Nerds on Sports

Since I’m a no-good, unimaginative hack, I am going to take the same questions Serpico answered, and answer them myself. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this. But before I get into the letters, I have to get something off of my chest.

The New York Football Giants are a terrible football team. Ever since Serpico was a wee lad, the giants have been terrible. Remember in 1995 when the Patriots were terrible. They were a 6-10 team, but the Giants were worse — 5-11. Or how about 1997 when both the Patriots and the Giants won their respective divisions. The Giants were worse due to losing in the wild card round.

All I’m saying is that Serpico doesn’t like terrible teams — He actually stopped caring about baseball when the Yankees didn’t have the best record in baseball this year. How can I prove it? He had to email me on the deadline to fix his fantasy baseball lineup for a playoffs week. So I have an answer for Serpico: Follow the Patriots. You are a fair weather fan and we all know it. Just find the biggest band wagon, grab your instrument, and hop on.

Now for the actual questions. Read more »

Serpico introduced a point that I’d like to elaborate on: the difference between college football and NFL overtime.

The rules for NFL overtime are simple: the ref holds another coin toss for possession. Fifteen minutes of “sudden death” football are played; the first team to score wins. If no one scores after fifteen minutes, it ends in a genuine tie.

The rules for NCAA football overtime are not as simple, but they’re not complex. One team starts with the ball on the 25-yard line. If they can score on their possession, without giving up on downs or turning the ball over, then the opposing team gets a chance to do the same. If the opposing team scores as well, then they advance to another overtime period. However, if one team scores and the other doesn’t – or doesn’t score as much – that’s it; game over.

We saw an NFL OT game this weekend: Bears over Broncos. Chicago won the coin toss and then went on to sink a long bomb to Desmond Clark and get in field goal range. This shouldn’t surprise the Nerds in the audience: the team that wins the toss wins the OT period, and thus the game, fifty-two percent of the time.

However, we saw two NCAA OT games this weekend, and they were nailbiters both: Arkansas upsetting #1 LSU in triple overtime and Tennessee upsetting Oregon Kentucky in quadruple overtime. The diehard fans that stuck around to watch them to the end – and could you call yourself a serious fan and leave early? – saw some thrilling athletics, let me tell you.

Many pundits insist the NFL’s OT system is “broken.” There have been a number of suggested fixes – some outlandish and exciting (auction off the “kickoff” line on which the OT starts), some relatively straightforward (just adopt the college rules). Here at Nerds on Sports, though, we’re interested in the more fundamental questions.

For instance: why does the NFL have the OT system it does?
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Game Time.

It’s that time of year again.  The leaves are changing.  The wind has that crisp, cool feel in the morning.  Football is reestablishing itself as the premiere American sport.  And baseball playoffs have begun.  Per the usual, there are grumblings about the scheduling of the opening round of the Major League Baseball playoffs.

Imagine that you are baseball.  Not the commissioner, just a human embodiment of the sport itself.  You dominate the airwaves and sports talk shows with non-stop games since the Warriors upset the Mavs in Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs.  There are games every single day and five out of seven days a week, every single team is playing.  Regular season scheduling can take place whenver you want.  Day Game? Sure.  Night Game? Sure.  Doubleheader? Sure.  Games in April with the potential for snow in Boston, New York, and Cleveland? Sure.  West Coast game the day after playing on the East Coast in Sunday Night Baseball against your biggest rival? Sure.  You have no limits, no rules, no regulations when it comes to scheduling.

That’s why it is no surprise that when baseball sells its opening round of the playoffs, it gives the broadcaster full reign to schedule the games whenever they want.  Well, the broadcaster has very different goals than baseball or its fans.  Thus, conflict.  The broadcaster (this year it is TBS, but ESPN has been just as guilty if not more so of this kind of chicanery) wants to maximize revenue, particularly catering its big games to the big markets.  But beyond that, it wants to make sure that televisions are turned to TBS for the maximum amount of time.  The result is our incredibly stretched schedule, where everyone is scrambling home for the early games, while no one is watching the prime-time games. Read more »

I’m going to ask you all to close your eyes right now.  Go ahead, close them.

Well, OK, you can’t do that and read my post, but imagine an NFL team with the following characteristics:

- A Coach with a losing record every where he has been in the NFL takes over a team and suddenly he is a genius.

- A reputation for taking average to sub-par players and making them superstars.

