith has heard over and over — the kid who made it off the mean streets of Philly, like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. There was a lot of tragedy in Smith’s life. His father was killed in a work accident when Jonnu was just 4 years old, the youngest of six kids. His older brother went to prison, and the violence in his neighborhood was so bad that his mother decided the best thing for 14-year-old Jonnu was to send him to Ocala, Florida, to live with his aunt and uncle.

That decision almost certainly saved Jonnu Smith’s life. By his own admission, he was hanging around a “rough” crowd in Philly, and his childhood best friend was later murdered in the city. By then, however, Smith’s hard work and talent had made him a star tight end for Florida International University, the only school that recruited him out of West Port High School in Osceola. He was drafted in the third round by the Tennessee Titans in 2017 and, as a free agent in 2021, signed a four-year $50 million deal with the New England Patriots. What a story!

So imagine when I saw this on Smith’s Twitter feed:

Wow. Imagine if that was your hometown. What is going on in Philadelphia, to turn it into such a wretched hive of scum and villainy? The homicide total so far this year is 180 in “Killadelphia,” meaning that the city’s averaging about one homicide a day, but nobody seems to consider this an emergency, and Congress is sending billions to Ukraine.

The only advice I can offer residents of Philadelphia is to emulate the example of Jonnu Smith: Get out, before you get killed.




 

Why Don’t We Trust the ‘Experts’?

Posted on

One of the great fools of our age, Tom Nichols, published a book a few years ago with the title, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, about which I’ll quote Wikipedia:

Publishers Weekly said that “The crux of the book’s argument is that… the American public have grown increasingly hostile to expertise” and described The Death of Expertise as a “highly researched and impassioned book that’s well timed”, further noting that “Generally, Nichols displays strong reasoning, but at times he goes off the rails. It takes some time [in some sections] for him to make his point”.
Kirkus Reviews described The Death of Expertise as “A sharp analysis of an increasingly pressing problem”, although Nichols (who “sounds less like an alarmist than like a genial guide through the wilderness of ignorance”) fails to propose a satisfying solution. Andrew Joseph Pegoda disagreed on the last point, writing that The Death of Expertise “does what good books do… and provides some possible solutions”. Pegoda also described The Death of Expertise as “extremely interesting, important, and timely” and said that “Nichols, in short, provides a brief History, informed by psychology and political science, of what he argues is a new phenomenon whereby people in the United States are not just regularly wrong or ignorant but ‘proud of not knowing things’“.

Now, I will be generous enough to stipulate that Nichols has a point, namely that we live in an age when it is common for people to overestimate their own abilities and knowledge. Some people believe that, because they can do a Google search about a topic, this puts them on the same level of expertise as a genuine expert.

Such pseudo-expertise, as we might call it, explains why every journalist with a blue-check Twitter account suddenly became an expert in epidemiology as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, then just as suddenly became an expert in Eastern European affairs the moment Russia invaded Ukraine. If tomorrow the Earth were invaded by aliens from another planet, the same Twitter know-it-alls would instantly begin offering their opinions as experts in the field of extraterrestrial life.

This kind of fake expertise can have serious consequences. The loud clamor of voices demanding a maximum lockdown response to COVID-19 resulted in devastating harms that, in hindsight, were entirely unnecessary. Especially in terms of school closures, the evidence is now clear that (a) children were never a high-risk group for the disease, and (b) keeping schools closed for months produced enormous educational losses. Compare the per-capita COVID-19 death rate in maximum-lockdown states like New York (3,554 deaths per million population) and Michigan (3,619) to Florida, which re-opened in May 2020, with death rate significantly lower (3,457). The states that imposed onerous restrictions and kept them in place for months on end didn’t really save lives, yet the advocates of lockdown policies claimed that The Science™ was on their side,  so that if you questioned their policies, you were accused of being “anti-science.” The Science™ turned out to be a cult, and Doctor Fauci was the High Priest of that cult. The fact that Fauci had impressive credentials as a genuine expert makes the failure of The Science™ all the more devastating, and yet so powerful is the cult mentality that his followers won’t even admit they were misled.

