CORRECT (Plus an additional comparisons)

I realized the other day that I somehow missed one of Tom Brady's games. Additionally, I did some poor calculations in regards to his completion percentage. Here is the updated table comparing Brady to P. Manning, E. Manning, Rodgers, and Flacco.


BREAKDOWN  (2005-2014):

QB                     RECORD       COMP %       YPG   Total Yds    TDs per game      INTs per game
E. Manning        8-3  (.727)        61.5%          229        2,519       1.5   (17 total)      0.6  (7 total)
J. Flacco           10-4  (.714)       54.6%          185        2,600        1.5   (21 total)       0.5  (8 total)
A. Rodgers        5-3  (.625)        66.1%          288        2,311        2.2  (18 total)       0.6  (5 total)
P. Manning        8-7  (.533)         66.1%          294       4,417        1.5  (23 total)       1.0  (16 total)
T. Brady            9-8  (.529)        61.9%           263       4,473        1.8  (32 total)       1.1  (19 total)




Brady has played two more games than Manning, but other than his higher touchdowns per game average, Manning has the better post season stats overall. Better winning percentage, better completion percentage, more yards per game, and has a smaller interception per game average (albeit by literally the slimmest margin possible).


I noted before that Peyton Manning is the only quarterback on that list who - since 2005 - has not had a post season game where he threw more interceptions than touchdowns. Flacco, Rodgers, E. Manning, and Brady have all done that. Even more, Brady leads the bunch with the most games throwing more INTs than TDs (he's done it 6 times in his past 17 post season games, meaning he's good for more turnovers than scores a little over a third of the time he plays). That fact, of course, has really been the root of my main argument. It's not that Brady is bad, or is somehow less of an all-time great. It's that if everyone were honest, he's been much more inconsistent in the past decade than he was in his Super Bowl victory years. Even more, he's been much more inconsistent than any other quarterback to play eight or more post season games, save for Joe Flacco (who was terrible every year except his Super Bowl run - this year will say more about him as a post season quarterback).




Let's compare Tom Brady Super Bowl winning runs to the ten years after:


Years              RECORD            COMP %      YPG     Total Yards     TDs per game     INTs per game


2001-2004      9-0  (1.000)          62.5%           216         1,951             1.2  (11 total)       0.3  (3 total)
2005-2013      9-8  (.529)            61.9%           263         4,473             1.8  (32 total)       1.1  (19 total)


Ultimately, the stats don't drop off too much. The yards per game as well as the touchdown rate both spike due to increased emphasis on quarterback play in New England over the past decade. Still, there's one glaring difference, and it's one that should get talked about more than it does:  through his first ten post season games, Brady threw 14 TDs against 3 INTs.   (That's 1.4 TDs each game to 0.3 INTs). In his last 16 games, he has thrown 29 touchdowns against 19 interceptions (that's 1.7 TDs each game to 1.2 INTs). Even more, he's an average .500 once his ten game post season win streak was snapped, going 8-8 in his last 16 games.


It stands to reason that the more you put on your quarterback, the more padded all subsequent stats will be. Touchdowns will be higher, but presumably interceptions will be as well. What's really strange though is that it could be argued that Brady's offenses haven't really changed that much in how much it asks of Brady. Sure, there were a few years in which he had to do a lot with clearly inferior talent. Still, in his first 10 games, Brady threw 331 times. (Simple math tells us he passed an average of 33.1 times per game.) In his previous 16 games, he threw 619 times, which averages out to 38.6 times per game. In the end, he wasn't asked to throw too much more over the past decade. There was definitely a gap where for a few years, he had inferior outside receiver talent. But the past four years in particular have really turned around for New England, often fielding one of the more dominant offenses in the league. Plus, they had a record breaking offense in 2007 that ultimately didn't change much until mid-2009. So it's not like he's never had a good offense around him. In support of the argument that the defense was much better in those Super Bowl years (it was), 2001-2004 saw New England beat opponents by an average score of 24.2 - 17.2. Compare that to the past 8 seasons which, despite a few major blowouts, has them winning with an average score of 25.5 - 21.7.


How does it stack up against another all-time great, and one of the few that actually can compete for Brady overall: Joe Montana. Montana played in 23 post season games from 1981 to 1994. Here's the overall comparison.

QB                  RECORD           COMP %       YPG      Total Yds       TDs per game     INTs per game

J. Montana      16-7  (.695)         62.6%            250         5,772              1.9  (45 total)     0.9  (21 total)
T. Brady          18-8  (.692)         62.1%            247         6,424              1.6  (43 total)     0.8  (22 total)


I must admit, going into this, I expected to see Montana's stats a little more noticeably better. After all, here is a guy who is 4-0 in Super Bowls, having thrown 11 touchdowns to 0 interceptions in those big games. He's also been to 7 conference championships, going 4-3 and threw 16 touchdowns against 8 touchdowns in those games. Comparatively, Brady has been in 8 conference title games, going 5-3 and threw 8 touchdowns against 9 interceptions there. He's also 3-2 in Super Bowls, throwing  9 touchdowns to 2 interceptions.

The overall stats make them seem pretty even, and they are! Stats don't tell the whole story though. I mentioned in the last post about why sometimes Brady's post season stats are a little inflated (six touchdowns in one game, a nearly perfect completion percentage in one game - sometimes the stats are all in one period). Montana's stats are similar unclear.

I made the argument the other day that Brady is essentially all over the place come post season time, despite his reputation as clutch. I also argued that his stats look similar to Manning's, but also are deceptive because some of them came in a tiny percentage of games. Brady has also accounted for more turnovers than scores in 6 post season games (which also means almost one game every post season since the last Super Bowl win).

Montana isn't free of that criticism as well. His monster year was the 1990 season, wherein he threw for 11 touchdowns against 0 interceptions in there games (comparable to Joe Flacco's run a couple years ago, although he need that fourth wild card game to get to 11 TDs - not to take away though, given an extra game also increases the chances of turnovers). Not only that, but he had his 49ers squad beat opponents by a combined score of 126-26!  The year before though, he also played extraordinarily well, throwing 8 touchdowns to 1 interception, again destroying teams by a combined score of 82-28.

Just to really hammer that point home: throughout two consecutive post seasons, Montana threw 19 touchdowns to just 1 interception and outscore playoff teams by a combined score of 208-54! (That's an average scoreline of 34 to 9.)

Brady has never had a stretch that good, though he's certainly had good stretches. As mentioned, in his first three post season appearances, he threw 11 TDs to 3 INTs and outscored competition by about 60 combined points. Definitely not bad at all. But Brady's post season greatness tends to come in single games. He competed 26 of 28 passes for 3 TDs and 0 INTs in a game against Jacksonville here. Threw 6 TDs against Denver there. He threw 3 TDs to 0 INTs here. He does it there. Interestingly, Brady has not followed up a great game with anything other than more turnovers than touchdowns since the last Super Bowl win. Since 2005, any time Brady starts a post season with more touchdowns than interceptions in a game, he follows it up with fewer touchdowns than interceptions the following game. Look:

2005:
Wild card - 3 TDs   0 INTs
Divisional - 1 TD   2 INTs

2006:
Wild card - 2 TDs   0 INTs
Divisional - 2 TDs  3 INTs

2007:
Divisional - 3 TDs  0 INTs
Conference - 2 TDs  3 INTs

2009:
First round loss

2010:
First round loss

2011:
Divisional - 6 TDs  1 INT
Conference - 0 TDs  2 INTs

2012:
Divisional - 3 TDs  0 INTs
Conference - 1 TD  2 INTs

2013 is a little strange though, because he didn't do much of anything in the first game.
Divisional - 0 TDs   0 INTs
Conference - 1 TD  0 INT

It's so strange. The greatest quarterback of the past 30 years has only ever played well in consecutive games in his first three post seasons. He's also accounted for more turnovers than scores in a playoff game on six separate occasions.

Still, Joe Montana could be considered a bit streaky, whereas Brady is more hodgepodge. From 1985 to 1987, Montana threw 4 interceptions against 0 touchdowns as the Niners went one-and-done in three consecutive years. For all the general consistency you get from Montana overall, Brady has never gone three years in a row without at least one post season win. In 11 post seasons, he's only lost the first game twice.

For me though, it's this strange back and forth good Brady/bad Brady thing that's been going on for the past 8 years that makes me give the edge ever so slightly to Montana as Greatest of all Time. If Brady can string together a series of good games in a post season this year or in at some point, I think that would be enough to finally give him the nod. As it stands right now, I'll take the guy who showed up in big games consistently. There's something to be said about Montana's consistent performance in conference championships and especially Super Bowls, of which the same thing can't quite be argued about Brady. Brady hasn't played legitimately well in a conference championship or a Super Bowl since 2004. It's time for people to really start acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, he isn't as leaps and bounds better than everyone else as he's made out to be. He's still clearly up there! But the more you look back on Brady's post seasons overall, the harder it is to reconcile how great he's supposed to be with how inconsistently he's performed well in the post season.

