Man Bites Blog

It seems like the ultimate poetic justice moment would have been if after Belichick jogged off the field, and a few Patriots ambled onto the field for the final kneel-down snap, if intead of kneeling down, Eli rose up, and fired the ball deep to Plaxico Burress for the ultimate “Eff you” touchdown.

That wouldn’t have been great sportsmanship, but it would have been something we would always remember.

Barring something really strange, like Tom Brady Eli Manning getting knocked out early in the game, I don’t see how why the Giants ^can’t stay in this game. My prediction is 38-14 Patriots 17-14 Giants.

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Nights like tonight are why I watch sports.  I find I increasingly enjoy the postgame celebrations.  Especially in football, where there are real sacrifices made to win.  Watching Plaxico Burress break down in the post game interview was something.

What went wrong with the Patriots?  I don’t know; maybe they peaked to early.  Their last really impressive win (besides the fact that winning all your games is instrinsically impressive)  was over the Bills right after their bye.  Well, maybe the Pittsburgh game.

I think the week off did not play to their advantage.

Part of the tragedy of last week’s Cowboys-Packers game being on national television was that many of us fans were denied another three hours of discussion of how great Brett Favre is by the announcers.   Some uf us may have forgotten that Favre is thirty-eight years old(!), having fun again, his teammates love playing with him, he’s a dream to coach, etc.

Recognizing the void in Favre praise, Sports Illustratated has stepped up and named Brett Favre its Sportsman of the year. 

This issue will be handy if the media ever goes another 10 minutes without praising Favre.  We can refer to this package to remind ourselves how great he is.

Lots to say, so we’re going to go below the fold… Read the rest of this entry »

Fumbling The Point

In last week’s TMQ column, Gregg Easterbrook quoted Tiki Barber that the secret of Adrian Peterson’s success was that he ignores tacklers and focuses on the goal. Sounds great!

What neither Barber nor Easterbrook mentioned is that this likely a characteristic of a rookie running back. There was one play in which Peterson lunged for extra yards and fumbled the ball. Ignoring tacklers and focusing on the goal line will have that result occasionally. Those are big, fast guys, and they can put a hurtin’ on ya, as Peterson will continue to learn.

Barber himself had a reputation as a fumbler early in his career, which is partly why he was not the Giants’ sole feature back until late in his career, and Ron Dayne and Brandon Jacobs got a lot of important carries.

Of course, when you run for 296 yards, nobody gives a damn about one fumble. But he’s not going to run for 290 yards every week. A guy who runs for 200 yards and fumbles once is an exciting player. A guy who run for 90 yards and loses a fumble may be a liability.

I predict that Peterson will go through a similar fumbling crisis, and emerge from it a more careful, (and, alas, less exciting) runner.

Can You Top This?

Bill Simmons must be on some quixotic mission to be as obnoxious as possible while maintaining his reader base. That is the only plausible explanation for last Friday’s column on the Pats-Colts game.

Simmons managed to combine the most annoying characteristics of fans of good teams (gloating) and fans of bad teams(why do these awful things only happen to us?) in one column. Maybe he’ll top it in the Super Bowl by writing about how awful it is that he’s covering the Super Bowl in Phoenix when most of his readers are in places like New Hampshire in February. I’m not sure whether the US or the Boston sports fan base has squandered more good will in the past five years.

A few nuggets:

From the time the movie was released in 1981, I have measured every real-life contest with shady officiating against that Nazis-Allies game. (Important note: Even though it’s a fictional movie, I’ve seen “Victory” so many times during the past 25 years that I now feel like the game actually happened.) So the irony of enduring the Pats-Colts game so close to my umpteenth “Victory” viewing was just too bizarre. In fact, here’s how bizarre it was — while watching “Victory,” I thought to myself, “I hope this isn’t how the Pats game is called tomorrow.”

As it turned out, I wasn’t far off.

So the Patriots faced a situation similar to that of a team of inmates in a Nazi prison camp. And for a second I was afraid Simmons might go overboard.