Believe it or not, there are still people walking around wearing cloth masks, believing that this protects them against infection despite all evidence to the contrary. My daughter flew back from college this week, and when I went to pick her up, I was astonished by the number of people wearing masks in the airport. While the airlines may require masks while you’re on the plane, there is no such requirement in the airport, and if you didn’t catch COVID-19 while you were encased in a pressurized cabin with 200 other passengers, why would you imagine you were at risk just walking through the airport? But cloth masks simply don’t work, in terms of protecting against the virus, no matter what the cult of The Science™ would like you to believe. Alas, I have digressed . . .

The case of Anthony Fauci and COVID-19 illustrates my point that what Nichols calls The Death of Expertise is mostly a case of suicide — that is to say, the “experts” have discredited themselves, on issue after issue, in controversy after controversy, so that if people no long trust the “experts,” it is the experts, not the people, who are to blame.

Notice that, in the subtitle of his book, Nichols asserts that someone — who? — is waging a Campaign Against Established Knowledge:

A  kind of intellectual Gresham’s Law is gathering momentum: where once the rule was “bad money drives out good,” we now live in an age where misinformation pushes aside knowledge. This is a very bad thing. A modern society cannot function without a social division of labor and a reliance on experts, professionals, and intellectuals. (For the moment, I will use these three words interchangeably.) No one is an expert on everything. No matter what our aspirations, we are bound by the reality of time and the undeniable limits of our talent. We prosper because we specialize, and because we develop both formal and informal mechanisms and practices that allow us to trust each other in those specializations.

The essential problem with this argument is that it is un-American.

America was established by pilgrims, pioneers and frontiersman who, having left behind the civilization of Europe, created a new civilization by their own labors. The pioneer in his remote cabin in the wilderness had no “experts” to tell him how to do whatever it was he needed to do to survive. Thus, he had to be self-reliant, operating on a trial-and-error basis or else trusting in traditional methods — knowledge passed down from preceding generations — just to be able to support himself and his family amid challenging circumstances. It is from this pioneer heritage that the American spirit of “rugged individualism” emerged, and this is the spirit which Nichols denounces as “a very bad thing,” a threat to “modern society.” Americans like to do things for themselves, rather than waiting for some “expert” to tell them how to do it, and you sure as hell don’t expect Americans to seek permission from “experts” to form their own opinions of matters. This is the real heart of what Nichols is up to, in bemoaning public hostility to “experts.” It’s not so much about knowledge as it is about opinions. Tom Nichols was of the opinion that Hillary Clinton should be elected president, and he became angry because enough of us disagreed that Donald Trump got elected instead.

That’s the real bottom line for the whole #NeverTrump crowd — from the moment Trump rode down the escalator in June 2015, these “mainstream” Republicans decided he should not be president, and set about trying to prevent him from getting the GOP nomination. The first problem was, the #NeverTrump crowd was unable to coalesce around an alternative early enough to turn the primaries into a two-man race. The second problem was, Trump attracted to his campaign a legion of supporters who had never voted in a Republican primary. So while the anti-Trump votes in the primaries were divided up between a bunch of other rivals — Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Chris Christie, et al. — Trump kept stacking up delegates. But having invested their egos in the #NeverTrump jihad, his critics in the pundit class (the whole Bulwark crew, the Lincoln Project crowd, Max Boot, etc.) could not accept defeat, and instead doubled-down, becoming de facto Democratic Party operatives, whether they were willing to admit it or not. And what they were most angry about was that stupid voters got to decide the election, thus violating the “social division of labor” whereby pundits like Tom Nichols get to decide who is elected president.

You see what I mean in calling this “un-American”? The pundits who claim they’re trying to save “Our Democracy” don’t really believe in democracy at all. But again I digress . . .

What got me thinking about the crisis of the expert class wasn’t presidential politics or the COVID-19 pandemic. No, it was football.

