Sports fans, winning and uncertainty

[JerryvonKramer]

Thought this was pretty interesting:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/23685153

 

We might think about it in a pro wrestling context too, especially when we think of Hogan and Cena, but I stuck it in Mostly because it says interesting things about quite a few sports. Any thoughts?

[Death From Above]

I watch a near-embarrassing amount of sport, and I think in a way sports have gotten even bigger over the last generation almost as a reflex to "reality TV" being thrown on top of regular TV. Just layers of fakeness on top of layers of fakeness. Sports are a method of rebellion against that for some. If you want to see real, unscripted, actual reality TV, sports are pretty much the only shows on earth where that happens. The genuine uncertainty of what happens next is clearly a huge part of the universal appeal.

 

It's also the last bastion of true live TV, and the only market where being live is not only important but actually fundamental to what makes the show work. Being asked to watch a sporting event on tape delay is a way of directly insulting a sports fan, generally, which isn't true in literally any other format of TV.

[Ditch]

Reality TV is considerably faker than pro wrestling, which I'm pretty sure has already been said to death but I never get tired of saying it myself.

 

The "just right" unpredictability is crucial to so many things in the world of entertainment, which includes sports. The Super Bowl made a huge turn-around in relevance when the massive underdog babyface New England Patriots beat the mighty Rams (holy shit just think that one over football fans). The NFC had been dominant for so long that the AFC revival made it a big game again.

 

The nWo was a ne plus ultra for unpredictable wrestling booking, from the Hogan turn to the nWo taped promos to the chaotic assaults on WCW as a whole. When it got to the point where the WCW babyface hits a finisher on an nWo guy and the crowd stands up and looks at the entrance for the run-in, it's gone all the way around to predictable. Likewise, Russo's post-WWF booking was possibly the most predictable booking you'll ever see because he forced swerves in at certain sorts of moments every time, regardless of the logic or backstory.

[jdw]

The Super Bowl made a huge turn-around in relevance when the massive underdog babyface New England Patriots beat the mighty Rams (holy shit just think that one over football fans). The NFC had been dominant for so long that the AFC revival made it a big game again.

The Pats win was the 4th in 5 years by the AFC. The turn around for the AFC started when the Broncos beat the heavily favored Packers in SB XXXII.

 

Not clear if it changed anything in relevance either. Less than 2M more people watched the next SB. The Rams spiked viewership by 4.7M viewers in 2000, and 2.5M viewers in 2002, with of all things a dip in a SB with the Giants in it in between.

 

SB viewership is an odd duck:

 

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013...6-1-tweets.html

 

There are some things that clearly drove viewership up, such as Farve-Elway in 1998. But there are other things like Seattle-Pitt drawing 4M more than Pats-Eagles the year before (Pats an iconic team by that point, and two massive markets relative to Seattle and Pitt). The Peyton spike in 2007, the undefeated Pats the following year, the Peyton-Brees two years later... those make season. The huge spike up for Pack-Pitt the next year makes less sense, especially in light of the modest jump the year after that for the Pats-Giants rematch that was (i) rematch of a recent classic, (ii) New York market, (iii) rabid Boston market, and (iv) Brady.

 

For everything the looks obvious, there will be odd jumps and then things the look obvious where there isn't a jump or as much of one as you'd think.

 

Your head will hurt thinking about it.

 

John

[BrickHithouse]

Rams-Pats was also the first clearly obvious scripted Super Bowl, but that's a losing battle and I should just shut up and quit dropping that line here

[jdw]

 

"The first worked Super Bowl was Super Bowl III. Pete Rozell

needed the AFL to win to help get over the merger, and the Colts

were told to lay down. The Colts got their win back by getting put

over the Cowboys in Super Bowl V. Don Shula was asked to look

at the lights again in Super Bowl VI to help create the America's Team

gimmick for Dallas, as the Cowboys had always jobbed to bigger

teams prior to that and no one took them seriously as a main

eventer. Shula's reward for doing two major jobs that Rozell wanted

was the monster push in 1972-73: back-to-back titles with the

Undefeated Season which Rozell promised would never be duplicated.