Also, it’s good that Simmons here acknowledges that he is delusional, in believing that a soccer game in a Nazi prison camp featuring Pele and Slyvester Stallone actually happened. So, at least we have a

And besides, everyone was more interested in making excuses for the Colts (which reminds me, you can play the “Indy really missed Marvin Harrison card” so long as you also mention all the key guys New England was missing in the AFC Championship Game last January)

I don’t think that’s necessary because the AFC Championship Game was a playoff game. The point of mentioning that the Colts missed Harrison is that the Colts may be better than they displayed on Sunday, so the Pats victory doesn’t make the result of a playoff rematch a foregone conclusion. In the playoffs, you are the team that you are. And the Pats were missing “key guys” (whom Simmons fails to name).

I knew the Pats were in trouble less than three minutes into the game, when Aaron Moorehead’s entire left foot landed out of bounds on a first-down catch. Standing 10 feet away from him on either side, two officials improbably decided Moorehead landed inbounds, forcing the Patriots to waste a challenge to overturn a miserable call.

Ah, the first leg of the grand conspiracy — deliberately miss a reviewable call, causing the Patriots to burn their challenges — brilliant! Because as we all know, the Patriots’ success is built on the use of challenges. Without them, they’ll be powerless!

Like the 15-yard “unsportsmanlike conduct” call on Matt Light after Gary Brackett’s interception, of which CBS couldn’t even find a replay (14:04 remaining, fourth quarter).

Which is more likely?

• An offensive lineman got frustrated after an interception and did something stupid. The cameras, having no plausible reason to focus on an offensive lineman after an interception didn’t pick it up.
• The officials made it up on the spot to stick it to the Patriots.

Wait, there’s more! There was the no-call when Rosie Colvin got held while trying to sack Peyton Manning on a crucial third-and-15 that the Colts ended up converting on their last touchdown drive (12:52 remaining, fourth quarter).

So now we’re counting no-calls on holding? Better have a long set of film for that.

Or a pivotal first-and-goal interference call on Randy Moss when he made the mistake of running forward for five yards and turning around, which nearly murdered the Pats because they were trailing by 10 points and suddenly looking at first-and-goal from the 12 with less than nine minutes to play.

Um, I saw that play. It was offensive interference. Just because the officials usually let Moss get away with that doesn’t mean it’s not interference.

(Note: I’d give you the exact times on those last two plays, but both of them were mysteriously deleted from the NFL Network’s official replay of the game. Hmmmmmm.)

Wait — in the previous paragraph Simmons described how during that same replay, officiating head Mike Paeria had a lousy explanation for a bad interference call. But now we’re supposed to expect that they’re sweeping stuff under the rug? Right.

And how could the Patriots or their fans possibly find evidence for this if it’s not in “the NFL network’s official replay?” I guess if it’s not in the “official replay,” it didn’t happen… I guess they’re hoping nobody on the Patriots (who were fined for videotaping) gets a hold of the original broadcast, or a raw game film, or this brilliant cover-up could be foiled.

We haven’t seen homefield advantage work that well since Hitler invaded Russia.

Wait! I thought the NFL and the Colts were the Nazis.  What does Godwin’s law say about this move?

In fact, it passed six of the seven checkmarks on the Fishy Officiating Test. Here are those checkmarks, which I just made up 90 seconds ago:

1. The fans of the team about to get screwed need to worry even before the game, “I hope we win this one handily because there’s no way in hell we’re getting a call.”
2. You need a series of inexplicable calls spread throughout the game.
3. The officiating needs to be so reprehensibly bad that the fans of the team-getting-screwed are calling/e-mailing/complaining/texting each other with comments like, “Oh my God, this is fixed!” midway through the game even before the next few horrendously one-sided calls happen.
4. There needs to be one call (in Sunday’s case, the Samuel call) that makes you flash back to the shady offsides call in “Victory” when the British announcer screams, “The goal has been disallowed! The goal has been disallowed!”
5. The announcers need to openly question what’s happening, as it’s happening, at least three or four times.
6. You need a lingering feeling afterward that something fishy occurred, mainly because there was a clear motive for the biased officiating in the first place.
7. The targeted team needs to lose so its fans will spend the rest of eternity complaining about how they were screwed in the game.