In case you never read my blog before, I’m a born-and-bred University of Alabama fan and, when the New England Patriots drafted our quarterback Mac Jones in the first round of the 2021 NFL draft, I instantly became a Patriots fan. In doing so, I found a new class of experts to hate — the commentators, columnists and TV analysts who get paid to talk about the NFL. Some of these guys are actually OK, like Evan Lazar, who can analyze video with an astonishing level of insight. Some of them, on the other hand, are utterly evil. No, I’m sorry, let me restate that — one of them is utterly evil, namely Nick Wright of Fox Sports, a Kansas City Chiefs fan masquerading as a neutral commentator.

None of the other NFL pundits are pure evil like Nick Wright, but there is a notable bandwagon effect among these alleged football experts. Today I was checking ESPN’s site on my phone and noticed an emerging consensus that the Buffalo Bills are the team to beat in 2022.

This is not an unreasonable expectation. The Bills have an excellent quarterback, Josh Allen, and a tough defense. They have won the AFC East division two years in a row, made it all the way to the AFC championship game two years ago, and this past season lost a divisional playoff to the Kansas City Chiefs in an overtime thriller. It is thus a reasonable guess that Buffalo will be among the top contenders when the NFL season kicks off this fall. But (a) the Bills have never won a Super Bowl and (b) they haven’t been to a Super Bowl since the early 1990s.

If you say I am prejudiced against the Bills, I won’t deny it because, of course, they’re the rivals of my Patriots in the AFC East. But I daresay there may be elements of prejudice in the consensus of pundits who think Buffalo can make it to the next Super Bowl. One of the reasons the pundits like the Bills so much is because Josh Allen is one of those “mobile, athletic” quarterbacks who play the kind of run-and-gun “schoolyard” football that all the TV commentators love. The pundits seem to agree that this style of play is the future of football, and more traditional drop-back passers are dinosaurs on their way to extinction. As much as fans might enjoy the run-and-gun style — and that shootout between Allen and Patrick Mahomes in the divisional playoffs was one of the most exciting spectacles in NFL history — there are downsides to relying on the “mobile, athletic” quarterback. Typically, they don’t last very long in the NFL, where all it takes is one hard tackle to wreck your knee or ankle and there goes your precious “mobility.” Last year Josh Allen was the second-leading rusher for the Bills, with 763 yards on 122 carries, but how much longer can he keep that up? Trust me, as a Patriots fan, it was agonizing to watch New England’s defense try to catch Allen, who ran for 66 yards in the Wild Card playoff game. Sooner or later, though, Allen’s going to get wrecked. He cannot defy the probabilities forever — or at least, that’s my view, as an unapologetic fan of the Patriots and their old-fashioned quarterback Mac Jones.

My opinion, however, is that of a fan, not an expert. And what is the track record of these professional NFL pundits? Well, I decided to check. Last year, in their season preview, CBS Sports had seven of its personalities — Jason La Canfora, Pete Brisco, Will Brinson, Ryan Wilson, John Breech, Jared Dubin and Jonathan Jones — predict (a) the exact order of finish in each of the eight divisions of the NFL, (b) the six teams to get Wild Card playoff berths, (c) the teams that would make it to the Super Bowl, and (d) who would win the championship.

How many of these experts correctly predicted the Super Bowl winner?

Zero. The number is zero.

Still, some of them were close. Two of them (La Canfora and Wilson) correctly predicted that the Los Angeles Rams would win the NFC West division, and four others (Prisco, Brinson, Breech and Jones) had the Rams making it to the playoffs as a Wild Card. So six of the seven experts at least correctly predicted that the Rams would be in the playoffs, and two of those (Dubin and Jones) actually picked the Rams to win the NFC championship. But none of them — zero — figured that Coach Sean McVay and quarterback Matt Stafford would take L.A. all the way to victory in the Super Bowl. Two of the experts (La Canfora and Prisco) had the Tampa Bay Buccaneers returning to the Super Bowl as NFC champions, and La Canfora thought the Bucs would win it all. Wilson and Breech expected the Green Bay Packers to win the NFC title, with Breech predicting that Green Bay would win the Super Bowl. Brinson thought the San Francisco 49ers would be Super Bowl champs. In fact, the Buccaneers lost to the Rams in the divisional playoff, the Packers were beaten by San Francisco in the other NFC divisional playoff, and the Rams beat the Niners in the NFC championship game.