Every generation of NFL Creative since then has been trying to get

out from under that deal Rozell made with Shula, but whenever any

team gets close, Shula whips out the contract and exerts Creative

Control. The most famous being in 1985 where Shula finally forced

the Bears to lay down to Shula's old team the Dolphins on a Monday

Night Football classic. The Patriots in 2007? Belichick tried to swerve

the NFL, but the Giants shot on them with the Tyree pass to save

the NFL billions in a breach of contract case Shula was prepared to

file the following Monday. The famous Popping The Champagne spot

by Shula and the 72 Fins has become their way of flipping the bird at

NFL Creative trying to screw with them. It's like Red Auerbach's

lighting the cigar to prove he was in control of the NBA Book whenever

any upstart tried to pull a power play, but that's a story for another time."

-Dave Meltzer, Football Observer Newsletter

 

 

John

[Death From Above]

Football has been worked since the early 1900's when the Canadians decided to play by the real rules while the Americans added a fourth down and shrunk the field, then told the whole world Canada plays by goofy rules and people actually accepted it as the truth.

 

It's all a conspiracy. A conspiracy I say. It's like the cause of the NWA/AWA split. Only real.

[Ditch]

The Pats win was the 4th in 5 years by the AFC. The turn around for the AFC started when the Broncos beat the heavily favored Packers in SB XXXII.

I always forget about those Broncos wins. Probably because "1983 draft QB leads livestock-themed team to victory" is really painful to consider as a Bills fan.

[Death From Above]

In fairness the Bills did draft Jim Kelley that year who wasn't exactly awful.

 

Of course... that Marino guy was right there. But the team that really should have kicked themselves over that was the Steelers since Marino wanted to play there as much as anything, and after they passed on him Bradshaw was done within weeks.

[BrickHithouse]

I think Kelly vs Marino is a wash, all things considered. I personally like Kelly better, though the numbers disagree.

 

The Chiefs passed on Marino, among others, in order to select Todd Blackledge.

 

Marino went 27th due to perceived (or legit) "attitude problems" and scored something like a 4 on the Wonderlic.

 

Damn, he would have fit like a glove in Pittsburgh who passed on him since they had the great Mark Malone ready to step in.

 

Hindsight is a beautiful thing but it's pretty crazy that 20+ teams passed up Marino.

[Ditch]

In fairness the Bills did draft Jim Kelley that year who wasn't exactly awful.

It's the fact that Elway lost badly then came back to win, whereas Kelly just kept losing. Western NY sports was such a black hole for the longest time; Bills 0-4 in the Super Bowl, Sabres lost to those damn dirty Flyers in '75, Syracuse Orangemen get to the Final Four finals twice and lose. At least we could take comfort in the fact that Marino and Elway were blanked in the big one as well... until Elway showed he still had something left in the tank.

 

At least we got Carmelo Anthony for one year to finally win a championship. Unless you could college lacrosse, which nobody should.

[Death From Above]

I (like most Canadians) enjoy needling people from Toronto and brought out the "nobody in Toronto has won anything since the Jays world series" last year, and someone actually brought up their pro lacrosse dynasty in the NLL. I honestly had no idea how to even respond to that without resorting to the NOT SURE IF SERIOUS meme.

 

Then again I guess it's not really more out there than Dana White calling Georges St. Pierre the most famous athlete in Canada.

[ButchReedMark]

I think being Welsh and supporting a perennially financially fucked lower league football team I'm not quite too bothered about losing. Welsh teams have lost at everything for so long I'm more arsed about being competitive, or for years "as long as we beat the fucking English". But since 2005 and the massive strides made by our Rugby team I won't accept anything less than victory with them, which I can get quite passionate about (shouting, tears, tantrums) at times. I mean, when I think between the differences of my reactions in 2003 ("Well, at least we gave them a game") to now ("Winning by 4 or 5 isn't e-fucking-nough though, we've France next week. Then the English!") maybe there is something to be said for winning being everything. Or maybe winning just breeding greed for more of it in the diehard supporters, resulting in bigger emotional crashes when we don't succeed. I mean, when I look at it from the outside, we're only a nation of 3 million people, maybe we're even overachieving. But I'm not on the outside, I've been obsessed with Welsh rugby since the age of 6 in 1991, and that's bred massive emotional outbursts on my behalf when things do or don't go my way.