Once more, is Brady as great as they say?

All right, so it's post season time in the NFL and time for a yearly tradition - not unlike my salary cap in baseball posts. Living in New England and being a Patriots fan, I've been spoiled. Well, really, just living in New England as a sports fan has spoiled me. In the past 15 years, I've seen almost every one of our major sports teams win titles. The Celtics made two NBA championships and won one. The Bruins made two and won one as well. The Red Sox broke a nearly 100 year old curse with three World Series pennants. And the Patriots became arguably the most successful franchise in NFL history with 15 years of sustainable success seeing three Super Bowl wins on five appearances. Only the Revolution failed to win a title in its sport, and even then they appeared in five MLS cups in that span, losing three in extra time and one on PKs.

Point being, Boston and the New England sports franchises have somehow turned into title town in every sport. What non-Patriots fans forget though - and even some modern Pats fans do too - is that it wasn't always like this. The Patriots weren't always good, never mind this good. They made Super Bowls before, but weren't truly competitive for them. And even then, those were more like an oasis of success in the middle of a giant desert of failure. Still, 15 years of being perennial Super Bowl contenders, winning a dozen division titles and appearing in half a season's worth of AFC Championships alone have almost warped New Englanders' minds into a sense of over confidence - and perhaps reasonably so.

It's also been strange that having one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game, we've always felt the need to constantly defend Tom Brady. There has always been this conversation about Brady versus Peyton Manning: who is better? Who do you take? Manning gets a lot of love, and so does Brady, but it does seem that Brady only gets love from the analysts and not the surrounding sports fans. It does seem at times that Brady lacks much fan support outside of New England, whereas Manning is a national hero.

One thing that's happened in the past ten years though is that New Englanders have begun to delude themselves into thinking of Brady as infallible. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tom Brady is the new Peyton Manning. He's great in the regular season, at times looking downright invincible. And then in the post season? You're guaranteed to get him for at least one game looking flat and bad that, were he Manning, he'd be annihilated by New England fans for his poor play.

Of course, Brady is great. He's one of the greatest. I love Brady, and I would absolutely take him over Manning in the post season. And obviously, if you're New England, you would much rather have Brady than say, Tony Romo. This isn't an argument to say that Brady isn't a great quarterback, or that he needs to go. It's just about presenting him in a fair light, especially when compared to Peyton Manning.

Something interesting in New England is that there's always an excuse for Brady's poor play in the post season. Whenever he has a bad game making bad throws and bad decisions, it's always, "Well he can't do much with those receivers," or it's "How can Brady win the game if the offensive line isn't blocking anyone?" To be sure, the lack of quality receivers was very noticeable in that 2006 AFC Championship in which Brady's Patriots had quite the choke job against long time choker Peyton Manning and his Super Bowl bound Colts. And absolutely, the Giants defensive line was pretty much the sole reason the Giants upset them in the 2007 Super Bowl (the d-line was way more influential on that game than Eli Manning could have ever hoped to be).

But why is it that when Brady under performs in the post season, we remember that football is a team sport? When Manning under performs, it's because he's not up to snuff? I'd argue that while Manning had a better offense around him for most of his career than Brady (Brady has only really had maybe five years of stellar offense around him), Brady has been part of better overall teams. This is credit to the Patriots organization who for the first half of Brady's career, did not built around a single player. The Colts, however, always put all their eggs in the Manning basket. It was always offense, offense, offense, and oh yeah, here are some players to fill in the defensive roster. If Manning didn't play well, or the opposing defense got pressure or great coverage (as was often the case in early Manning years), the Colts didn't stand a chance. They just didn't have the defense. That's a big reason why the Patriots have had more success. (Plus, to be fair, Brady did perform more consistently than Manning.)

So let's just take a look at the past ten years and see whether Brady still deserves so much of this benefit of the doubt.

2005:

Brady shines at home against Jacksonville, defeating the Byron Leftwich-led Jaguars with a score of 28-3. Wasn't even close. Brady wasn't asked to do much - he didn't even throw the ball 30 times - but he made the most of his passes. He completed 15 of 27 passes for 201 yards. Most importantly, he threw 3 touchdowns and had no turnovers. Corey Dillon and Kevin Faulk combined for 91 yards on the ground, not bad, but a little deceptive. The Jags had Dillon averaging under 3 yards a carry, but were weirdly unable to contain Faulk.

The following week, the Patriots didn't stand much of a chance against the Denver Broncos, losing in Denver 27-13. Brady completed over 20 of 36 passes for 341 yards, but threw 1 touchdown to 2 interceptions. Though he got a lot of yards there, you'd be hard pressed to describe his first post season loss as anything other than a poor performance. He defeated Leftwich, but lost to Jake Plummer. The Broncos kept the New England ground game in check, with Dillon and Faulk combining for 80 yards.

 2006:

Brady plays well in the wild card game against the Jets, led by Chad Pennington.  He completed 22 of 34 passes for 212 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions. Definitely falls into the good category, but probably worth noting that the running game of Corey Dillon, Lawrence Maroney, and Kevin Faulk combined for almost 150 yards.

The Patriots are lucky to escape a game against the Chargers with a win, barely getting by 24-21 on a day in which Brady completed 27 of 51 passes for 280 yards. More significantly, he threw 2 TDs to 3 INTs in what can easily be described as his worst playoff game to that point. The ground game didn't help, not even combining for 40 yards.

The following week, the Patriots suffered one of the great collapses in NFL post season history, blowing a huge lead in the second half and losing in the AFC Championship to Peyton Manning, no less, 38-34. Brady played a very mediocre game, completing 21 of 34 passes for 232 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT. Granted, this was also a game wherein a Reche Caldwell drop on a well placed ball from Brady would have sealed it, and Brady's interception came at the end of the game while trying a desperate last minute drive down by four. (Brady might have had a reputation as being clutch at that point, but let's be real here: it was not very likely he would have conducted a drive 80 yards for a touchdown in a minute - not impossible, but not likely in the AFC Championship.) As one might expect, a mediocre Brady performance was matched by a poor ground game, which combined for about 60 yards.

2007:

Again against the Jaguars (this time with David Garrard at the helm), Brady played one of his best post season games to that point.  He had almost a perfect game, completing an insane 26 of 28 passes for 262 yards, 3 TDs, and 0 INTs. It's one of the all time great performances from Brady (although worth noting, it's not his best, which is telling). Also worth noting, however, the ground game did its part this time. Maroney rushed for over 120 yards on the day in the 31-20 victory.

Brady followed up a nearly perfect game with another one of his worst games, once again against Philip Rivers and the San Diego Super Chargers. He completed 22 of 33 passes for 209 yards, and once again, threw 2 TDs against 3 INTs. This was very much a game in which the Patriots defense bailed out Brady. They remained perfect in spite of Brady's performance, largely because the d made Rivers look worse. Also worth noting that for the second week in a row, Maroney rushed for over 120 yards.

I've talked before about this weird pattern that emerges with Brady throughout a post season. If Brady plays in three games, you're going to get - in some order - a great game, a mediocre game, and a bad game. Brady has rarely been consistent throughout a single post season in the past ten years. In '05, he killed it against the Jags, then played poorly against the Broncos. In '06, he played well against the Jets, played terribly against the Chargers, and played all right against the Colts.

'07 was no exception. A nearly perfect game against the Jags, followed by a terrible outing against the Chargers, followed by an all right game against the Giants. In one of the most insane and memorable Super Bowls, Brady completed 29 of 48 passes for 266 yards, 1 TD, and 0 INTs. This game was notable for the amount of pressure the Giants got on him the entire game. He wasn't necessarily outplayed by Eli Manning (who had a very similar stat line: 19 of 34 for 255 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT), but Brady just couldn't get anything going on offense against that defensive front. As is the pattern - if you haven't been noticing - Brady's poor performance coincides with a bad day on the ground, with Maroney rushing for under 40 yards. All things considered though, neither offense played well. New England's defense kept them in the game and in the lead late, before one fluky play really got things going for the Giants.

2008 was a lost year. Brady was injured on his first pass play of the season and was out. Credit to the team though for still finishing 11-5 with their backup QB. One can only imagine what might have happened if Brady - a year removed from a fresh Super Bowl loss in a perfect regular season - hadn't gone down so early.

2009:

There's just no way around it. This was a terrible performance from Brady. It also turns out that Ray Rice is capable of beating more than just smaller women. On a day where Joe Flacco threw just 10 passes (one of which was an interception), Brady managed to seem worse. 23 of 42 passes completed for 154 yards, 2 TDs against 3 INTs. Once again, the ground game rushed for about 60 yards. Bad day all around for the Patriots offense, and their defense. It was their first one-and-done post season series, and if memory serves, their first home post season loss in the Belichick/Brady era. (They had beaten Baltimore 27-21 earlier in the year.)