Hmm, almost all of these have more to do with the fan’s response rather than the actual merits of the calls. And if you go into a game with the suspicion you’re going to be screwed, you’re going to spend the game looking for evidence to support that, especially if your team isn’t doing well.

I’ll have more to say about this whole, “it’s OK for the Patriots to be bad sports because they’ve been screwed over” argument elsewhere, but suffice it to say that this attitude has not proven beneficial in other contexts.

One thing I will say — I can see the players and coaches adapting this “eff you” attitude, if it helps them to perform at a higher level. But do the press and fans have to buy into it to? Does this help us appreciate the game more?

The thing is, I usually enjoy Simmons, but the Colts-Patriots rivalry is his kryptonite, and turns him into the most annoying homer fan in the world.

• I’m not convinced Charlie Weis is the worst coach in the universe,  but that loss to Navy was pretty embarassing.In the beginning of the game, Notre Dame appeared to be dominating, were up 7-0, then inexpicably called a rushing fake field goal on 4th and 15, a play only Gregg Easterbrook could love.  The Midshipmen stopped them, then I switched the channel when actual good games came on.

  As I’ve said before, those pointing to the unequal treatment of Weis and Ty Willingham are looking increasingly correct.

• Speaking of the good games, has a network ever gotten a better series of games than CBS has from the SEC in the last several weeks?Florida-LSU, LSU-Kentucky, Kentucky-Florida, Florida-Georgia, and last week’s LSU-Alabama tilt.  All great, close games between good teams with great subplots.  The Pac-10 looks good here, but their games are never on in the Midwest, and the SEC has been terrifically entertaining.
• Can you believe the Patriots lined up and kicked the extra point after they scored their go-ahead touchdown?  That point turned out to be meaningless to the result of the game, and was a transparent attempt to show up the Colts and their classy coach Tony Dungy.  This has to stop.*
• The McNabb-Reid-Brian Dawkins Eagles are dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.  They’ve gotten old, they’re getting pushed around, and can’t hang with the Cowboys and Giants.  Let the rebuilding begin.
• Sunday’s big game showed that the Patriots are not invincible.  If the Colts played a perfect game, they would have won.  So, there will at least be some suspense to the rest of the year.Also, what else does Rodney Harrison have to do to be considered a villain?  The guy ended Trent Green’s season on a hit to the knees in a preseason game, for crying out loud.  He’s always whining to the officials, and is a confirmed drug cheater.  Andre Waters didn’t do half of that, but that didn’t stop him from being a villain.  But today’s announcers treat him like a wise old veteran.

* Yes, I’m kidding.

I thought it would be fun to provide answers to all the (implied unanswerable) questions in Gregg Easterbrook’s TMQ column this week.

The lack of answers leaves several questions hanging out there. Chief among them: Is it possible the Patriots’ tapes showed some evidence of New England cheating in a Super Bowl?

I suppose. Is it possible that that newspaper you just threw out contained some incriminating evidence? Huh?

After Aiello twice declined to say what the Patriots’ materials showed, I heard from him a third time Sunday. He wrote in an e-mail that my assumption the tapes contained indications of Super Bowl cheating is “wrong,” then wrote, “There is no such evidence regarding the Patriots’ Super Bowl victories.” So, is this the denial that I’ve been seeking?

I guess. You and nobody else.

When I pointed that out, Aiello countered that the reason for the destruction was “so that our clubs would know they no longer exist and cannot be used by anyone.” Again, if the sole copies were being held by the league, how could any club use the material?

The idea is to avoid the possibility of impropriety. As long as the leagues has the tapes, the possibility exists that they could be leaked to another team.

If a big American institution such as the NFL is not being honest with the public about a subject as minor, in the scheme of things, as the Super Bowl, how can we expect American government and business to be honest with the public about what really matters?

Not sure if Easterbrook’s ecumenical soup chuch also heard the parable of the dishonest steward last weekend, which ends with Jesus admonishing, “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.” That might explain this odd line.

