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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.

    NFL: The Price of Victory & Who's Counting

    I'll be brief (yeah right, greybeard, and my porfolio didn't go down). Seems to me that when I watch games among the bigs (yeap I started watching football again despite the mayheem, economic hard times will do that to anyone), the team that wins wants it more. Why do I say that? Because they have guys taking more cheap shots? Maybe, but that's not it, at least for me. What it seems like to me is that when Washington say plays Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh wins, Pittsburgh pays the price in having more of its guys injured, really banged up, then you'd expect.

    Somebody should keep this as a statistic. No, I'm not joking. Instead of on Monday just reporting the bare fact of who has been injured and how bad, somebody should report that in the context of who won, who the team was playing, whether a bad team outperformed expectations, etc.

    My guess is that when coaches get their players really amped it can produce special results, one of which is extra injuries. If that is the case, someone ought to be saying it. Someone besides me, someone who someone actually listens to. Heck, in the military, they give guys metals for getting injured in battle. That's the least that they could do in the NFL, when the injury is the expected cost of beating the other guy, if it is.

    Am I really the only person who thinks that this is happening. Who cares.

    By the way, talking about Pittsburgh, why was Big Ben playing this week. I mean he was more than a little dinged up against the Skins; his replacement won the game for him, and playing hurt, he says at the end that he cost his team the game. So, how come the coach let Ben play? Why do coaches insist on letting players play hurt when there are guys behind them who have proven that they can get it done? "That's easy, grey, that's the American way, all businesses run that way." Now I know why I'm watchin football again, at least. Later.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.

    oops, Seems There's a Glitch in My Theory

    We learn this week that, even though they got beat down by the Steelers, at least one of the Redskins was trying extra hard--that would be Mr. Portas, who it turns out badly sprained his MCL during that contest. Thus, my paradigm that winning is in direct proportion to how much in the way of important players' body parts a team is willing to leave on the field might need some tweaking.

    However, the fact still remains that the Steelers' star quarterback gets a partial dislocation of his throwing shoulder in helping get the win, only to lose the next game for his teammates by his own admission (no, he did not use the shoulder as an excuse and I am oh so sure that it did not affect his play), and the Skins' star running back is going to miss the match-up of all match-ups, a home game against the evil empire, the Dallas Cowboys.

    The only drama this week is which team's injured star player will be f#$%% stupid enough to play, Romo or Portas. My money is on Romo. Why? He already has got the chick, and it's only a pinky (hell, some college player, and I swear this is true, cut his freakin pinky off when he learned that it was going to keep him out of his division IA school's game against his heated rivals, no really, this is true, pinky swear).

    So, does that mean I'd take the Boys against my Skins. Hell no. Why? Because Shawn Alexandar has something to prove after his former team cut him loose after a hall of fame career when they figured he was all washed up after he blew out his knee. Look for a stellar game from him, and the Skins eke it out.

    And, yet, there are some people who still insist that pro football is somehow about which team is more skilled, as oppose to which has lesser maimed players of consequence. No wonder my portfollio is down.

  3. #3
    In your theory is it possible that both teams "want it" the same amount, but that one is more talented in general, or on the day in question executed better?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Quote Originally Posted by allenmurray View Post
    In your theory is it possible that both teams "want it" the same amount, but that one is more talented in general, or on the day in question executed better?
    Yes. In truth, this thread occurred to me while watching the Skins lose to the Rams I think it was. The Rams' players, in particular the corners, were playing plain nasty. One got wheeled off in the first half; the other carried off in the second. They also lost an interior lineman.

    The team was clearly amped over the top, and one of their D lineman got an unsportsmanlike on the next to last play of the game that almost cost them the game. Everyone was calling the guy a complete jerk, which he surely was. However, the guy was playing like a madman the entire afternoon--think no. 66 in The Replacements.

    The league is clearly concerned with these issues, and, in a ridiculous twist, it is the players who are pushing back against fines etc for the dangerous play that is taking place. I wonder, and it is only that, whether desparate coaches don't engender dangerous play by asking players to "win one for the Gipper" or some such.

    But, allenmurray, as I said, I hate myself for it but I watch for precisely the reason you identify. Tremendous action, and tremendous play making. Absolutely!

    What I hate is the incidental helmet to helmet hits by d backs that still get uncalled when it appears completely incidental, the brutality of some hits in the back of receivers who are high in the air, a d lineman crawling to a quarterback and thrusting himself into the guy's planted leg (another okay play by the rules by the very same player I believe who got carded (mixed sports metaphor) in the last moments as described above, and, among many more things, this whole business about playing "hurt." If Portas plays, I can tell you right now, I won't . . . . Actually, I'll hate myself in the morning.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    And, yet, there are some people who still insist that pro football is somehow about which team is more skilled, as oppose to which has lesser maimed players of consequence. No wonder my portfollio is down.
    Quote Originally Posted by allenmurray View Post
    In your theory is it possible that both teams "want it" the same amount, but that one is more talented in general, or on the day in question executed better?
    When I played football in high school, I was always amped up and felt like humiliating which ever tight end or tackle I was facing. Not a play went by where I didn't want a back trying to run up my gap. I enjoyed forearm shivers, swims, spins, anything that would get me into the back field where I could make a play. There were days where I racked up tackles, or opened up gaps of linebackers and just owned the o-line. But. But there were days when the body just didn't agree with the mind and I couldn't make the plays that I saw developing in my head.

    Now, the obvious distinction was that I was playing high school ball, not pro or even college ball. But the fact still remained that I wanted it bad, and sometimes the guys were just bigger or better than me. We lost one game one year, and I sat out three quarters due to a pulled muscle in my back. The injury actually happened in practice, and was terribly aggravated in the game. I'm not saying I was a god on the field, but my sub played terribly and dropped a drive-ending interception. Skill, or good hands, prevent Willie from catching that ball and injury put him place to do so.

    I think it's a complicated formula that definitely includes skill, injuries, and desire.

    Portis won't play this weekend. I hope Tony Romo does. And I hope we kill him, not literally of course, but yeah.

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