 

 

I've forgotten my point. I think it was "shitting yourself about a result makes sport better".

[Ditch]

I've forgotten my point. I think it was "shitting yourself about a result makes sport better".

This. And ultimately, wrestling at its best does the same, which is amazing because it's worked.

[NintendoLogic]

At least we could take comfort in the fact that Marino and Elway were blanked in the big one as well... until Elway showed he still had something left in the tank.

That something's name was Terrell Davis.

[jdw]

I think Kelly vs Marino is a wash, all things considered. I personally like Kelly better, though the numbers disagree.

Kelly was perfectly fine, and we shouldn't forget that Marino lost badly in his one SB... and then never got a team back. We also should remember that if they got Marino, they wouldn't have:

 

* drafted #1 over in 1985 to pick Bruce Smith

 

The Bills drafted #1 overall by going 2-14 in 1984. That same season, Marino set new NFL records in yardage and TD and led the Fins to a 14-2 record. It's safe to say that the Bills wouldn't have been 2-14 in 1984, and never gotten the anchor to the defense. No Smith, even Marino isn't taking that team to the SB with any regularity. Wait... who was the other anchor of the defense in the SB seasons? That's right...

 

* have their "future picks" look as attractive on October 31, 1987 to get in on the Eric Dickerson deal

 

The Bills were coming off 2-14, 2-14 and 4-12 seasons in which they "would have had Marino" as their QB if they took him. Their #1 picked in 1988 & 1989, along with their No. 2 in 1989, looked attractive to the Rams in the old "The Bills Are A Shitty Organization And Those Could End Up Good Picks" fashion. Of course the Bill didn't want Dickerson. They wanted Cornelius Bennett, who was the #2 overall pick in the 1987 draft and was refusing to sign with Indy.

 

The Bills don't get either Smith or Bennett if they had Dan. The irony is that the Fins had a good defense when they drafted Dan, just a weak offense. It's why they Got Good again so fast: Dan cleaned up the offense in a major way, while the defense remained good... well... wait...

 

Until it collapsed to #26 in points allowed in the NFL in 1986 and the Fins went 8-8. The defense was largely shitty-to-mediocre the rest of Dan's prime, with the exception of a flukey 1990... when the Bills still lit them up for 44 in the playoffs, a second win in four weeks over the Fins and Dan.

 

If the Bills draft Dan, they get a strong passing game, who knows if Thomas develops into the beast he was (since Dan never developed any RB who sustained that level of play), and the Bills defense would have sucked hard.

 

I think the Bills made the right call on Kelly. That's from someone who is a Marino Fan far more than a Kelly fan. Jim was the right QB for the offense they developed, and his trip to the USFL actually worked out perfectly in letting the Bills address their defense as well as the offense.

 

 

The Chiefs passed on Marino, among others, in order to select Todd Blackledge.

There was a terrific ESPN documentary on this recently. It's not just Blackledge. Tony Eason went #1-15, and Ken O'Brien went #1-24 to the Jets.

 

Marino went 27th due to perceived (or legit) "attitude problems" and scored something like a 4 on the Wonderlic.

His wonderlic wasn't a problem. His attitude wasn't a problem. He had a "off" Sr season at Pitt, and every (I mean *everyone*) thought he was a coke hound. Even the Raiders and Al Davis passed on him because of the dope rumors... and lord knows that half the Raiders were smoking dope, popping pills and doing lines. That's how bad the coke rumors were: this kid is going to blow up.

 

The ESPN doc covers it to a degree, but misses a larger element: there was a lot of coke and other shit in the league at the time. Just like there's a lot of "other shit" in the league right now. There's an acceptable level of Other Shit that any number of teams are willing to accept, as long as the player is (i) functional, (ii) can fake their way through dope tests, and (iii) isn't getting busted by law enforcement. And on that last one... there's a tier system. LT could get busted by law enforcement... just not every season, or every few weeks. Dude needs to be functional.