Except its application here is a bit clumsy because we’re not talking about the same people. I could use the same logic to launch a crusade against people saying they enjoyed meals they didn’t really care for. Government officials are accountable to the public. The NFL isn’t. If we don’t like the way the NFL runs its business, we don’t have to watch it.

Kansas City cheerleader Haley is a college student whose fashion personality, according to her team bio, is “classic and trendy.” How can you be classic and trendy simultaneously?

Not sure, but being smokin’ hot probably plays a role.

The Redskins rushed up to the line as if the clock was about to expire, snapping the ball on fourth-and-goal; the team didn’t seem set, the play was discombobulated and the runner crashed into his own blocker, ending the game. Why did Washington hurry the final play? There were 40 seconds on the clock, ample time for a standard huddle.

They were hoping to catch the Giants off-guard. It obviously didn’t work, since the Giants were organized to stop the play, but not a terrible idea.

And why hasn’t there been a big-budget Green Hornet flick?

Interesting point. I always considered the Green Lantern to be one of the cooler superheroes. I guess they had to exhaust Batman and Spiderman first.

What is the story with the 0-3 Rams? Maybe the weak start links to Rams coach Scott Linehan’s preposterously naming nine captains — Marc Bulger, Steven Jackson, Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce, La’Roi Glover, Pisa Tinoisamoa, Will Witherspoon, Corey Chavous and Jeff Wilkins

More likely it was the injury to Orlando Pace leading to the entire team playing scared and trying to play offense like the Chicago Bears without a corresponding defense and special teams.

Or it could be having nine captains, I suppose. Having a few extra guys making that initial trek to midfield may add to fatigue….

But when it was Philadelphia leading 49-21 with eight minutes remaining, what the hey was McNabb doing still in the game and still heaving passes? Especially as he’s less than a year removed from a torn ACL.

Not sure what the incremental risk of re-injuring a knee is for an extra quarter of football.

The Eagles needed to win this game, and McNabb needed to establish rhythm with his receivers. There is probably also some code of “respect” with NFL coaches that says that the team ahead doesn’t call off the dogs until the losing team surrenders.

When it was Philadelphia 56-21 with five minutes remaining, what the hey was Jon Kitna doing still in the game and still heaving passes? Especially when he’s just a week from a concussion.

A better question — probably wanting Kitna to leave on a good note.

How long until celebrities construct giant roofs over their swimming pools to frustrate space-based photography?

I’m guessing pretty long.

Trailing 21-17, Seattle had first-and-10 on the Trick or Treats’ 22 with 1:06 remaining. The Seahawks must score a touchdown to win, so where, oh where, might the pass go? Maybe up the field!

Or not. 1:06 is a pretty long time to got 22 yards. The Seahawks had all sorts of options at this point, not quite Hail Mary time.

Come on, Canton, the Canadians can do it, why can’t you?
Because the Mexicans don’t.

How come no one wants to be nicknamed Half-Track Williams?
Would you want to be nicknamed Half-Track Williams?

Washington hadn’t scored in the second half and had gained only 51 yards in the entire half to that point. Why was a blitz needed?

Had the Giants blitzed at all in building up those impressive statistics.

I suspect the blitz was “needed” in an attempt to put pressure on the QB to either sack him or force him into a bad throw.

And what was that color Houston was wearing?
Dark blue

Want to go hiking where nuclear-bomb triggers were made?
Not particularly, I suppose, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid it.

Trailing 30-20 with 3:07 remaining and two timeouts, Atlanta faces fourth-and-goal on the Carolina 6.So do they try for the touchdown, or take a field goal then onside kick, or take a field goal then boom a standard kickoff?
They took the FG and boomed the kick-off. May be defensible, depending on how the defense was playing. The real sin was the defense letting DeSahun Foster pick up three first downs and ice the game. Hard to win that way.

Tight end is the NFL’s most neglected position: endlessly quarterbacks look for wide receivers who are covered by really fast guys when the tight end can go down the seam covered by a linebacker. Will offensive coordinators notice Dallas’ success with tight ends and remember that they, too, have tight ends on the roster?