- A reputation for taking “bad apples” on other teams and suddenly getting them to “toe the company line” but does so in a secret fashion.

- Revels in deception and trickery.

At this point, the team sounds like one that would strike fear in the hearts of its opponents and ultimately have success on the field.  The team would carry with it an aura of intimidation based on fear and on-the-fields results.  Now for the moment where Matthew McConaughey tells you to imagine that the girl is white.  Here are two more aspects of the team: Read more »

As Perich mentioned yesterday, it’s the second happiest time of the year. There are many signs that are pointing to this fact: all the sports blogs are posting about football, everyone in your office is asking about this year’s Fantasy Football league, and Madden 2008 is available for purchase. I’m part of the first one now; I already consider my $50 a lost cause; and I’ve thought about renting the 17th roster update for EA’s largest game — They have this new “weapons” system that sounds a bit intriguing.

But football isn’t actually here just yet, but I will tell you what to expect from this year. (Note: I am no expert and I’ve only done about 2 minutes of research.)

• You can expect another well known football player to get arrested and fined by the NFL.
• Michael Vick will spend a year in prison. During that time he will be able to work out more often, increase his strength training, and do some reading. The results of this will be threefold: 1 – there will be a football match against the guards that the prisoners win. 2 – The increase in strength will allow Vick to play as his own offensive line. And finally 3 – the increased reading time will allow Vick to earn his associates degree in both refrigerator maintenance and nursing.
• Crowd noise will be on a rise throughout the league now that the crowd noise penalty has been stricken from the records.
• Younger sister of Jets center Nick Mangold will be heavily scouted by colleges around the country until she tells them all football is just a hobby, she wants to be a doctor.
• The New England Patriots are going to win every game they decide to play this season.
• The New England Patriots will decide not to play their final game of the regular season.
• Beckham will cry when he doesn’t make the playoffs Sorry, wrong “football”
• ADD interruption: Check out this Slip & Slide.
• LaDainian Tomlinson will rush for approximately one million yards.
• Due to the Madden Curse, Vince Young will have 3 heart attacks, a broken arm, and catch malaria this season.

That’s all I can think of for now. What do you think is going to happen this year?

On the day before this year’s MLB All-Star Game, Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent published an intriguing op-ed article in The New York Times entitled “The Umpire Strikes Back.” (NY Times will probably make you pay to read the article. Here’s a link to the NPR Report with Vincent and MLB umpire Bruce Froemming, who was discussed in the article) The premise of his op-ed piece was rather simple: Umpires in all professional sports are not recognized nearly as much as they deserve. “To some sportscasters and fans, the umps seem like the bases: necessary but not worthy of mention.” Vincent proposes that Major League Baseball should institute a “Most Valuable Official award” to recognize the most outstanding umpire at the end of every season and that the other professional sports should follow suit. This would provide recognition to a largely unrecognized but essential part of the games we all enjoy so much. Read more »

We are approximately ten months into the Roger Goodell era and arguably the most significant development has been the controversial and often-discussed personal conduct policy for NFL players. (I don’t consider the international expansion of the sport, including the recently aborted China Project and next year’s London Game to be a Goodell decision, but a remnant of Tagliabue’s brilliant reign as commissioner.) My question is whether the policy, in its admitted infancy, has had its intended effect. Read more »

The National Football League is a marvel in it’s operation. Profit sharing, a tradition of competent business leadership, a dedication to embracing new technology, and a heavily buttressed construct of free agency and union-ownership relations have created a magnificent machine. It is designed to make money, continually expand the fan base and put the best possible product on the field. I love it as both a sports geek and a business geek.

With any great and complicated system, from the NFL to Starcraft, there are exploits. Little wrinkles within the rules that allow for someone to cheat within the confines of the code. It’s like loading 4 Revised Edition Millstones into your Magic: The Gathering deck and grinding away your opponents’ card count until he (or she… in theory) loses by default. Nothing wrong with it, legally, but certainly a “slap your forehead for being a victim to it” move. These exploits are cruel and unfortunate when you are on the wrong end, but absolutely hilarious to watch. Particularly when they are done without apology.

In the NFL, my absolute favorite hack is something called The Poison Pill. It is a delightful little fold that can allow a franchise to pick up a restricted free agent by making his current team unable to match the contract. Allow me to explain how it works.

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