2010:

For the second straight year, the Patriots go one-and-done in a game where Tom Brady got outplayed by Mark freaking Sanchez. Brady completed 29 of 45 passes for 299 yards, 2 TDs, and 1 INT. This is a game wherein the numbers don't tell the full story. Those stats look average - nothing terrible, but nothing great either - yet all game long, Brady had been pressured consistently and looked confused. He almost looked like Peyton Manning during his classic bouts against the Patriots earlier in the decade. Brady just couldn't figure out the Jets defense, made a number of bad throws, and the only reason the scoreline of 28-21 makes it look close was a late junk time TD (which also serves to pad Brady's stats). The Jets went in with a swagger, and even though the Patriots are classically a second half team, everyone knew it was over by the middle of the third quarter. Even the rushing attack looks inflated. Four players combined for over 100 yards on the ground, but not one of them had more than 50, and two of them were essentially trick plays.

That game is what makes me a little bit nervous for the upcoming game against the Ravens. I've heard fans discuss that the last time the Patriots played the Ravens in the regular season, they beat them 41-7. It's true, this Patriots team isn't the same as years past, just as the Ravens team isn't the same as years past. Still, that whole "I'm not worried because we crushed them" attitude is something I can't really get behind. In 2010, the last time the Jets and Pats played before the post season, the Patriots crushed them 45-3. Regular season games don't mean jack when the post season happens. It really is a whole new mini-season.


2011:

When we think of all-time great performances by Tom Brady, it's almost impossible to default to anything other than his divisional game against the Denver Broncos. Brady broke records completing 26 of 34 passes for 363 yards. More mind blowing, he threw 6 TDs to 1 INT. To be clear, this is impressive against any NFL team. Still, one has to take this with a little grain of salt given that it was against Tim Tebow and an 8-8 Broncos team that literally backed into the playoffs on a losing streak. The ground game was also pretty effective overall, combining for about 120 yards, although their main back of BenJarvis Green-Ellis wasn't super effective himself.

In the following AFC Championship game, Brady was outplayed by Joe Flacco in a strange game the Patriots won despite really having no business doing so. Brady completed 22 of 36 passes for 239 yards. However, those mediocre stats become a bit worse when you see he threw 0 TDs to 2 INTs. He did have a rushing touchdown off of a goal line dive, but that doesn't really speak much about his overall performance. Though the Patriots suffered unfortunate fluky plays in the '07 Super Bowl, they were on the receiving end of them here, where in consecutive plays at the end of the game, Ravens receiver Lee Evans dropped the game winning touchdown and was followed by Billy Cundiff's shanked chip shot field goal to send the game to overtime. The ground game was working ok for the Patriots, combining for about 90 yards, but even that wasn't overly effective. 

Then there was the second Giants/Patriots Super Bowl wherein this time, Eli Manning did outplay Brady. The Giants d-line still pressured Brady throughout the day and clearly impacted the game, and Brady wasn't terrible, but he looked very average. He completed 27 of 41 passes for 276 yards, 2 TDs, and 1 INT. Nothing says more about Brady's overall performance though than his opening drive, wherein he stupidly threw the ball away in what was a clear intentional grounding penalty from his own endzone, resulting in a safety. It was one of the most panicky and stupidest plays in Brady's career. To have it start a Super Bowl wasn't a good omen at all, and it impacted the game. (Imagine the final drive if Brady needed to just get into Gostkowski field goal range, being down by 2 instead of 4.) Granted, it was also a weirdly called game. And there's the controversial Welker drop that could have sealed the deal. (I'm not willing to pin it all on Welker. He could have and probably should have come down with it, but Brady threw it high and behind. Being a great quarterback that he is, he could have and should have also not made his receiver work that hard for what should have been an easy catch.) Of course, this was also a game in which we all learned about the many benefits of committing penalties in the final minute of the game (also made evident by yesterday's Panthers/Cardinals game where the punter ran around the endzone killing time before taking a safety - there was offensive holding on the play, but really, what incentive is there to NOT hold or chop block or whatever? They don't put time back on the clock.) And oh yeah, a bad day running the ball, with three backs combined for about 70 yards.

Just to really hammer the point home: that's three post season games. A great Brady performance, a bad Brady performance, and a mediocre Brady performance. 

2012:

Well, when Brady plays multiple post season games, we know we're either going to get a bust and they're one and done, or we get a stunning performance. 2012 started similarly to 2011, with Brady completed 25 of 40 passes for 344 yards, 3 TDs, and 0 INTs against Matt Schaub's Houston Texans. The ground game was also effective, with Ridley and Vereen combining for 120 yards.

And once again, Brady followed it up with a poor performance in the AFC Championship, again against the Ravens. It was essentially the same as the previous year, with Brady being outplayed by Flacco. Only this time, the Ravens made the plays they flubbed up before. Brady's disappointing play resulted in 29 of 54 passes completed for 320 yards, 1 TD, and 2 INTs. Even though those stats don't look too too bad, they also don't really tell the whole story of just how bad the Patriots offense, including Brady, was. Bad overthrows seemed to plague the night, and resulted in turnovers and dead drives. (there was a killer Ridley fumble, but it's a little unfair to criticize him for it when he was knocked out for a moment. Nothing you can do about that.)

2013:

Of all the post seasons in which Brady played more than one game, 2013 was easily his worst. In his opening game against Andrew Luck and the Colts, he didn't really have to do anything. He completed 13 of 25 passes for 198 yards, 0 TDs, and 0 INTs. They won this game off their defense (with four interceptions) and their ground game, which combined for over 215 yards. Brady was asked to manage the game, which made it almost feel a bit more like the early 2000s where he wasn't being asked to do too much and they were winning Super Bowls. Not a bad performance from Brady, although completing just over 50% of his passes isn't super impressive, but he wasn't really spectacular when he did throw the ball either.

Brady improved from his recent string of terrible AFC Championship performances with the definition of mediocrity. 24 of 38 for 277 yards, 1 TD, and 0 INTs. Even more, most of those stats came late in the game. The Patriots weren't totally out of it going into the 4th quarter, but it was pretty clear they were getting beat. Brady also had one of his most questionable leadership moments when, after a failed two-point conversion, he looked totally shocked. He stood there, bent over, hands on his knees. Though there was still a fair amount of time left (a comeback at that point was unlikely, but still possible), you could just see that Brady knew it was over. And so did everyone else. I'm not going to harp too much on this moment, but it was easily one of the worst Brady moments I've seen. He's not a quitter, and you generally feel like you have a chance so long as he's there, but it was the first time where Brady's body language told me that that was it. It was essentially his Eli Manning moment. And go figure, his poor performance coincided with a bad day running the football, barely able to muster up 50 yards.

I've gone into greater detail about Brady's strange Good/Bad/Average post season pattern, and why - despite being one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time - he's not necessarily to be trusted in AFC Championship games (he's not very good in them overall). The Patriots have made it to three consecutive AFC title games, and more than just playing poorly in them, he just can't seem to generate points. They're 1-2 and have been outscored 74-52. The other general fact is that you can't really rely on Brady to win games for you on his own. Not that there aren't some exceptions, but overall, Brady's post season success throwing the ball clearly coincides with an effective ground game. In their 9 wins since their last Super Bowl victory, the Patriots average 118 yards in games they win. These are also typically when Brady is at his best. In 7 losses though, they average a paltry 71 yards. Of course, most quarterbacks are at their best with a complementary ground game.

So how does that compare to Peyton Manning in that same time frame? It's a little hard to tell. The numbers still favor Brady. In one fewer game, Manning has thrown for almost 100 more yards on 2 more passes than Brady, but he's also thrown 7 fewer touchdowns with the same number of interceptions. Similar to Brady and the Patriots, Manning and the Colts/Broncos have greater success with a solid running game. In Manning's 8 playoff wins since 2005, his offense averages 110 yards a game (8 fewer yards than the successful Patriots of that time period). Eerily, when Manning's offense sputters, it averages 71 yards rushing (the same average of Patriots squads that lose in the post season.)

Basic lesson here, of course, is if you want to win and your quarterback to succeed, run the ball. There's actually little difference between Brady's stats since 2005 and Manning's. Looking at the numbers straight up can be a little misleading though. At first glance, Brady looks clearly superior given the higher completion percentage, more touchdowns, and same number of interceptions on one more game than Manning. Their ground support has also been similar, with Brady benefiting from a slightly better ground attack. However, keep in mind that six of Brady's touchdowns came in one game! Additionally, it's worth noting that in this time frame, Peyton Manning has not thrown more interceptions than touchdowns in a game. Tom Brady has, multiple times.