So while none of these experts correctly predicted the Rams as Super Bowl winners, they at least were fairly accurate in predicting the teams (Green Bay, Tampa Bay, San Francisco and L.A.) that in fact proved to be the main contenders for the NFC title. As for the AFC, however . . .

Oh, my goodness gracious!

Five of the CBS Sports experts (La Canfora, Prisco, Brinson, Wilson and Breech) predicted the Buffalo Bills would take the AFC championship, with Prisco and Wilson picking Buffalo to win the Super Bowl. As previously explained, the Bills lost a divisional playoff and thus didn’t make it to the AFC title game, much less win it. The team that beat Buffalo, the Kansas City Chiefs were picked by Dubin and Jones not only to win the AFC championship, but also to win the Super Bowl.

Well, at least the Chiefs made it to the AFC title game, but they were defeated there by Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals.

Guess how many of the CBS experts predicted that the Bengals would be in the playoffs? The number is — you guessed, didn’t you? — zero.

All seven of the CBS Sports experts picked the Bengals to finish fourth — i.e., last place — in the AFC North division. Five of the experts (La Canfora, Prisco, Wilson, Dubin and Jones) predicted that the Cleveland Browns would win the AFC North. In fact, the Browns went 8-9 and finished third in the division. Brinson picked the Baltimore Ravens to win the AFC North, but they also went 8-9 and, because of tiebreakers, placed fourth in the division. Breech was the least wrong of the experts in terms of predicting the AFC North winner, as his pick was the Pittsburgh Steelers, who finished second and lost a Wild Card playoff to the Chiefs.

How was it that nobody — not a single one of these CBS Sports experts — thought the Bengals were a playoff contender? How was it that the eventual AFC champions were a unanimous choice by these experts to finish dead last in their division? To give credit where credit is due, all seven experts correctly predicted the winners of the three other AFC divisions (Bills in the East, Chiefs in the West, Tennessee Titans in the South), and all of them also got the exact order of finish correct in the East (Bills, Patriots, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets). Breech correctly picked the final order of finish in the AFC South (Titans, Indianapolis Colts, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars). Nobody got the order of finish correct in the AFC West, however, because the Las Vegas Raiders (whom the experts predicted to finish third or fourth) ended up in second place. Prisco picked the Denver Broncos to finish second in the AFC West; in fact, the Broncos at 7-10 were last in the division. The other experts predicted the L.A. Chargers would finish second in the AFC West, but they were third. Of the many wrong predictions about who would get the AFC Wild Card playoff berths, La Canfora, Wilson, Dubin and Jones incorrectly picked the Chargers and Ravens for two of the three slots. Brinson and Breech wrongly predicted the Chargers and Browns. Prisco got two of the three Wild Cards correct, missing only with his pick of the Broncos. All seven correctly predicted that the Patriots would win a wild card bid. But none of them — zero — picked the Bengals.

Generally speaking, these experts produced a carnival of wrongness. Yes, they got some things right — the easy stuff, like figuring that the Chiefs, Bills, Packers and Buccaneers would be playoff contenders. But even though all of them predicted the Rams would be in the playoff hunt, only two thought the Rams would make it all the way to the Super Bowl, and none of them thought McVay’s team would win the Super Bowl. As for their AFC predictions, everything got completely wrecked for the experts by Cincinnati and their second-year quarterback Burrow.