Oh, I’m quite sure they’re aware, but have two problems:
a.) Their tight ends aren’t as athletic as Jason Witten and thus less effective as pass catchers.
b.) Their tight ends help protect the quarterback, which makes the blitz less effective, as you are aware.

Got a complaint or a deeply held grievance?
A few…

I was not shocked, scandalized, or surprised by the finding that the Patriots used video cameras  to steal the Jet’s defensibe signals. 

As I’ve said before, the Patriots are the ultimate “the system is the star” team.  That their coaches would look for an edge is every place possible is not surprising.

Pats fans will probably point out that the tactical gain was minimal, and the players still had to make the plays of the field, which is true. I’m not looking to take away their Super Bowl trophies.  But I think it’s more complex than the simple advantage of if the Pats knew what the Jets were doing.

There has been this legend surrounding Bellichek over the past seven years that he is some genius coach the likes of which we’ve never seen before.  I think Bellichek is a good coach, but probably not more than a standard deviation above the mean.

But that’s not what’s important.  The important thing is that the players beleieve it.  Unlike baseball, which is a series of one-on-one battles, football is tremendously dependednt on effort and cohesion.  In order for players to exert maximum effort and play together, they must buy into the system.

How do the coaches do this?  By creating a cult of genius around themselves.  By leaking word that they sleep in their offices.  By, as Bill Simmons notes, letting David Halberstam follow you around so he can write a book about how smart you are.  And by bending the rules to give your players an edge.

So if you’re a Patriots offensive linesman, and you’re playing for a coach everyone hails as a genius, who wokrs 100 hour weeks, and he has put himself at some risk by devising a system to figure out the opposition plays so he can pick the ideal play for you, how could you loaf?  Wouldn’t you feel that you have been completely positioned to succeed?

Obviously, this isn’t the only way to do it.  The recent Super Bowl winning coaches — Tony Dungy, Bill Cowher, Bellichek, Brian Billick, Jon Gruden, Dick Vermeil — are all completely different personality types, with different talent bases.

But the videotaping is completely consistent with the way the Patriots win.

Even though my two favorite teams both lost in depressing fashion, it was still a lot of fun to watch NFL football again.

Some observations:

• Contra Bernie Miklasz, the Rams’ problem yesterday was the offense, not the defense.  The way the Rams are constructed, the defense’s job is to slow down the other team, and the offense’s job is to go out and win the game.  The offense has highly paid stars — Isaac Bruce, Torry Holy, Stephen Jackson, Orlando Pace.  The only defensive player the Rams have of that caliber is Leonard Little.If the offense has a string of three and outs, as they did once Orlando Pace went down, this defense is not going to be able to stop a team that is minimally competent offensively, as the Panthers are.  They can’t hold them forever.  They just don’t have the horses.

  For three quarters the defense did its job, and kept the Rams in the game.  The offense didn’t hold up its end.

• Hope everybody’s enjoying watching Peyton Manning play quarterback, because he has mastered the position, and is something to watch.
• Hard to believe the Bears went into another year with Rex Grossman at QB.  I know everybody likes the guy, but at some point the other players are going to tire of busting their butts and losing when he can’t make a play.
• Either the Pats are really damn good, or the Jets aren’t.  Probably both.
• I guess Tony Romo is over that botched hold, huh?

What if there were a playoff?
I’ve heard just about enough about how great it would be if Boise State could play for the national championship in some sort of playoff game. It seems extremely odd after watching one of the best games ever to advocate for a system that would have made that game impossible. But let’s play along for a bit.

The BCS teams were:

Ohio St. (#1)
Florida (#2)
Michigan(#3)
LSU(#4)
Louisville(#5)
Oklahoma(#7)
USC(#8)
Boise State(#9)
Notre Dame (#11)
Wake Forest (#15)

A 10 team tournament wouldn’t work out mathematically — it would have to be 4 or 8 teams. (And a “one-plus” system would have to be seeded as well — it would be unfair to make a team like Ohio St. play the second best team, and then the team deemed most worthy).