In this ten year period, Brady has been in five AFC Championships to Peyton Manning's three, but Manning-led offenses have outscored opponents in these games 94-67.  (That's an average score of about 31-22). Brady has been outscored in AFC Championships 107-95. (That's an average score of about 21-19, in favor of the opponents.) In ten years of AFC Championships, Manning not only has the better record than Brady (2-1 for Manning to 2-3 to Brady), but he's also generated 12 more points a game. Both have been pretty much equal in the Super Bowl in terms of stats, although one might argue that Brady has had more graceful Super Bowl losses, losing once to a superior team (the 2011 Giants) and essentially losing on a series of once in a lifetime plays (in 2007). In his two Super Bowl losses, Brady was competitive despite mediocre performances and lost both games by a total of 7 points. Manning, however, has been outscored in his three Super Bowl appearances 91-54!

All things considered though, the past ten years have seen Manning and Brady balance out. Brady was bolstered by a great team in the early aughts, though it's unfair and inaccurate to ignore his contributions to those Super Bowl runs. Still, it's hard to ignore that in 15 years of post season play, Brady has only been consistently good for 3 of them. He might be the only player to have so much early success in his first few years that he somehow manages to stave off criticism of mediocre or poor play in the following ten years.

I've argued before that Manning has gotten better in the post season while Brady appears to have gotten worse, and it's really hard to argue that isn't true. It's also sometimes hard to tell where Brady's influence begins and Belichick's influence ends. The Colts as an organization put a lot of eggs in the offensive basket. When Manning sat out with his neck injury, they turned into a joke. They used their first pick to select another talented quarterback and that helped right the ship. When Brady went down with his injury, the Patriots still went 11-5. It'd be hard to suggest they'd be this good today if this current team went in without Brady, but that statement is also true of the Broncos. Without Manning, they wouldn't be as good as they are either.

In the end, the point of this whole rant is to show this strange sort of double standard. Manning never has the benefit of football being a team game. When he loses, it's because he can't perform in the post season. Yet even though his stats aren't all that different than Brady's, and in some aspects, his stats are even slightly favorable (such as never committing more turnovers than touchdowns, better performance in AFC title games, and generally more consistent play throughout), when Brady loses, it's because of the receivers, or the offensive line, or the defense's inability to tackle a runner.

So that's the point: Manning and Brady aren't that different in the way they perform in the post season anymore. The idea that Brady is somehow more reliable than Manning is a myth, and frankly has been for the past decade. Don't get me wrong here. I'd still take Brady over Manning, although admittedly, I can't quite quantify the reasons. There are just a myriad of intangibles Brady possess that Manning doesn't seem to have, but otherwise, they're not too far apart in terms of post performances.

Just for prosperity's sake, I did some digging into other quarterbacks' stats. The main guys I was looking at were fellow Super Bowl champions Aaron Rodgers, Eli Manning, and Joe Flacco. Here are how some of the stats look:

Eli Manning has the best post season winning percentage, going 8-3 in the post season. However, this is also a case where the numbers don't tell the whole story. His 8 wins came in two seasons. The other three times he made the post season? One and done. He completed 61.5% of his passes for 17 touchdowns to 7 interceptions and 2519 yards. This means he essentially averaged 229 yards, 1.5 touchdowns, and 0.6 interceptions per post season game. What's really interesting about Eli Manning though is that he has had the best and most consistent running game among all these quarterbacks. The Giants average 108 rushing yards per game in their eight victories, but also averaged 103 rushing yards in their losses. It could be argued then that the ground game makes Eli look good, and that Eli can also make the ground game look bad. (To be fair, while he wasn't the reason the Giants won in '07, he definitely was the main reason they made the Super Bowl in '11.)

Joe Flacco has the second best post season winning percentage of the group, going 10-4. If it isn't obvious, while I appreciate stats, I don't put too much stock in them necessarily. Flacco has been solid in the playoffs in recent years, but he definitely didn't start that way. Despite winning more playoff games than Brady and Manning (in fewer games and mostly on the road to boot), he himself hasn't played particularly well in them. Overall, he's completed 54.6% of his passes for 2600 yards. What makes him seem much better - and largely because of their one Super Bowl run - is that he's also thrown for 21 touchdowns to 8 interceptions. This averages out to 185 yards, 1.5 touchdowns, and 0.5 interceptions per game in the post season. To show the support though, his run game - though making up for Flacco's deficiencies early - has not been terribly different from Manning's or Brady's support. The Ravens averaged 113 yards per game on the ground with Flacco under center, and averaged 80 yards per game in losses.

Aaron Rodgers, who is without doubt the best quarterback in the game today, has the smallest pool of playoff games under his belt. He's 5-3, completing 66.1% of his passes for 2311 yards, 18 touchdowns, and just 5 interceptions. These are very Rodgers-like numbers. It all averages out to 288 yards, 2.2 touchdowns, and 0.6 interceptions per post season game. Pretty great. What's strange about his numbers though is that his ground game is generally better when they lose than when they win. In victory, they average 90 yards per game; that number jumps to 100 yards per game in losses though.

Then of course, we already know Brady's numbers. 9-7 in post season games since 2005, completing 70.6% of his passes for 4319 yards, 30 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions. This averages to 269 yards, 1.8 touchdowns, and 1 interception per playoff game. What might be a little telling about the nature of his teams, however, is that his Patriots see the biggest disparity between rushing yards per victory compared to loss. Leading the others on the list, the Patriots with Brady averaged 118 yards on the ground in playoff wins, but 71 yards in losses. Stop the run, you've got a great shot at stopping Brady, whereas it doesn't necessarily mean anything for Rodgers, Flacco, or Eli Manning.

Finally, there's Peyton Manning, who's 8-7 since 2005, completing 66.1% of his passes for 4417 yards, 23 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions. This averages to 294 yards, 1.5 touchdowns, and 1 interception per post season game. His run game has been pretty similar to Brady's. The Colts/Broncos averaged 110 yards on the ground in Manning-led playoff wins, but 71 yards in losses. Same thing: stop the run, you have a good shot at stopping Manning. What's even more is, Peyton Manning is the only quarterback of these five Super Bowl winners to not turn it over more in a game than score. Brady, Flacco, Rodgers, and Eli have all had post season games in the past ten years in which they threw more interceptions than touchdowns. Flacco, Eli, and Brady have even done it multiple times. Peyton Manning did it early in his career (and often badly, lest we forget his four interception day in Foxborough). Still, looking at the past 10 years, Peyton Manning has been pretty solid in the post season. He's not noticeably better than Brady or anyone else, but he's also not noticeably worse.


BREAKDOWN  (2005-2014):

QB                     RECORD       COMP %       YPG   Total Yds    TDs per game      INTs per game
E. Manning         8-3  (.727)        61.5%          229        2,519       1.5   (17 total)      0.6  (7 total)
J. Flacco           10-4  (.714)       54.6%          185        2,600       1.5   (21 total)       0.5  (8 total)
A. Rodgers        5-3   (.625)        66.1%          288       2,311        2.2  (18 total)       0.6  (5 total)
T. Brady            9-7  (.562)        70.6%           269       4,319        1.8  (30 total)       1.0  (16 total)
P. Manning        8-7  (.533)         66.1%          294       4,417        1.5  (23 total)       1.0  (16 total)


Well, there you go. Another "Tom Brady is human and is kiiinda being over rated lately" argument. It'll be interesting to see which team causes Brady to play poorly this post season to knock the Patriots out of contention again. Just to be clear one more time, I'd still take Brady over Manning on intangibles - it isn't very often you see Brady get blown out in big games, even if he himself doesn't play well - but it's also hard to say what might have happened if New England faced that Seattle team. 2013 was Brady's worst overall playoff performance and that Seattle defense was just insane. Part of me wants to believe the Patriots wouldn't have gotten blown out, but that would have been more a credit to Bill Belichick than Tom Brady in my mind.

But maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to be. I want a reason to put Brady above Joe Montana, but his overall postseason play still puts Montana ever so slightly ahead.

MLB Post Season.

It's that time of year again! Yes, I know, I'm beating a dead horse here. And yes, I understand there's no convincing baseball fans of...well...anything involving changes to their sacred sport. Still, when I first made the argument two years ago that money clearly matters, I've tried to make it a point to pay attention going forward. But let's back track a little.

Here are the list of the past 22 World Series winners, and their respective payroll ranking.