It’s easy to see why the Bengals were underrated. Nobody anticipated what the reunion of Burrow and his LSU teammate, wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, would mean for Cincinnati. Burrow and the rookie Chase connected on 81 passes for 1,455 yards and 13 touchdowns. For the season, Burrow completed 70.4% of his passes for 4,611 yards and 34 TDs. This was a remarkable improvement from Burrow’s rookie year and — just incidentally — Burrow isn’t one of those run-and-gun quarterbacks that NFL commentators rave about. Neither is the Rams QB, Stafford. Both of them are old-fashioned dropback passers, and so the bandwagon effect among the CBS Sports experts (who thought Mahomes and the Chiefs or Allen and the Bills would win the AFC) is readily apparent as a source of their total wrongness about the Super Bowl.

What does this say about Tom Nichols or Anthony Fauci? Not much, directly. But indirectly, the wrongness of the CBS Sports “experts” does illustrate the general credibility problem of our media-certified expert class. Once upon a time, wrong predictions would be forgotten because, despite the durability of the printed word, few people could be bothered to go to the library and do the research necessary to find who had predicted what. Thanks to near-universal computer access, however, anyone can now do this kind of research and publish it on the Internet.

Bad news for the experts — the Internet never forgets.




 

‘A Poor Man’s Mac Jones’? (And Other Thoughts on the Patriots’ Draft Picks)

Posted on

Following up on last week’s post (“Belichick’s Strange Choice Confounds Critics Who Don’t Understand 4D Chess”) about the New England Patriots in the NFL Draft, there was a widespread consensus among football commentators that the Patriots had a lousy 2022 draft class overall. Among the choices by Belichick that had pundits scratching their heads this year was choosing Western Kentucky quarterback Bailey Zappe in the fourth round. Why, after taking Mac Jones in the first round last year — and after a rookie season that made clear Jones is the future of the franchise — would Belichick draft another QB this year?

The first take I heard on Zappe was from Evan Lazar who called him “a poor man’s Mac Jones.” At Western Kentucky, Zappe broke every passing record — just incredible numbers — and if he’d have done that at a first-tier football school, he would have been drafted much earlier than the fourth round. A classic dropback QB, like Jones, Zappe is also super-smart, scoring the highest among this year’s quarterback prospects on the Wonderlic IQ test. Given the complexity of New England’s offensive scheme, Zappe’s brainpower will be advantageous if he is to be ready to play as a rookie. The Patriots already have two backup QBs on their roster, veteran Bryan Hoyer and 2019 fourth-round pick Jarrett Stidham. Hoyer, 36, is for all intents and purposes now an assistant coach, acting as mentor to Jones, and Stidham hasn’t lived up to expectations, so the likely scenarios is that Zappe will displace Stidham on the Patriots’ roster.

And then what? There is the possibility, of course, that Zappe could prove to be a quarterback worthy of a starting role, in which case he could provide the Patriots with trade capital. Your team’s starter isn’t getting the job done? Let’s make a deal for, say, that Pro Bowl-caliber linebacker on your roster. Even if the Patriots are certain that Mac Jones is the quarterback of their future, Zappe could add value besides being able to step in if, God forbid, Jones should get hurt. So while I have no problem with the choice of Zappe in the fourth round, I’ve got to admit some of their other choices strike me as questionable.

Two running backs? You’ve already got a tremendous one-two punch with Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson, who combined for over 1,500 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns last season, so why add two running backs? It does not matter, from my perspective, how good these rookies are. Pierre Strong has blazing speed (4.37 in the 40-yard dash) and Kevin Harris was a real workhorse at South Carolina, so it’s nothing against them as individual players, it’s just that I didn’t see this position as a priority for the Patriots. The real need in New England — after they got Strange to fill their opening at offensive guard — was on defense, particularly at cornerback and linebacker.

The Patriots got two quality cornerbacks in the third round (85th pick overall) and fourth round (121st pick). But was there not a single linebacker on the board they liked with the 127th pick (4th round) or 183rd pick (6th round) they used to get Strong and Harris? Let’s grant that they added veteran linebacker Mack Wilson from the Cleveland Browns in an off-season trade, and that New England also has younger players (e.g., Cameron McGrone and Anfernee Jennings) who could step up this year. Still, it looks like the Patriots are about to lose both Jamie Collins and Dont’a Hightower from their linebacker corps in free agency, and many analysts expected them to draft a linebacker in the first round this year. Not to draft any linebackers? It doesn’t make sense.