Boise St. doesn’t make a four team tournament. Even if we limit it to conference champions, there are still five ranked head of Boise St. So that doesn’t solve anything.

Let’s look and an 8 team tournament. If we drop the bottom 2 teams, then Boise St. would be matched up against Ohio St. in the first round. Now, Oklahoma was a good team, but also one that lost to Oregon and Texas, who were nowhere near the national title picture. And Boise St. needed overtime and every gadget play in their playbook to beat them. Also, Ohio St. would be playing with more urgency than Oklahoma was, since they would need the game to keep their title hopes alive. So I wouldn’t like their chances there.

Maybe we limit it to conference champions. Then, Michigan and LSU drop out, and Boise St. becomes the sixth seed, matched up with Louisville in the first round. They probably have a better chance there than against Ohio St., but I’m still not loving their chances. If they won that one, they would go on to face the winner of Florida-Notre Dame.

Again, I don’t see this ending in a better way for Boise St. than what we saw. Can we just enjoy the game and the season Boise St. had without trying to puff ourselves up with this playoff talk?

Prediction for tonight
I think Ohio St. rolls.
(Got around to posting this at halftime with the Gators up by three touchdowns. Ooops.)

NFL thoughts

• It seems somewhat typical of how the Eagles manage their team that they would have gone out and signed their old holder to position themselves for success.
• I still like Tony Romo, and I think he’s going to be a great QB for a number of years.
• Two great match-ups in the AFC next week – four truly great teams.
• Quick picks – Pats, Eagles, Seahawks, Ravens. I just don’t trust Grossman.

Hey, I love Pater King’s MMQB column, but I gotta call him on this little sequence..

Two weeks ago, I reported on NBC that I gave Saban two chances to say he would be back with the Dolphins in 2007 and not take a college job, and he wouldn’t say he’d definitely be back. I thought it was news. NBC thought it was news. We aired it.

followed by…

Deep Coach answered the question the way I wish all of them would.

“Sorry I can’t help you,” he said. “I just don’t talk about my contract. Ever.”

Great! Don’t lie, don’t tell. That should be the policy of every coach.

The hell you do, Peter. Otherwise, you wouldn’t ask. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have called it “news” when Saban did pretty much exactly what you’re proposing.

And King isn’t the only one on a high horse.

Look, I know Saban “lied.” Lying isn’t good.

And isn’t it possible that when Saban made those commitments he hadn’t imagined an offer like the one he received? And he’s supposed to leave that on the table because he had told some sportswriters otherwise? Do you think that if any of them were offered a record contract to jump ship, they wouln’t do it, regardless of what they might have said earlier?

But exactly who was hurt by this lie? He took the job in the first week of the offseason, giving the Dolphins as much time as possible to adjust. It’s not like he had recruited players under the assumption he would be their coach.

No, Saban just made a few sportswriters look bad, and they’re taking their revenge. And it’s ugly.

Random thoughts on some things going on in the blogosphere.

The Althouse-Goldberg-Liberty Fund Conference brouhaha

You can follow the links from this post to catch up. And depite Adler saying those were the “last words,” I’ll chime in (I doubt anyone will notice).

a.) Regardless about who’s right on this, I think Althouse’s reputation suffers from her involvement in this debate. My impression of her is someone who is accustomed to accusations of racism ending debates in favor of the person launching the accusation, and doesn’t know how to handle it when it doesn’t.

b.) Jonah Goldberg detacts a double standard that isn’t quite apt for reasons Matthew Yglesias outlines here.

But it’s also true that the civil rights movement and the abolitionist movement were largely fueled by religious conviction. Shouldn’t the many commentators warning about the dangers of fusing faith and politics have to account more seriously for the possibility that what they are proposing would have robbed these movements of their fuel? But I guess it’s different because they were right and today’s “Christianists” and “theocons” are wrong.

c.) If I’m basing a new ship’s design on the design of the Titanic, I damn well better account for how my ship will avoid the same fate. If I’m proposing that we start using zeppelins again, I better be prepared to answer questions about the Hindenburg

And yes, if I’m going to say how great states’ rights are, I better account for segregation and slavery.