2013 - Boston Red Sox: $159 million (4th highest)
2012 - San Francisco Giants: $138 million (6th highest)
2011 - St. Louis Cardinals: $105 million (11th highest)
2010 - San Francisco Giants: $97 million (10th highest)
2009 - New York Yankees: $201 million (1st)
2008 - Philadelphia Phillies: $98 million (13th)
2007 - Boston Red Sox: $143 million (2nd)
2006 - St. Louis Cardinals: $88 million (11th)
2005 - Chicago White Sox: $73 million (13th)
2004 - Boston Red Sox: $125 million (2nd)
2003 - Florida Marlins: $63 million (20th)
2002 - Anaheim Angels: $61 million (15th)
2001 - Arizona Diamondbacks: $81 million (8th)
2000 - New York Yankees: $92 million (1st)
1999 - New York Yankees: $89 million (1st)
1998 - New York Yankees: $64 million (2nd)
1997 - Florida Marlins: $48 million (7th)
1996 - New York Yankees: $53 million (1st)
1995 - Atlanta Braves: $46 million (3rd)
1993 - Toronto Blue Jays: $43 million (1st)
1992 - Toronto Blue Jays: $44 million (1st)
1991 - Minnesota Twins: $23 million (13th)

You would note that teams in the top 10 highest payrolls (or financially, the top 33%) account for 14 World Series victories. That's 63.3% (or nearly two-thirds of the past 22 World Series titles). Making it worse is, teams in the top half of payrolls account for, quite literally, all but one of those 22 titles. Teams in the top 50% of payrolls account for 95.4% of World Series titles. Having the top payroll in baseball has "earned" a title 6 times (which means a little over a quarter of the last 22 titles, 27% total). And only the 2003 Florida Marlins fell into the bottom half. You might also notice that never in the past 22 years has a team falling in the BOTTOM third of payrolls won.

Well, ok. You need to make the playoffs to win the World Series, right? So let's see the "genetic" makeup of playoffs this year and the previous four years before (and let's keep in mind MLB's expansion to include two extra teams a year in the stupid wild card round - for real, just play a best of three series, guys!)

2014:
AL: Oakland, Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles Angels
NL: San Francisco, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Nationals
5 of 10 in top third. 3 of 10 in middle third. 2 of 10 in bottom third. 7 of 10 in top half.

2013:
AL: Cleveland, Tampa, Boston, Detroit, Oakland
NL: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta
4 of 10 in the top third. 3 of 10 in the middle third. 3 of 10 in bottom third. 5 of 10 in top half.

2012:
AL: Texas, Baltimore, New York Yankees, Oakland, Detroit
NL: Atlanta, St. Louis, Washington, Cincinnati, San Francisco
6 of 10 in the top third. 4 of 10 in the middle third. 0 of 10 in the bottom third. 7 of 10 in top half.

2011:
AL: New York Yankees, Detroit, Texas, Tampa
NL: Philadelphia, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Arizona
3 of 8 in top third. 3 of 8 in the middle third. 2 of 8 in the bottom third. 5 of 8 in top half.

2010:
AL: Tampa, Texas, Minnesota, New York Yankees
NL: Philadelphia, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Atlanta
3 of 8 in top third. 3 of 8 in middle third. 2 of 8 in bottom third. 5 of 8 in top half.

Here's the total break down:

BREAKDOWN PAST FIVE YEARS: (out of 46 slots)

Teams in Top Third Highest Payroll: 21  (45.6%)
Teams in Middle Third Payroll: 16 (34.7%)
Teams in Top Half Highest Payroll: 29 (63%)
Teams in Bottom Third Payroll: 9 (19.5%)

World Series Winners in the Past Five Years:
4 out of 5 were in the top ten (or top third) highest payrolls in MLB.



A lot of baseball fans still make the counterargument that money doesn't buy championships; that I am making a big deal over nothing. Money in baseball is a non-issue. It doesn't mean squat.

To be clear though (and I get why baseball fans in particular have a hard time with it), but the argument has never been that money buys championships. The argument is that money clearly makes a difference. It gives teams with more money, or that have the capacity to spend more money, a better statistical chance of advancing to the playoffs. And it clearly makes it more likely to advance to and win the World Series. I don't honestly know how anyone can look at the fact that in the past 22 years, only ONCE has a team in the lowest third of payrolls won a championship, then tell me it's a non-issue.

I haven't followed baseball at all this year, but the Dodgers, Angels, Tigers, Giants, and Nationals all fall into the top ten highest payrolls in baseball this year. I am going to go out on a limb and guarantee that one of those teams wins the World Series. And I reiterate: I know next to nothing about the sport of baseball or who is actually good!

The NFL's Image Problem.

It's been increasingly difficult to avoid discussing the string of recent incidents contributing to the NFL's image problem. No big secret, it's been a rough start to the new season. With there already being four high-profile domestic violence cases (with former Ravens' running back Ray Rice being the only one to really suffer consequences), and one extremely troubling case of what amounts to child abuse, really, from one of the league's premier players who also happens to be the face of a franchise.

To be somewhat fair, the Rice situation is a bit different from the Greg Hardy (Panthers) situation and the Ray McDonald (49ers) situation.. When news broke out way back in February that Rice had punched his fiancee in the face so hard that she was knocked unconscious, it was already an abhorrent scenario. Yet both the Ravens organization and the NFL were reluctant to do anything. As more was revealed about the case, commissioner Roger Goodell slapped him with a measly two game suspension. This, of course, sparked the joke that in the NFL, hitting a joint was worse than hitting your fiancee (as this situation was happening at the same time as Browns' receiver Josh Gordon was facing a year-long suspension for drug abuse after having been found out to have smoke marijuana for the third time in his career).

Already though, this is a league where smoking pot three times is worse than knocking your fiancee out cold. The priorities of the league already appear messed up. There was great public outcry at the weak suspension to begin with, but things only got worse when the video tape of the incident was released. If you haven't seen it, you should look it up. Apart from the fact that Rice just straight up cold-cocks his fiancee; he also seems extremely cavalier about her unconscious body. I don't want to comment on whether this sort of thing has happened before between them, or what. I don't know. Most people reporting on the matter don't. Still, perhaps the most disturbing part of the video is that he just goes on trying to drag her unconscious body out of the elevator like it were an annoying inconvenience.

That's when the shit storm got really intense. The Ravens cut Rice. Taking a page from the Patriots in the Hernandez fiasco, the Ravens even offered a jersey exchange for fans (although I'm curious how many exchanged their Ray Rice jerseys for Terrell Suggs jerseys - another Ravens player to have a couple counts of domestic violence under his belt).  The league suspended Rice indefinitely (but as always, left a door open for his possible return). Both the NFL and Ravens organization created an excuse for having not been more serious with this: both claimed they hadn't seen the video.

Well, apart from the fact that later, there are reports that that isn't actually true and that law enforcement officials had actually sent the tape to the NFL so odds are, someone in the league offices saw it,  the fact remains that the video tape ultimately changed nothing. The facts we already knew were merely confirmed, but nothing changed. We already knew that Rice punched his fiancee. We already knew that he knocked her out. And we already knew that he tried to drag her out of the elevator before running into other people. These were the facts we already knew. What did the video change? We had known this exact situation had transpired months earlier. Yet now they're trying to cover their asses.

Fact is, the NFL never took this situation seriously.

But now the NFL realizes that maybe this does matter a bit. The sad fact is, the only reason the Panthers deactivated Greg Hardy and the only reason the Vikings deactivated Adrian Peterson was because of the Ray Rice fallout. It's quite simple. No video, no problem. Shit. The 49ers didn't even bother to deactivate Ray McDonald for their prime time implosion. But already, Peterson is confirmed for the next game. McDonald never faced deactivation to begin with. And as much as I want to believe that my NFC team - the Panthers - will do the right thing, it's hard to imagine Hardy sitting out too much longer. And let's also not ignore that Peterson and Hardy were not actually suspended. They were merely deactivated. That is such a huge fundamental difference.

The league has spent a lot of time and a lot of money trying to draw in a female fanbase, and it's been more successful than pretty much every major sports league in the country. Yet they've done very little to show that they actually take domestic violence seriously.

The Peterson story isn't much better. Instead of punching his wife, he merely beat up his children with a stick, causing some pretty bad injuries. He's been indicted with negligence and reckless endangerment, but it's a text book case of child abuse. The saddest part of both stories is that all of these players have their supporters and defenders. I try not to give the internet credence, but there are people who honestly believe Rice acted in self-defense! (For the record, that's extremely fucked up.)  Peterson has an even greater defense: it's his right to discipline his children how he sees fit. After all, Peterson himself had received similar discipline. Generally, the people who hit their kids are the people who were hit as kids too. It makes sense. Yet when you look at the pictures (again, you can look them up online), it's disgusting. Disciplining your kids doesn't mean you can hurt them however badly you want. Even worse is that he's got such outspoken defenders. Charles Barkley went so far as to say that all black parents whip their kids, and that under those circumstances, every black parent is going to jail. (Are these the role models for the black community these days? I don't want to sound ignorant, but, how is this ok? Were I black, I'd be super pissed at these comments. They don't reflect "black culture" - whatever that really means anyway - very kindly.)

