Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Gregg Easterbrook : Logical Sports Arguments :: Jason Vorhees : Crystal Lake Camp Counselors

TMQ suspects there is a siren-like effect of being a very high-scoring team, luring you toward the rocks. Running up the score is always punished in the end --

Yeah, just ask the 1994-1995 49ers.

and in most of the games when the 2007 Pats and the 2008 Sooners got big point totals, they needlessly ran up the score.

The Patriots maybe, but you'd be pretty hard pressed to find anyone who would argue that Oklahoma's raping of Texas Tech didn't directly help them get higher rankings from pollsters, leading to higher rankings in the BCS, a spot in the Big 12 Championship, and therefore, a spot in the BCS Title game.

The desire to win is admirable; the desire to strut around boasting about how much you won by is not. If your brain is taken over by the craving to humiliate opponents with high scores, the football gods exact punishment.

Right, 1992-1993 Dallas Cowboys?

New England in last year's Super Bowl and Oklahoma in the BCS title tilt seemed to enter the final game thinking the goal wasn't merely to win, but rather to ring up lots of points and be lauded as mega-terrific.

If you had asked any player or coach from either team before the game if they'd be pleased to win their championship game 6-3, there isn't a single one of them who would have said "no."

A few days before the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl, Tom Brady openly scoffed at a suggestion the Patriots might be held to half their scoring average. How they wish they'd reached half their scoring average!

The prediction was made by Plaxico Burress; obviously Brady wasn't going to say "Yeah, Plax is right; their defense probably will smother us." On the other hand, if the Patriots had scored 62 points and won, Easterbrook would've undoubtedly written something like:

"Prior to the game, Plaxico Burress, he of only 2 receptions in the entire game, predicted that the Giants would hold the league's best offense to half their points per game average. Oh how the football Gods chortled as Brady's TD passes rained down upon the Giants like lightening bolts."

Oklahoma went into the BCS title game on an incredible run of five straight 60-plus scoring days, and seemed concerned with flashy touchdowns scored quickly so people would "ooh" and "aah." Reaching third-and-goal on the Florida 1, Oklahoma went ultra-hurry-up, then ultra-hurry-up again on fourth-and-goal, ending up with nothing. Both plays were snapped seconds after the ball was signaled ready for play, and both looked disorganized. At the 1, why not huddle and get things right? But the Sooners wanted people to say, "Look how fast they scored, how do they do that?"

WRONG, WRONG, A THOUSAND TIMES WRONG.

I don't even need to explain why this is theory is so mind numbingly retarded. However, it is safe to say: Gregg, you are guilty of the single worst sports paragraph of 2009...so far.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm convinced he didn't even watch the game. They weren't in hurry anything, much less ultra. They were in a slow no huddle. Confusion = looking to the sideline for the play I guess. While I disagree with how they were running their offense most of the game, the goaline situations weren't any different then the rest of the game. We all saw the game, too bad Greggg didn't.

Chris Wong said...
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Chris Wong said...
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Jeff said...

Jack you hit Easterbrook on the head with that great fake paragraph.

No matter what happens, he can craft some Easterbrookian bullshit reasoning for it.

Anonymous said...

Just to diverge slightly from the wanderings of Greggg's writing, I have to admit that I really dislike the "extended no huddle" where the offense lines up like they are going to snap it(fooling no one) and then everyone looks over at the sidelines where there are 3 or more games of charades going on, followed by a reshuffling of the formation (where invariably at least one guy needs further directions from the QB to locate his position) and a snap count. It just offends my sense of the rhythm of an offense. Either go into a true hurry up and get the play under way or get into the huddle and get everyone on the same page.

And just what is wrong with leather helmets anyway?

Chris W said...

I am intrigued by your views as well.

Tonus said...

I still don't understand this concern with running up the score. I just don't think it would feel any better to lose 42-14, knowing that the halftime score was 35-0 and that the only reason it wasn't 70-0 is because the other team ran the ball on purpose in order to keep from scoring even more points. As if they said "look, this is silly. We'll just go one-dimensional because that seems like all you can handle. Here, we'll have the third-string kicker run the ball. Okay?"

Yeah, I feel a lot better losing a blowout to a team that stopped trying at halftime. I'm sure the football gods are applauding the winners over that one!

To summarize: Gregg, stop posting.

Anonymous said...

This article makes it seem like he does not know that the score differential in a college football game makes a huge difference.

IT IS THE ONLY REASON OKLAHOMA WAS IN THE GAME!!!!

P.S. We miss you at TMK pnoles.

Unknown said...

The guy acts like Florida wasn't putting up a ton of points on people this season.

Bengoodfella said...

This guy knows nothing about football Larry, so you will have to excuse him if he did not know that Florida was scoring as many points as Oklahoma at the end of last year.