There was a more general complaint — both among fans and among league analysts — that New England “reached” with its first two draft picks, as Strange wasn’t projected as a first-round pick (some projected him going in the third round) and not many thought wide receiver Tyquan Thornton would go in the second round. However, for a team in need of a deep threat at receiver, the Patriots certainly scored big with Thornton, whose 40-yard dash time was the best of any WR at the NFL combine. And maybe those “reaches” weren’t really reaches at all:

NFL Network’s Mike Giardi suggests Bill Belichick and his staff’s insistence that neither player would’ve lasted much longer on the board might have been well-founded.
“On Cole Strange, I’ve learned, per source, there was a team in the 40s that had their eyes on Strange,” Giardi tweeted. “Would they have traded up had he began Day 2 still on the board? That part is unclear. Strange definitely was getting picked in round 2 regardless.”
Some teams, like the Los Angeles Rams, did homework on Strange as a possible third or fourth-round pick, adding fuel to the fire that the Patriots way over-drafted him.
However, it’s notable that several teams picking in the top 40 — the Vikings, Buccaneers and Seahawks — had Strange in for top-30 prospect visits before the draft.
Interestingly, the Bucs, who took defensive tackle Logan Hall with the 33rd pick, took tackle Luke Goedeke later in the second round. The Vikings, who grabbed safety Lewis Cine just after the Patriots picked Strange and also took cornerback Andrew Booth early in the second round, took offensive guard Ed Ingram later in the second as well.
Take this for what you will: Strange was a more highly graded player on NFL.com than either Goedeke or Ingram. Though we don’t know what the teams’ grades for them are, it’s conceivable the Patriots were right about Strange not lasting long (putting aside the actual value of the pick).
The Thornton pick feels harder to figure out.
Most projections suggested Thornton would still be around on Day 3 of the draft, leading to shock when he was selected ahead of seemingly better receiver prospects on Day 2.
But Giardi’s report casts doubt on that as well.
“And while we’re at it, on the Tyquan Thornton pick, league source believes there was a team lurking on the Baylor WR and perhaps a fear from the Patriots that the Steelers (at 52) were ready to pounce. So they move up 4 spots and get the speed merchant,” he wrote.
One theory: the Steelers, who grabbed Pickens at No. 52 overall, thought another team (including the Patriots) might take the Georgia product instead and had Thornton in mind as a backup option. Whether the Steelers, Colts or Chiefs, who all took receivers shortly after the Patriots got Thornton, would’ve actually taken him over the prospects they got is debatable, though.

If Cole Strange was the best offensive guard in the draft, and the Patriots staff believed other teams might have their eye on him in the second round, taking him in the first round makes sense. Of all the wide receivers in the draft, Thornton was the fastest and New England had the need for that speed. So if there was any chance that Pittsburgh (or some other team) would take Thornton before the Patriots got their third-round pick (85th overall), then drafting Thornton in the second round makes perfect sense. Of course, objectively, I realize that I’m rationalizing here — engaged in a defensive justification of questionable behavior.

Rationalization is a universal trait, not just for football fans. Every prison is full of guys who either claim they were really innocent or else have some story to explain how they would have gotten away with it, had not this, that or the other thing gone wrong. After-the-fact explanations to defend our choices, especially when our choices are criticized or when the consequences are objectively bad, are just how the human mind operates as a default setting. So if you’re a Patriots fan, you tell yourself that Bill Belichick must know what he’s doing, even if all the commentators on ESPN are saying his draft picks were bad this year. In defending the questionable picks, you must have the self-awareness that you’re acting like a “homer,” and that your justifications are not objective, even while you marshal facts and logic to make arguments against critics.

Honestly, it’s like Jen Psaki standing at the lectern in the White House briefing room, saying everything Biden does is just awesome.