 

But there's that LT factor. The Giants were willing to accept it because he was so freaking good, he was functional on the field, and he wasn't the giant trainwreck that Hollywood Henderson became where he stopped being functional.

 

Of course ESPN doesn't want to touch on that... they can't really touch on that. So they couldn't touch on just how bad the rumors about Marino were that even the RAIDERS wouldn't take him. That off Sr year, and the swirl of rumors were such that the Raiders (and others) saw him in the declining Hollywood Henderson stage, not in the Lawrence "We could give a fuck is he's snorting up Peru because he's so fucking good" Taylor stage of his career.

 

Did those teams fuck up? No doubt. But when the Raiders of that era don't take you... it's a bit like someone leaving the WWE with a dope problem that's so bad that even TNA won't take you.

 

 

Damn, he would have fit like a glove in Pittsburgh who passed on him since they had the great Mark Malone ready to step in.

 

No, they didn't take him because of Terry and because Chuck Noll wasn't high on him. Which blew up when Terry got hurt and had his career end early in 1983. Also need to remember that Noll ran that show through the end of 1991, and never went to a high power passing offense. Marino wouldn't have been MARINO if he went to Pitt. Noll would have kept him as a 3000 yard passer with 20-25 TD.

 

Hindsight is a beautiful thing but it's pretty crazy that 20+ teams passed up Marino.

A lot of those teams had QB who weren't old. There were perhaps 10 or so real destinations.

[Death From Above]

There was a terrific ESPN documentary on this recently. It's not just Blackledge. Tony Eason went #1-15, and Ken O'Brien went #1-24 to the Jets.

Yeah it was one of the 30 for 30's. It's called "From Elway to Marino" and it a really great look at that draft.

 

30 for 30 in general is really excellent, although their doc on the Gretzky sale to LA was really bad, but that was an aberration.

[BrickHithouse]

Shula wasn't exactly a pass-happy wide-open coach before Marino either, aside from a couple of Griese seasons late in Bob's career. Noll could've and would have adapted, like he did when the league opened up the passing game starting in 78. Steelers took advantage and passed more, becoming fairly "wide open" compared to previous years (as did most teams, hell by default all teams across the board were going to get more passing yards...not the best argument to make but they weren't pounding it up the middle with Franco while throwing 18 passes a game after '77). Whatever the case, if Shula could adapt to Marino, Noll could have as well, and Marino would have fit like a fucking glove in Pittsburgh.

 

Aside from Elway, Marino, and Kelly, whichever QB the Chiefs took would have busted. Eason or O'Brien would have been the Blackledge of the group, and Blackledge would have been O'Brien or The Guy That Got Destroyed in Super Bowl XX.

[jdw]

Shula wasn't exactly a pass-happy wide-open coach before Marino either, aside from a couple of Griese seasons late in Bob's career.

The first team Shula was the head coach of was #1 in the NFL is passing. His first 7 teams:

 

Yardage

Pass: 1-2-3-4-2-3-2

Rush: 9-5-9-10-11-8-14

 

Shula was a pass happy coach. Then his talent at Miami got loaded with runners, so he went in that direction. Then his runners left and/or coked out, so he went in the direction of passing. Ebb and glow.

 

Noll could've and would have adapted, like he did when the league opened up the passing game starting in 78. Steelers took advantage and passed more, becoming fairly "wide open" compared to previous years (as did most teams, hell by default all teams across the board were going to get more passing yards...not the best argument to make but they weren't pounding it up the middle with Franco while throwing 18 passes a game after '77).

His 78 team didn't actually pass much: they were 22nd in the league in attempts, out of 28 teams. What they had was two exceptional downfield WR in Stallworth and Swann, so they skied in Y/A and were decent in Yards at 11th. Same formula the next year: 9th in attempts, but a lusty Y/A that ended up with them 2nd in Yards. They started to revert back in 1980, and by 1981 were 23rd in the NFL in attempts despite having a Bradshaw start 14 games. If you look at the direction the NFL headed in the 80s, Noll got more and more conservative over the years. Other teams went out looking for QB who could sling the ball.