Whether the Liberty Fund conference is a forum where this needs to take place is less clear.

Not a Bush Not A Nixon Not A Ford Not A Lincoln
Bruce Reed writes that Bush should emulate Ford in serving the remainder of his term in humility.

The thing is I don’t think Bush is disposed to do that. And I don’t think a President Kerry would have been either.

Ford is unique among presidents in that he never was elected or sought the office of vice president or president. Thus, this type of shot was in his bag.

But I think the type of person who would do everything it takes to launch a successful presidential run is not the type of person who is going to serve with humility. I also think it’s human nature not to do that after all that work. I travelled all over the country, alienated my family, lived out of a suitcase for a solid year so I could stay out of the way? No, thank you.

In my opinion, the critical flaw of this administration is that it has aimed to maximize the power he has to do what Bush wants rather than doing the hard work of leading the country and the world community to support it. Maybe a different president would have a different style. But, “if elected, I will lead by building consensus!” doesn’t exactly get people reaching for their checkbooks.

Football predictions

• Chiefs over Colts — Larry Johnson runs over the Colts; Dungy gets fired.
• Cowboys over Seahawks — I really think the Cowboys are better than their loss to the Lions.
• Patriots over Jets — Looks like the easiest call on the board, which gives me pause.
• Eagles over Giants — Both New York teams in playoff action against their closest geographical division rivals. Should be a fun week!

I was reading the Sports Illustrated Year in Review edition (which thankfully did not name “you” as Sportsman of the Year), and in the college football section, they referred to this episode as “brilliant.” It may be brilliant, but it’s awful sportsmanship.

To recap, in an attempt to speed up the game, they put in a rule this year that on kick-offs, the clock starts when the ball is kicked rather than when the receiving team touches it. (I don’t recall many complaints that college football games took too long, or that logging the time when a kick-off is in flight would have that great an impact, but whatever…)

Anyway, in a game against Penn State, Wisoncsin scores a touchdown with 30 seconds left in the half, then purposely jumps offside twice on kickoffs to burn that time off the clock.

And for this, the Wisconsin coaches are lauded as “brilliant.”

But what does such a strategy have to do with determining who was the better football team that day?

I understand that strategy and gamesmanship are part of sports, and people exploit oddities in the rules all the time. The four corners offense, calling time-out when falling out of bounds (or throwing the ball off an opponents leg), or even fouling a player who an uncontested lay-up or giving an intentional walk to a great hitter are all ways of turning a contest from an athletic competition into a contest of who can use the rules to his greatest advantage. And, of course, the end of any close basketball game includes the trailing team commiting fouls when the opposing team has the ball to force them to make free throws.

But I wonder what impact the celebration of these “clever” strategies has on the culture.

For example, I am pro-life. Since Roe vs. Wade, the pro-life movement has had an almost single-minded obsession with overturning it. This entails electing presidents who would nominate judges inclined to overturn the decision, and get them confirmed by the Senate.

Since many Senators could not vote to confirm a justice they know would overturn the decision, this involves an odd dance where the nominees try to reveal as little as possible.

During the Harriet Miers debate, some conservative commentators thought she was a good “stealth” nominee. — she didn’t have a paper trail of opposition to Roe, so maybe she could be confirmed. (My thoughts at the time on that are here).

Then there was the “nuclear option” — it turns out we could change the rules of the Senate so that fillibusters could be ended with a simple majority vote. Why not do that to get some of these justices confirmed?

No and No.

I do not dispute the necessity of overturning Roe. In addition to the abortions themselves, I feel it has coarsened our culture, and poisoned our politics. It cannot end soon enough.

But it must be defeated squarely and fairly, not by sneaking through “stealth” nominees, or exploting undiscovered loopholes in the Senate rules. A victory won that way would not be a victory at all. It would not prove that we had the superior arguments, any more than if Wisonsin winning by their little stunt would prove they were the superior football team.

We need to commit to not take short-cuts, to do the hard work of persuasion and cultural transformation to win public debates, rather than think we can be more clever at manipulating the intricacies of the political system.