Do you see why football is a great hobby for a politics junkie? Hunter S. Thompson always thought so, and I share his belief that being a football fan is kind of a methadone treatment, a substitute for the heroin-like addiction of politics. You need something to focus your mental energies on, some obsession that distracts you from the madness of politics, or else you’ll turn into one of those deranged dingbats who think it’s cool to go protest at a Supreme Court justice’s home.

For most of us, our ability to influence politics is nearly as limited as our ability to persuade Belichick to pick a linebacker in the first round. Our inability to change events — our sense of powerlessness, because the important decisions are being made for us, contrary to our own inclinations or opinions — produces a sense of frustration. This frustration is intensified because we are dreadfully impatient. Inside each of us is a bit of Veruca Salt: “I want it now!” Football season doesn’t start until September, and the election is not until November, and we’re enduring the agony of the off-season — a lot of talk, talk, talk from the pundits on TV, when what we crave is the thrill of victory. Triumph over our foes, complete vindication: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.”

When my brother Kirby talks about anything — politics, football, the war in Ukraine, whatever — he always annoys me by discussing speculative contingencies: “If X happens, then either Y or Z.” This annoys me, as I say, because there is no way to know if X will happen or not. Will Putin go nuclear in Ukraine? Lots of smart people say it’s a real possibility, even though I can’t imagine such a nightmare scenario. Why even bother discussing it? If it happens, it happens, and all the choices are beyond my control, so what is to be gained by a moot court deliberation of the possible consequences of a madman dictator’s actions?

So let’s talk about football instead, but the same problem arises: Kirby always wants to talk about what Alabama should do — as if Coach Saban were going to heed our advice, which is always, “Run the damn ball!” — but exploring the limitless field of imaginative speculation frustrates me. There’s no point to it, and such discussions intensify my feelings of powerlessness. Ultimately, as fans and spectators, we just have to wait until they kick off and then watch what happens.

National Championship for ’Bama, Mac Jones takes the Patriots to the Super Bowl and Republicans win a landslide in the November midterms. And then we’ll enjoy listening to the lamentations of their women.




 

Belichick’s Strange Choice Confounds Critics Who Don’t Understand 4D Chess

Posted on

BERRIEN SPRINGS, Michigan
Last night my wife and I had dinner with our 19-year-old daughter and her new boyfriend (he passed muster) at a Mexican restaurant, and there’s nothing like a belly full of Mexican food to put me to sleep, so as soon as we got back to our AirBNB, I crawled into bed and crashed. I’d forgotten that it was NFL Draft night, even though I’ve been following all the pundits’ predictions for weeks. Everybody agreed that the New England Patriots — my team, because Mac Jones, Roll Tide! — should focus on defense, particularly cornerbacks and linebackers, as well as looking for a top wide receiver. So I woke up about 4 a.m. today and checked the headlines and HOLY FREAKING COW!

Belichick did what is called “trading down” in the NFL Draft, exchanging New England’s first-round pick (#21 overall) for the Kansas City Chiefs’ first-round pick (#29 overall), as well as third-round (#94 overall) and fourth-round (#121 overall) picks. The reason the Chiefs were willing to do that is they saw a player they wanted badly (University of Washington cornerback Trend McDuffie) available, while the Patriots — despite their own need at cornerback — apparently weren’t high on McDuffie. So they “traded down” and, in the process, gave themselves 11 picks in the seven-round draft. (The Patriots also have two extra sixth-round picks as a result of previous trades with the Rams and Texans.)