 

Other than Malone with the last pick of the 1980 1st round, Noll didn't use a #1 or #2 pick on a QB after the NFL opened up the passing game. Bubby Brister with a 3rd in 1986 and Neil O'Donnell with a 3rd in 1990. I think your head would spin at the people he passed over in those years... Marino is the tip of the iceberg. Noll just didn't care about the passing game. He fluked into something when the rules changed, and was one of the few teams with two exceptional WR who could exploit the change. They made Bradshaw and Noll look like more of a passers than they really were, and things quickly reverted back.

 

 

Whatever the case, if Shula could adapt to Marino, Noll could have as well, and Marino would have fit like a fucking glove in Pittsburgh.

Well... then there's Noll's investment in WR for his QB. Probably best not to look at who he was drafting in the 80s at WR. Louis Lipps was it. In his 1990 and 1991 drafts, he bagged Chris Calloway, Eric Green and Jeff Graham, but they did nothing under Noll.

 

 

Aside from Elway, Marino, and Kelly, whichever QB the Chiefs took would have busted. Eason or O'Brien would have been the Blackledge of the group, and Blackledge would have been O'Brien or The Guy That Got Destroyed in Super Bowl XX.

O'Brien wasn't too bad of a QB, and would have done better most places other than NY. In fact, my recollection is that Shula and the Fins liked him, and would have taken him if Marino was gone. That was a good team he would have been dropped into, with a good coaching staff... I think he probably would have had one of those Boomer or Simms level career that was pretty serviceable.

 

The trick with KC is whether O'Brien would have survived the Mackovic and Gansz eras to the Schottenheimer years. You look at those Schott teams QB'd by DeBerg and Kreig, and O'Brien could have handled them perfectly well. At his best, O'Brien was a fairly smart QB, low INT %, good Completion %... that's kind of what Schott at the time wanted out of his QB: Don't Fuck Up.

 

But getting through Mackovic and Gansz in one piece? Mackivic did fluke them into the post season with Bill Kenney and Blackledge splitting the QB duty. O'Brien was much better than those two.

 

Would have been interesting.

 

Eason would have gotten banged up. We do tend to forget that he was terrific in 1984 and pretty good in 1986 before getting banged up.

 

John

[BrickHithouse]

Yeah his QB was Unitas. Only Chuck Knox and probably (definitely) Schottenheimer would stick to a ground game.

 

The Chiefs '83 QB busting is predicated on them getting destroyed by Macovic and Gansz. Those guys would probably have worked out if they were still in one piece mentally and physically by the time Marty got there.

 

Raw pass attempts means dick without context. Steelers were running out the clock in the 4th quarter, and in the 3rd quite often, in 1978.

 

Clayton and Duper weren't high picks.

 

On and on it could go.

 

The idea that Noll was incapable of adapting an offense around Marino is what I mainly disagree with.

 

Marino would have fit like a fucking glove in Pittsburgh.

[ohtani's jacket]

I think being Welsh and supporting a perennially financially fucked lower league football team I'm not quite too bothered about losing. Welsh teams have lost at everything for so long I'm more arsed about being competitive, or for years "as long as we beat the fucking English". But since 2005 and the massive strides made by our Rugby team I won't accept anything less than victory with them, which I can get quite passionate about (shouting, tears, tantrums) at times. I mean, when I think between the differences of my reactions in 2003 ("Well, at least we gave them a game") to now ("Winning by 4 or 5 isn't e-fucking-nough though, we've France next week. Then the English!") maybe there is something to be said for winning being everything. Or maybe winning just breeding greed for more of it in the diehard supporters, resulting in bigger emotional crashes when we don't succeed. I mean, when I look at it from the outside, we're only a nation of 3 million people, maybe we're even overachieving. But I'm not on the outside, I've been obsessed with Welsh rugby since the age of 6 in 1991, and that's bred massive emotional outbursts on my behalf when things do or don't go my way.