Not to get all political and all, but both situations, as messed up as they are, both rely on one fundamental situation: these players have the power, and they generally get away with it because they're abusing people without it. All this talk about "due process," is fine and dandy, but just take a moment to consider what exactly that means. The law is actually on the side of the abuser. Innocent until proven guilty, but these are situations that largely build off of hearsay and "character." And these popular, wealthy NFL players are naturally going to get the benefit of the doubt. (Although, the video tape removes the benefit from Rice, but strangely, people haven't removed the benefit of the doubt from Peterson, who also has photographic evidence proving his abuses.) Either way, the victims are fairly powerless in every capacity.

What's even more messed up is that Ben Roethlisberger got suspended for six games for personal conduct violations in regards to sexual harassment case that actually did have a bit of a muddled story.  Nothing was ever definitive about those situations, yet Goodell suspended him for six games. Rice punches his fiancee and knocks her out  and they give him a two game suspension. Then the whole Hardy, Peterson, and McDonald situations, and they don't even get a one-game suspension!

The key to the lack of suspensions in the Hardy, Peterson, and McDonald cases is that whole "due process" thing. And while Roethlisberger sounded like a total sleazeball back in the day (he's one of those guys who seems to have turned it around, which is always nice to see), he wasn't afforded that luxury. Yet somehow when it comes to enacting real violence on another person - woman or child - the league suddenly cares about "due process." When it comes to even more horrendous crimes, the league wants to wait and see. Let the courts figure it out. Of course, the NFL has nothing to do with the inherent flaws in the legal system that tend to create a hostile environment for victims of domestic violence (to the point that many women and men don't report it when it happens). And that just leaves an even more bitter taste in the mouth.

Perhaps the worst part of it all is that this isn't anything new. This is a league that wouldn't suspend Ray Lewis (who even went on to become the NFL MVP.) This is the league that suspended Michael Vick indefinitely a day after his arrest, then allowed his prison time to serve as his league suspension (in all, Vick's NFL suspension was two games - hey! Killing dogs is just as bad as knocking your fiancee unconscious!) This is a league that gave an "indefinite" (but six game) suspension to Adam "Pacman" Jones for his involvement in a night club shooting (but didn't suspend Ray Lewis for his involvement in a stabbing), then let him back in the league where he still somehow gets work. Even Donte Stallworth kept finding work after a year long suspension for a DUI manslaughter charge. (To his credit, Stallworth is one of the few NFL players to get into legal trouble and fully accept responsibility for his actions.) Ray Rice wasn't even the only Ravens player on the Ravens roster to be charged with domestic violence! Terrell Suggs punched and dragged his girlfriend years earlier. Suspension? Nope. And he did it multiple times, and did some crazy things (like poured bleach on her and her son and kicked her in the nose).  Brandon Marshall of the Bears also has a bit of a history (and it's kind of crazy - I actually really like Marshall and I do think he's one of those players who's kind of turned it around, but it is hard to get over his earlier years).

The league cares more about substance abuse than violence, as evident by Gordon's season long suspension for marijuana, Colts' owner Jim Irsay's six game suspension for drugs and a DUI, Wes Welker's  four game suspension for amphetamines, and Matt Prater's four game suspension for alcohol issues. But even as a sports league, the NFL is somehow above PED controversy. Brian Cushing (Texans) was suspended years ago for PEDs and was a top candidate for defensive rookie of the year that same season. Shawn Merriman (former Charger) was caught as well and finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting. NFL fans not only give zero shits about the players beating up women and children; they don't care about the players cheating (unless it's the Patriots, who didn't actually "cheat"). Frankly, it's astonishing that the NFL doesn't get the kind of flack that Major League Baseball does. Half of Seattle's roster in the past few years have face some kind of suspension for PEDs. They win the championship and no one says anything about it. Dick Sherman even escaped his PED suspension on a legal technicality (and not that he didn't actually do it).

Still, when it comes to domestic violence, there's a whole myriad of issues at hand. Stats won't tell the whole story. On the one hand, the percentage of NFL players arrested for domestic violence is much smaller than the overall national average of that age bracket. On the other hand, conviction rates for professional athletes is about half that of the national average. We can interpret this on the surface as, hey, the NFL doesn't have a domestic violence problem, and even if it looks like they do, they're probably innocent. This, of course, fails to take into consideration that many of these cases are determined by juries (and it's hard to imagine in this day and age a celebrity athlete like Adrian Peterson having a completely fair trial). The rates might also be deceptive because reporting domestic violence caused by a celebrity athlete is inevitably going to show up in the public eye, and those women are going to be scrutinized even more harshly by even more people. There will be news cameras and talking heads on television calling her character into question. (See Big Ben cases.) If there's already little security provided in the normal world, where it's suspected that most domestic violence cases never get reported to begin with, it stands to reason that when committed by a celebrity, it's even less safe.

But at the end of the day, it's the NFL. It's one of the most successful businesses ever! It's in the public eye. Children look up to their players. And it seems we're all ok with thugs, wife beaters, and child abusers so long as they can run really fast and hold onto the football. Personally, I'm having a hard time keeping focus on the good guys like DeAngelo Williams, who recently dyed tips of his dreads pink in honor of his mother who passed from breast cancer and played a big role in the NFL's embracing of the Breast Cancer Awareness cause.

It's a situation where sure, an overwhelming majority of NFL players aren't criminals. This is obviously true. The problem is, there shouldn't be any child abusers, wife beaters, dog killers, and murder accomplices in the NFL. All this recent activity really makes the Patriots' handling of Aaron Hernandez seem like the best and most ideal way they could. Triple murder is perhaps more of a black and white issue than anything else, but Robert Kraft - when he heard of the investigation - said that he would release Hernandez if he were charged with as much as obstruction of justice (perhaps learning from the Ray Lewis situation over a decade earlier). When the story broke that he was charged of murder, the Patriots cut him without hesitation, told him to stay away from the premises, and offered jersey exchanges for fans who had his jersey.

It's a shame that more sports organizations don't put real life above football more readily. And it's really starting to kill the NFL buzz. For me, it's getting a bit more difficult to really get into this season.

Let's not forget in all this due process talk though, Ray Rice knocked out his fiancee in front of a security camera. He coldly tried to drag her out of the elevator. The NFL may or may not have seen the tape (but probably did). And Ray Rice pleaded not motherfucking guilty.

Thoughts on LeBron James.

Now that the World Cup is coming to a close (and the US has been out for a while now), it's time to move on to other things. The biggest thing rocking the sports world right now is the question of which superstar basketball player will end up at which team? Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, and Dwayne Wade are all up in the air, but of course, no one is bigger than LeBron James. Word on the (internet) street is that it's really up between Miami and Cleveland. The latter, of course, is complicated because of their rocky history.

Before going on, I have something to confess. It's tough to admit, and I know my mama and my sister will be ashamed of me, but I'm just not a LeBron hater. Don't get me wrong here, there are things about him that I don't like, sure. Is he confident to the point of arrogant? Yep. Does that somehow mean he's not the most dominant player in the league today? Nope. Maybe a healthy Kobe Bryant could make his case, and Kevin Durant certainly can state his case, provided, ya know, he ever deliver in the post season. And of course, I'd obviously take a complete team like the Spurs over a team that is James and a bench full of scrubs. But if everyone were honest, James is obviously the most dominant player in the NBA.

Sure, James got his rings by colluding to be part of a super team with other team-carrying stars like Bosh and Wade, but there's no mistaking it: James was the guy. He was the leader of that time, no matter how much people might like Wade over James. Bosh stepped up in the post season each year, but by the end, he was a shell of himself. As badly outmatched as the Heat were in the Finals against San Antonio, they were only there because of James. He carried that team. And why is James singled out for going to a team with more talent? What great team didn't have a multitude of incredible talent? Certainly not the Bulls, nor the Lakers, nor the Celtics. Also, how come Shaq never got hate for going to a team with a true number one? 

Fact is, LeBron was unjustly criticized for his actual decision, almost in lieu of legitimate criticism of The Decision program. Of course, James rightfully deserves any and all criticism for his handling of announcing the decision. It was completely unprofessional and immature. However, one can't use that as justification for Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. James was what? 25-ish years old? When it comes to athletes, we tend to expect a lot out of them behavior-wise. It's very easy to forget that sports is really a young person's industry, where the cream of the crop are in their early to mid twenties. And while they're often far more mature and professional than many, they're still basically kids. James brought criticism upon himself for the way he announced his decision, and sure it says something about his arrogance that he conducted it that way, but it's also important to keep in perspective that he was a young man who had an entire city's sports dreams thrown on him fresh out of high school. And he nearly delivered entirely by himself.

But Gilbert's reaction? He wrote a scathing letter and posted it online for the world to see. And the crazy thing is, he only just took it down the other day when he thought he could possibly woo James back to his team! If you haven't read it and you think he should go back to Cleveland, you really should check it out. 

"As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier."

