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"I stopped following football after watching League of Denial on PBS." The reason I cannot stop watching football is that the combination of enormous economic

by rsync 9y ago

"I stopped following football after watching League of Denial on PBS." The reason I cannot stop watching football is that the combination of enormous economic incentives and ruthless selection process has produced individuals that are performing at near-superhuman levels. It is arguable that when you watch a quarterback or a cornerback play well in 2017 you are watching someone do something better than anyone has ever done anything. I find that fascinating and extremely compelling. Further, this is the reason that I no loner have any interest in college football - the professional game winnows that population down so much and so dramatically that the level of skill is no longer comparable. Consider: after all of these years and all of this fame and outreach and development, there are still only 8-10 people in the entire world that can competently play the position of starting quarterback. If you can perform this task with even middling competency there is an immediate 8 figure paycheck waiting for you. This (totally arbitrary and otherwise useless) combination of speed, agility, strength, resiliency and lightning-fast-OODA-looping is amazing to watch. And that's just the quarterback ... I can't get enough of it.

forapurpose 9y ago
> It is arguable that when you watch a quarterback or a cornerback play well in 2017 you are watching someone do something better than anyone has ever done anything. I agree that they are incredible athletes, but I don't see why football's players are better athletes than those in other professional sports. The winnowing process is just as brutal in soccer/football, basketball, hockey, baseball, track, swimming, gymnastics (if you want some incredible athletes - wow), wrestling, boxing, etc. etc. Why is Tom Brady a better athlete than Floyd Mayweather? Than Lionel Messi?
philwelch 9y ago
I think the best sport for that is actually basketball. NBA contracts are far more lucrative, and NBA rosters far smaller, and injuries are far less common, which makes NBA players more athletic and talented than NFL players by far. Consider also the fact that many great NBA players were also standout high school football players who gave it up for basketball. You don't really see that happening the other way. NBA players (and soccer players) also have to exercise more continual decision making skills, since there's no stoppage between plays or radios for the coach to signal plays.
- firebones 9y ago
  You make great points. All sports are likely at their peak for performance at the highest levels. The difference may be one of whether you prefer "peak specialization" (football, baseball), or "peak dynamic creativity" (basketball, soccer.) I guess throw in "individual performance" if you want to consider golf, track, etc. Not to say there isn't creativity in football or baseball, just that those are far more defined by organizational strategy than they are by moment-to-moment creativity by players in the game.
- exclusiv 9y ago
  They're not most lucrative if you consider 16 games for the NFL versus 82 for NBA. The NFL actually makes more than the NBA as well (they just have a better revenue share deal, less players, max contract rules, etc) [1]. Injuries are far less common in basketball because the rules made it so. Everything is a foul these days. And you can't score points in foul trouble so the defense isn't as aggressive as it used to be. The league rewards points with crazy contracts disproportionate to your defensive skillset (JJ Redick got 23M for 15 PPG) so it's best to avoid fouls with lighter D and reap the financial benefits. In football you have to take more risk because there are only 16 games and if you're a skill player you don't get a lot of opportunities from game to game. Consider the evolution of the NBA rules over the last few decades: - Most players routinely carry the ball and get away with it despite it being a core basketball rule. That makes it easier to drive quicker to the basket, evade defenders and score