 

 

I've forgotten my point. I think it was "shitting yourself about a result makes sport better".

Being as I'm from New Zealand and an All Blacks fan, I can tell you this much: when you win a lot, it's the losses that are more emotional and stay with you for longer. The only time the wins affect you, IMO, is when they're eff you wins if the team was disrespected somehow or if the ref screwed you over but you still won. Where Wales are right now is more exciting with that mix of excitement and trepidation.

[ButchReedMark]

I don't think I've ever been more excited/crushed/more emotional about a game than by the Wales vs France semi in the 2011 WC. I was in tears for the rest of the weekend. I fucking hate Alain Rolland.

[ohtani's jacket]

Don't worry, I've been there many times before in World Cups.

[ButchReedMark]

That tournament deserved the Wales vs ABs final as well. I reckon that'd have been a far better game. The RL WC is on in my home town in a couple months. Never been huge on it, but I'll give it a good go.

[jdw]

Yeah his QB was Unitas.

His team was #3 in yardage and #1 in passing TD when Earl Morrell was his QB.

 

Shula used the talent that he had. He took over a Fins team that had Csonka, Morris and Kick in place, along with Griese. He had what he thought was the best running game in the NFL around those three, and not really a high end gunsliger. In turn, Griese became a high Y/A guy (helped by lifting Warfield from the Browns). When the rushers left, he passed more... but never was nutty about it.

 

Only Chuck Knox and probably (definitely) Schottenheimer would stick to a ground game.

Marty's best teams in Cleveland threw more in the 80s than Noll's did. Which was a decade into the passing revolution, which Noll not on was resisting, but was regressing on.

 

 

The Chiefs '83 QB busting is predicated on them getting destroyed by Macovic and Gansz. Those guys would probably have worked out if they were still in one piece mentally and physically by the time Marty got there.

I tend to agree, but we also need to remember that Mac let freaking Bill Kenney toss an NLF leading 603 passes for 4348 yards in 1983, Mac's first season in KC. They were #4 in attempts the following year, split between Kenney and Blackledge, and more of a passing team in Mac's last season there where they went 10-6 and made the post season: #14 in passing attempts and an extremely low #23 in rushing attempts. It's just that Kenney and Blackledge sucked, other than Kenney's one fluke year.

 

Ganz of course was a freaking joke.

 

I tend to think O'Brien probably would have been fine there. He would have sat the first season behind Kenney. When Kenney got banged up and failed to repeat that 1983 season, O'Brien could have stepped in better than Blackledge. Not saying he would have been Great! But he probably would have been passable, as he was with the Jets.

 

 

Raw pass attempts means dick without context. Steelers were running out the clock in the 4th quarter, and in the 3rd quite often, in 1978.

 

Really? That's odd, because Franco and Rocky combined to average the same number of carries in games that had a 0-7 point margin (which includes both of the Steelers losses that season) as they did in games with a 15+ margin (all wins). The 1978 Steelers were a running team when playing close games, and when blowing teams out. :/

 

Clayton and Duper weren't high picks.

Duper was a 2nd round pick, the season before Marino was draft. Clayton was an 8th... the same draft Dan was in. You think that Shula thought he would have a 5000 yard passer on his hands when drafting Dan?

 

 

The idea that Noll was incapable of adapting an offense around Marino is what I mainly disagree with.

There's nothing in Noll's record that indicates he would have adapted to letting Marino throw for 4600+ yards a season from 1984-86. Again, at that very time he was reverting to a more conservative offense rather than doing what most of the rest of the NFL was doing: finding a QB who could throw the ball. Even the conservative Bill Parcells got 4000+ yards out of Phil Simms in 1984, and 3700+ out of freaking Scott Brunner and Jeff Rutledge the year before. Conservative John "Dickerson Left, Dickerson Right" would trade for Jim Everett and transition the club to the point that Everett passed for 3964, 4310 and 3989 in 1988-90... while Noll was still coaching.

 

Noll really had no desire to pass the ball.

 

 

Marino would have fit like a fucking glove in Pittsburgh.

If they had a different head coach.