Still, the experts were befuddled by Belichick’s choice of University of Tennessee-Chattanooga offensive guard in the first round, because everybody figured Strange for a second- or even third-round pick. Ah, but they don’t understand four-dimensional chess! The players that Belichick might have picked at #21 (including offensive lineman Zion Johnson of Boston College, Alabama wide receiver Jameson Williams and LSU defensive back Derek Stingley Jr.) got taken earlier in the draft and, as I say, they obviously didn’t like McDuffie as much as the Chiefs did. However, there were other cornerbacks still available, including Florida’s Kaiir Elam, who got snapped up by the Buffalo Bills at #23, not to mention Georgia linebacker Quay Walker, who went at #22 to the Packers. But the Patriots definitely needed a real stud on the offensive line, and of the first 20 players picked this year, six of them were offensive lineman. In other words, Belichick could see that there was an unusually high demand for quality linemen in this year’s draft, and if he didn’t get one he liked in the first round, the choices available in the second round (where the Patriots have the #54 overall pick) might not be to his liking. Cole Strange is a genuine beast, 6-foot-5, 307 pounds and incredibly athletic, with the best broad jump performance of any offensive guard at this year’s NFL combine. He’s also smart, with good technique, played in every game for his entire four-year career at UTC, and is exactly the kind of rookie who should be ready to be a starter for the Patriots on Day One in September. Even if nobody else projected him as a first-round pick, think about the psychological factor of Belichick’s choice. It sends a message to Strange: “We believe in you. The team is counting on you. Give us 110%. Don’t let us down.”

Two words: Logan Mankin. A tackle from Fresno State, Mankin wasn’t projected as a first-round pick, but Belichick picked him and switched him to guard, where he became a seven-time Pro Bowl selection, anchoring an offensive line that twice took the Patriots to the Super Bowl. So don’t tell me Belichick can’t pick em.

Something else to think about: Over the past 10 years, no team has gotten higher CAVOE (Career Average Value Over Expectation) from the draft than the Patriots, and Belichick is especially good with late-round picks. Last year, they took running back Rhamondre Stevenson from Oklahoma in the fourth round and, as a rookie, Stevenson was good enough to rival veteran RB Damien Harris (who was himself a third-round choice in 2019). The other starting guard for the Patriots, Mike Onewenu, was a sixth-round pick in 2020, so it’s not as if the extra draft picks that New England got from Kansas City in Thursday’s trade might not produce a starter, or perhaps even a star. You see, back in 2000, Belichick took a player in the sixth round who turned out to be pretty good.

Kid from Michigan. Maybe you’ve heard of him.




 

Nick Saban Dropped THE BOMB!

Posted on

While everybody else is expecting war in Ukraine, Alabama football fans are reeling from the nuclear holocaust unleashed in a speech last week by Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban:

“We lost the national championship game, basically because we had 3 corners out, both starters and the best backup. So we’re playing with some guys that didn’t have a lot of experience. It eventually got us in the fourth quarter. We had the kind of team where we had a really good quarterback and we wanted to have skill guys that they couldn’t guard. So we had 2 who were really, really good — (John Metchie III and Jameson Williams). They both got hurt.
”Now, we were playing with guys that typically didn’t have to play at those positions. The lesson to be learned is there were 3 guys, and I’m not calling out any names, that basically didn’t do the things they needed to do throughout the season because they were frustrated with their circumstance. … They’re frustrated with their circumstance because they’re not playing as much as they want to. They’re outcome oriented, they want to worry about how many balls they catch or how much playing time they get or whatever it is. So they don’t focus every day on being a complete player at their position, and they don’t work in practice and prepare for the games because they say to themselves, ‘Why should I do this? I’m not gonna play anyway.’
”So, we had 3 guys, they all had a significant role in the national championship game, and not one of them, not one, could take advantage of the opportunity that they had, because they never ground through it. They never made themselves the best player they could be. When they got the opportunity, they couldn’t do it. That’s a lesson for everybody. What comes first? Playing time? Or making sure that you’re ready to play and create value for yourself when you get the opportunity?”

Whoa! That’s a bombardment of heavy truth, and a message to the rest of the team. A lot of these five-star recruits expect to be starters their freshman year, and think it’s the job of coaches to give them what they consider as their “fair share” of playing time. So if they don’t start right away, they get their feelings hurt and start sulking, but then when something happens to give them a shot — and having Metchie and Williams both get hurt was clearly not something anyone anticipated — they’re not ready for it. You can contrast that to Mac Jones, who rode the bench for three years before he got his chance to be Alabama’s starting quarterback, but by God, he was ready when he got that chance.