more points which is what the league wants. - There's way too much flopping/acting to draw fouls. Again - results in more points and the refs favor the stars that drive the league. - Traveling is rampant and calls are missed all the time. Here's an 8 stepper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VuG1K-LFgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VuG1K-LFgY. Here's Westbrook just walking with the ball in hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlHqD45V5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlHqD45V5s. They don't watch it close enough and it's frustrating because they have favorites and they don't get to review travels. Challenges in football help to fix a lot of critical bad or no calls. From a key NBA ref - "We really don't reference the rulebook" [2]. NFL defensive schemes make NBA defensive schemes look childish. So I disagree with you on the decision making skills for the two sports. There's a lot more decision making skills required for football especially when someone like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady is running the offense essentially as a player/coach and running audibles/sending guys in motion/disguising plays and each team has highly varied playbooks. A single split second mistake on defense in football is a big deal. On basketball - it rarely affects the outcome. Now I love both sports and football has suffered from the same initiative of trying to enable more points scored (just like baseball did), but I don't think it's fair to say that NBA players are more talented and athletic either. In fact - you probably won't see a single NBA player stronger or faster than the top performers in the NFL. NFL players regularly outperform NBA on the standing vertical too (2 football players did a 46" standing vert [3]). So for athleticism - NBA might win on running vertical in some cases/years and in overall conditioning, but they won't win in any speed/standing vertical/any measure of strength (reps or max). So it might be a wash at best for the NBA in athleticism. For talent I'm not sure either way. Can you really compare passing and running the offense between Steph Curry and Tom Brady? Or defense between Kawhi Leonard and Richard Sherman? Saying the NBA has more talent because they are in the game more and play both sides is like saying a full stack developer making more (and working more) has more talent than a more specialized developer. [1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-nfl-made-13-billion-last-season-see-how-it-stacks-up-against-other-leagues-2016-07-01 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-nfl-made-13-billion-las... [2] http://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6035/nba-traveling-we-really-don-t-reference-the-rulebook http://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6035/nba-traveli... [3] http://postemaperformance.com/highest-vertical-jump/ http://postemaperformance.com/highest-vertical-jump/
blendo 9y ago
> It is arguable that when you watch a quarterback or a cornerback play well in 2017 you are watching someone do something better than anyone has ever done anything. "Better than anyone has ever done anything" is debatable, but those young NFL men sure can smite their foes! Homer sparked that idea, and the Romans perfected popular gladiatorial combat in front of 50,000 spectators in the Colosseum. But it just got so damn messy, spectator-wise, when "enormous economic incentives" led to mass state wars with 10,000, 50,000, or 6,000,000 million dead. My personal favorite public spectacle combat is Slim Pickens riding the H-bomb in Dr. Strangelove. Now that was "amazing to watch"! But back to pro sports, using the Olympics as an example. I notice that the rise of intersex/gender-uncertain competitors such as Caster Semenya is challenging the status quo of sex-differentiated mass sporting events. Maybe more people will just throw up their hands at the hypocrisy of it all? And if the Olympics come under question, who knows what other multi-billion-dollar sporting series might be next? But please, Olympics, leave the modern pentathlon as-is. And the sailing and equestrian events. But consider adding a gliding competition :-)