So he's already acknowledging James as a thing of the past, but also, this is more than criticism of The Decision, but an unreasonable attack on his actual decision itself. James did not desert Cleveland any more than Julius Peppers deserted North Carolina to play for the Chicago Bears. The fact is, James is not required to stay in Cleveland his entire career. Yes, the idea of the hometown hero staying put for a career and possibly bringing glory to his homeland is a compelling one, but athletes aren't slaves or indentured servants. They are and should be allowed to seek new experiences and opportunities and environments. James obviously felt Cleveland wasn't the right environment (frankly, rightfully so). He is under no obligation to spend his entire life in Cleveland. This is a completely unfair attack on James's decision to leave Ohio.

"This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional culminating with a national TV special of 'his' decision..." 

At this point, his legitimate, reasonable, and understandable criticism of James's announcement turns into a personal attack on his character. Did James really behave in a more narcissistic manner than Dan Gilbert did with his letter? And really, is there anything more narcissistic than owning a professional sports team in one of America's big three sports? Gilbert has been nothing but narcissistic as an owner. Just look at his role in the last NBA lock out! The thing is, his unmerited personal attack undermines his legitimate criticism. 

"...the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you, nor NEVER will betray you."

I understand emotions were at a high, but how can anyone possibly defend this kind of attack primarily because a player leaves your team? And speaking of betrayal, why should Cavs fans have any more faith in Gilbert? Gilbert rode James's coat tails for seven years before James finally had enough of a mediocre team built around him while the owner asks him to carry them. Gilbert is every bit as responsible for James's leaving as James himself. Perhaps if Gilbert actually did something to really build a team, rather than just throwing random dudes on the court and expecting too much of his star... And I don't care how much you hate LeBron James, no one can ever say he's not hard-working. It's understandable that Cavs fans would feel emotional in the aftermath of James's departure, but c'mon. He gave you seven years where, frankly, your team overachieved solely because of him. Why is that being completely and utterly ignored here? 

"You simply don't deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal." 

They also don't deserve Dan Gilbert as their owner. Also, this is sports. What exactly was cowardly about his decision to leave? What? It's his fault that Pat Riley had built a better team than Gilbert and company? Grow up. 

He then goes on to guarantee a title. It's safe to assume that he meant for Cleveland and not LeBron, but well, we know how it went. James went on to appear in four straight championships while Cleveland has gone right back to being totally forgettable. 

Basic point here is, Dan Gilbert was almost 50 years old and was the head of a major company. He is the top of the chain. James erred with his TV special, but this behavior from the owner is completely unacceptable. Given that Gilbert has also fought against player-rights in the bargaining agreement discussions, I've got to say, why would anyone want to play for a guy like that? Gilbert isn't overtly racist like Clippers owner Donald Sterling, but there is something to be said about an owner who views his players as "his property" and that they owe it to him to stay put. If Gilbert wanted James to stay, he should have spent those seven years he already had doing more to build a championship-caliber squad. He didn't. James left because of it.

Even more were the hordes of angry fans who threw all of their LeBron gear onto pyres. I don't want to make too much of an association with race here, but I can't help but notice that more often than not, these events wind up being angry white people burning the jerseys of black players. (Not suggesting black people don't participate in this as well, but, well, I've watched a lot of those videos and there is a pretty clear common denominator.)   It's not even to say that they never burn the jerseys of white players as well. (See Matt Schaub jerseys being burned to a crisp during his tumultuous season.)

However, given, ya know, social history of this nation, the fact that so many people are burning jerseys of their former favorite athletes - an industry predominantly made up of black and other minority players - is almost harrowing to watch. I understand that presumably, most fans don't mean anything by it. They're just upset that their favorite athlete on their team left. It's even worse when they go to a rival team. But it's hard to remove the racial connections from it. It's such a drastic overreaction and burning anything - a jersey, a flag, a cross - is such a powerful and hateful symbol. 

When you look back at the owner's response to James's departure, and when you look at the fans' reaction, why would James want to go back there? The people of Cleveland almost literally burnt that bridge, and certainly their owner should not be rewarded for his even more narcissistic and immature behavior. I'm sorry, but suddenly pandering to James because you realize he may consider returning to your team if you offer a sweet enough deal shows just how entitled Gilbert feels. He clearly feels that as long as he puts enough money on the table or offers to give James whatever he wants, James should come back.

And if James decides to either stay in Miami or head somewhere else? What will Gilbert's reaction be? I shutter to imagine. I just hope that his next hate letter isn't written in Comic Sans. 

All this comes down to the simple fact that no matter what contract an athlete signs, s/he is not actually property. These athletes don't "belong" to anyone. Maybe the rights to speak with them about contract negotiations do, but the player his or herself do not. Dan Gilbert obviously does not think this is the case. His attempts to lure James back to Cleveland are shallow and callous. 

But no matter how big a hater you may be of LeBron James, certainly everyone can agree that if LeBron is expected to have some archaic sense of honor, then surely Gilbert should be expected to as well, yes?

As for going to the team that gives him the most likely shot at winning titles: what exactly is wrong with that? Here in New England, it's funny hearing Celtics fans bash James for doing that while Patriots fans are stoked to have Darrelle Revis, who clearly chose New England because they are perennial Super Bowl favorites.  And frankly, what truly great team didn't have multiple top-tier talent? Are we supposed to think less of Randy Moss for coming to New England in 2007? Or what about Jarome Iginla coming to the Bruins in 2013 (of which his contract stated the Flames could not trade him without his permission, and he gave them a list of four teams he would be willing to be traded too - all teams having won the Stanley Cup in the past four years). So why all the hate for James? 

I suspect it's that we culturally have gravitated towards "hatin'" as a community activity. The "cool kids" don't like the popular things. At the end of the day, LeBron James is indisputably one of the greatest pure talents the NBA has ever seen. I'm not saying he's the best ever, but he's among the best. It's a little sad to see that so many people would rather tear down greatness than soak it up and enjoy it. 

James has made mistakes, to be sure. But he's done far less than Dan Gilbert and Cleveland fans have. He shouldn't reward them. If this is ultimately about "responsibility," then Gilbert and Cavs fans should have to accept responsibility for their actions. 

He shouldn't stay in Miami, but he sure as hell should not return to the land that did everything they could to burn that bridge ten-fold. 

The Reasons for Loving (and Hating) Soccer:

Soccer is one of those sports in America that seems perpetually on the cusp. Every time the World Cup comes around, our collective interest in soccer grows. People start playing more pick up and the MLS tends to see an increase in attendance. The question is always whether or not that can be sustained. Working against soccer as a commercially successful sport in America is that it's a free flowing game with no opportunities for commercial breaks. There's still room for ad space, but most advertisers probably feel commercials are more valuable than the billboard space around the field.  This also means you don't see soccer matches on television very often unless you buy the extra package cable deals that include the specific soccer channel.

To be fair to Major League Soccer, it has been steadily growing over the years in its own right. Created at the end of 1993 as part of the deal with FIFA to host the 1994 World Cup, the first MLS season was in 1996. This is the fifth World Cup since the inaugural MLS season. It's not unreasonable to assume that the World Cup brings new fans into the stands, but they've actually been able to keep a growing number of fans. MLS now averages greater attendance than the NBA and NHL, and more than many franchise in Major League Baseball. Television ratings don't quite follow that trend, but Fox and ESPN have dished out $600 million dollars to wrangle the rights away from NBC. Still, ratings have actually declined in recent years.

Every four years, we usually hear one of two things. The first is how amazing soccer is and how beneficial the World Cup is for MLS. And yes, MLS has seen an increase in attendance of up to 62%. But then we also hear that typical, "who cares about soccer?" argument too. Well, clearly that sentiment isn't accurate anymore. The World Cup on ESPN has drawn viewership in the eight-digit range. So why is it that in the United States, soccer falls into this weird area where more people are caring, but it's still not all that popular? (Though just for the record, MLS has an average attendance close to France's and Holland's top domestic leagues.)

I can really only speak for myself, but as a fairly typical American sports fan, perhaps these apply to many others as well.


WHY I LOVE SOCCER:

1. Free-Flow Game

Americans aren't exactly known for our attention spans. Just look at the design of the big three sports Stateside. Football is stop-go where in sixty minutes of game clock, only about fifteen minutes worth of action actually happens. American football is almost like a war strategy game. You set up your pieces while the other team sets up theirs. You line them up, see what they look like, then try to out-execute the other. Baseball, like football, is structurally built as a sport to give you time to look away. Little action ever happens in a baseball game, so the thrill is in the build up. A team sport, baseball actually builds up more of a one on one focus, with the pitcher dueling each batter. The other guys are there for support. The NBA is fast very fast-paced, but also has a lot of stoppage that gives viewers a chance to tune out for a minute and give their attention a break. Free throws, time outs, and constant clock stoppage all ensure breaks in the play so that while it goes back and forth very quickly, they also give you plenty of breathers.