by rsync 9y ago

forapurpose 9y ago

> It is arguable that when you watch a quarterback or a cornerback play well in 2017 you are watching someone do something better than anyone has ever done anything. I agree that they are incredible athletes, but I don't see why football's players are better athletes than those in other professional sports. The winnowing process is just as brutal in soccer/football, basketball, hockey, baseball, track, swimming, gymnastics (if you want some incredible athletes - wow), wrestling, boxing, etc. etc. Why is Tom Brady a better athlete than Floyd Mayweather? Than Lionel Messi?

philwelch 9y ago

I think the best sport for that is actually basketball. NBA contracts are far more lucrative, and NBA rosters far smaller, and injuries are far less common, which makes NBA players more athletic and talented than NFL players by far. Consider also the fact that many great NBA players were also standout high school football players who gave it up for basketball. You don't really see that happening the other way. NBA players (and soccer players) also have to exercise more continual decision making skills, since there's no stoppage between plays or radios for the coach to signal plays.

firebones 9y ago
You make great points. All sports are likely at their peak for performance at the highest levels. The difference may be one of whether you prefer "peak specialization" (football, baseball), or "peak dynamic creativity" (basketball, soccer.) I guess throw in "individual performance" if you want to consider golf, track, etc. Not to say there isn't creativity in football or baseball, just that those are far more defined by organizational strategy than they are by moment-to-moment creativity by players in the game.
exclusiv 9y ago
They're not most lucrative if you consider 16 games for the NFL versus 82 for NBA. The NFL actually makes more than the NBA as well (they just have a better revenue share deal, less players, max contract rules, etc) [1]. Injuries are far less common in basketball because the rules made it so. Everything is a foul these days. And you can't score points in foul trouble so the defense isn't as aggressive as it used to be. The league rewards points with crazy contracts disproportionate to your defensive skillset (JJ Redick got 23M for 15 PPG) so it's best to avoid fouls with lighter D and reap the financial benefits. In football you have to take more risk because there are only 16 games and if you're a skill player you don't get a lot of opportunities from game to game. Consider the evolution of the NBA rules over the last few decades: - Most players routinely carry the ball and get away with it despite it being a core basketball rule. That makes it easier to drive quicker to the basket, evade defenders and score more points which is what the league wants. - There's way too much flopping/acting to draw fouls. Again - results in more points and the refs favor the stars that drive the league. - Traveling is rampant and calls are missed all the time. Here's an 8 stepper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VuG1K-LFgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VuG1K-LFgY. Here's Westbrook just walking with the ball in hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlHqD45V5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlHqD45V5s. They don't watch it close enough and it's frustrating because they have favorites and they don't get to review travels. Challenges in football help to fix a lot of critical bad or no calls. From a key NBA ref - "We really don't reference the rulebook" [2]. NFL defensive schemes make NBA defensive schemes look childish. So I disagree with you on the decision making skills for the two sports. There's a lot more decision making skills required for football especially when someone like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady is running the offense essentially as a player/coach and running audibles/sending guys in motion/disguising plays and each team has highly varied playbooks. A single split second mistake on defense in football is a big deal. On basketball - it rarely affects the outcome. Now I love both sports and football has suffered from the same initiative of trying to enable more points scored (just like baseball did), but I don't think it's fair to say that NBA players are more talented and athletic either. In fact - you probably won't see a single NBA player stronger or faster than the top performers in the NFL. NFL players regularly outperform NBA on the standing vertical too (2 football players did a 46" standing vert [3]). So for athleticism - NBA might win on running vertical in some cases/years and in overall conditioning, but they won't win in any speed/standing vertical/any measure of strength (reps or max). So it might be a wash at best for the NBA in athleticism. For talent I'm not sure either way. Can you really compare passing and running the offense between Steph Curry and Tom Brady? Or defense between Kawhi Leonard and Richard Sherman? Saying the NBA has more talent because they are in the game more and play both sides is like saying a full stack developer making more (and working more) has more talent than a more specialized developer. [1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-nfl-made-13-billion-last-season-see-how-it-stacks-up-against-other-leagues-2016-07-01 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-nfl-made-13-billion-las... [2] http://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6035/nba-traveling-we-really-don-t-reference-the-rulebook http://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6035/nba-traveli... [3] http://postemaperformance.com/highest-vertical-jump/ http://postemaperformance.com/highest-vertical-jump/

blendo 9y ago

> It is arguable that when you watch a quarterback or a cornerback play well in 2017 you are watching someone do something better than anyone has ever done anything. "Better than anyone has ever done anything" is debatable, but those young NFL men sure can smite their foes! Homer sparked that idea, and the Romans perfected popular gladiatorial combat in front of 50,000 spectators in the Colosseum. But it just got so damn messy, spectator-wise, when "enormous economic incentives" led to mass state wars with 10,000, 50,000, or 6,000,000 million dead. My personal favorite public spectacle combat is Slim Pickens riding the H-bomb in Dr. Strangelove. Now that was "amazing to watch"! But back to pro sports, using the Olympics as an example. I notice that the rise of intersex/gender-uncertain competitors such as Caster Semenya is challenging the status quo of sex-differentiated mass sporting events. Maybe more people will just throw up their hands at the hypocrisy of it all? And if the Olympics come under question, who knows what other multi-billion-dollar sporting series might be next? But please, Olympics, leave the modern pentathlon as-is. And the sailing and equestrian events. But consider adding a gliding competition :-)