What makes soccer interesting is that it's a free flowing game. When the ball is in play, everything goes into motion. It's more about the slow build up than the "score quickly" aspect of many American sports. Teams have to move around and move the ball around to try and crack the opposing defense. Sometimes you can move really quickly on counter attacks or sometimes the best way to move forward is to pass the ball backwards and swing it to the other side. Though many find this constant motion engaging, to the untrained eye it can seem like slow-burning chaos.

In many ways, soccer combines things that people love about basketball and football with things they love about baseball. If basketball and football are about setting up your pieces, seeing what your opponent is doing, and both executing and reacting to them, soccer is just the same. Meanwhile, it incorporates the "suspense" and build up seen in baseball. If the most exciting thing in baseball is the moment just before a pitch, then those fans can find solace in the free kick or the corner kick or, if applicable, the penalty kick. Soccer isn't built around set up and the moment before action in the same way that baseball is, but it certainly has it. It's also just like football and basketball in that your team can be playing really well, but one mistake turns everything around. Case in point:




Which actually leads into the next argument:

2. Points Mean More

Often times, people will hate on soccer because it is often a low scoring affair. Games typically end with scorelines like 2-1, 1-0, or even in 1-1 draws. Americans don't typically like draws (although American football allows for it to happen too). Soccer is a lot like hockey in that scoring is actually made to be really difficult. You can go a full ninety minutes without a single goal scored. To the points-focused culture of American sports, the lack of scores leads people to think it's a bore.

Additionally, goals are so difficult and happen so rarely in context of a game that even if your team is being badly outplayed, you still have a chance. Yes, there's definitely a point of no return. Typically if you find yourself down by three goals (and definitely more), it's very unlikely you'll come back. However, because one goal is one point and they're really difficult to score, all it takes is one good play or one lucky break or one mistake from the opponent, and you're right back in it. It's one of the only sports where another team can be truly dominating a game yet find themselves at risk of either drawing or losing instead of pulling out the win. (See how the US made a game of it against Belgium even though Belgium probably should have won that game 5-1.)

With basketball and football, come backs can happen, sure. But typically, if you find yourself being out played in either sport, it's going to take more than one lucky break or good play to pull you back into it. With soccer, unlike with basketball or football, the game can truly break wide open in a matter of a minute. Those other sports tend to be about momentum. Outplaying the other team is really the only way to make up ground on a team that might have been otherwise outplaying you.

While I can understand the disdain for draws, are we really going to sum up the value of a sport in its scoreline? Isn't it the game itself that makes it entertaining? Imagine if you had one of the all time great defensive battles in American football. After sixty minutes of awesome displays of defensive prowess and entertaining physical battles, it ends with a scoreline of 10-3. One wouldn't really describe that as a bad game (though some offensive-minded folks might consider it boring).

Point being, scoring isn't everything in sports. It certainly isn't an indicator of how exciting a game is. Consider that one of the classic Super Bowls in modern history was the first Patriots/Giants game. While Patriots fans may loathe to remember it, it's hard to describe it as anything other than a classic. The final scoreline was 17-14. Sure, that's 31 total points; it's also only five scores between them. If that were a soccer match, it would have been a 3-2 game, which is not that absurd a result.

Football and basketball are also designed to encourage scoring. The different ways to score, with scores having differing point values, decreases the chances of ties. There's no real way to do that with soccer, just as you can't with hockey or baseball. A score is a point. The excitement with soccer comes from how difficult it is to score - just the same as it is with hockey.  And, of course, the difficulty of scoring means that when you do see a goal, it's probably the most awesome and ridiculous thing you've seen.

3. Goals Are Pretty Awesome

Even though scoring might not be as common as it is in any other sport, the goals scored are almost always awesome to watch. Sure, not every goal is particularly thrilling, but more often than not, you see a goal and just think, "Whoa...are you kidding me?"

You get this element in all sports, really, but to a lesser degree. Field goals in football are pretty uninteresting to watch unless there's greater context attached (like the game being on the line). Safeties rarely happen and usually happen because of a penalty. And touchdowns are kind of 50-50. Sure, you get crazy touchdowns like the one to conclude the Cardinals/Steelers Super Bowl of a few years ago, but often you get pretty straight forward scores. Rushes up the middle, quarterback sneaks, quick out passes are all common sources of touchdowns. They're important, but you don't typically watch a run up the middle from two yards away and walk away shaking your head in disbelief.

And it's also not to suggest there aren't crazy baskets made in the NBA. You do get insane three pointers or half-court shots and exciting dunks, but they make so many shots and there are so many points scored that you generally don't think much of any of the points scored. There's no other sport in which scoring is as commonly impressive than with soccer.

4. Rules Are Pretty Simple

Unlike most American sports, the rules to soccer are fairly simple and straight forward. There's the handball, offside, fouls, and the box. Then there is the three substitution rule. Otherwise, that's pretty much it. While officiating might be among the worst (see WHAT I HATE ABOUT SOCCER), soccer has perhaps the smallest "rule book" in any sport.

American football is full to the brim of crazy and overly convoluted rules (as Oakland Raiders fans are aware of). Basketball is pretty straight forward too, but there are a variety of complicated rules (five seconds, three seconds, flagrant/technical fouls, bonus). I will still never understand how there is a defensive three seconds rule.

Even baseball, which doesn't see a lot of action in the game, has a variety of silly rules (see infield fly rule). Soccer is a bit like hockey in that for the sake of keeping the game flowing, there aren't an overabundance of rules. It's easy to follow. When the official blows a whistle or a side judge raises a flag, you know it's one of three things - foul, offside, or handball. That's it!

5. Combination of Athleticism and Skill

To be clear, every sport is a combination of athleticism and skill. A wide receiver going up to grab a pass, a shooting guard taking a quick three pointer from the corner, any baseball player hitting the ball, is going to be impressive to watch. Most people can't do those sorts of things, or at least not under pressure. What tends to get lost in soccer's display of athleticism and skill is that they are running around for literally miles and using their feet to move the ball. This basically means that every time you kick the ball, you're putting yourself slightly out of balance and at risk. Yes, flopping is a concern, but it's easy to ignore the possibility that a lot of these players hitting the deck are doing so because when you're sprinting and trying to kick a soccer ball, it really doesn't take much to knock you on your ass or send you flying. This fact makes it even more impressive when you see such high powered, deadly accurate strikes.

Plus, the amount of control these players have is ridiculous. What they can do to the ball with their feet is nothing short of spectacular to watch.

Also consider that these players don't wear any padding except on their shins. And anyone who's ever played soccer knows that those shin pads don't really stop a lot from hurting. If you get kicked in the shin, it's going to hurt. And frankly, those balls aren't insubstantial. (I'm still never sure how people don't get concussed heading the ball as often as they do.) When I was little, someone rocketed a shot that hit me square in the face. It literally knocked me out for a minute.

To be sure, flopping and diving and trying to sell the foul is definitely a problem with the sport, but I'm not sure people ever give credit to the actual toughness of most of these players. Some theatrics don't negate the actual physicality of the game.

6. High Stakes

This is kind of a double edged sword for soccer. Being the most popular sport in the entire world means that every game has a lot of eyes watching and a lot of pressure. For as big a spectacle as the Super Bowl is, it pales in comparison of the World Cup. The entire country watches the Super Bowl. The entire world watches the World Cup. It's insane. In many ways, the World Cup feels almost like one might expect the Olympics to feel. It's a time for national pride to come out in a relatively safe environment. And for the players and coaches, it's a way to broadcast themselves to elite clubs.

Soccer is also a sport with a notorious history as well. Violence among fans is certainly not unheard of and in poorer nations, people have literally been assassinated as a result of a match. Players, officials, and fans even. It might be the only sport in the world in which for some countries, you actually fear for the players or officials after the game. (See Iraq's national team being tortured in the '90s for losing matches.)  This isn't so much a reflection of soccer as much as it is the messed up nature of the world, but it does add more weight to everything.

7. Pride

Sports teams often give us a means to channel our pride. On the league level, it is more closely related to our region. It also cultivates rivalries among cities that - while appearing to divide us - actually unites us in a really strange way.

Still, the significance of a nation's international club gives people a safe place to channel national pride without the political attachments. Consider how put-off people might be if they saw a huge crowd of Germans celebrating their German pride. It might be a bit unfair at this point, but given their history in the past hundred years, many neighbors might grow uncomfortable. International soccer provides a safe place to release that pride, without fear of judgment or reading too much into it. (Although it also helps fuel greater rivalries. Greece and Germany seem to hate each other on the pitch, for example, largely because of politics.)

There's also something to be said about international competition. In the United States, we crown our champions "World Champions." Though our leagues have a growing number of international star players, our American teams don't actually play other national teams. And sure, we're one of the only countries in the world invested in American football, so it's safe to bet that any national team we could come up with would beat any national teams created around the world. Yet when you look at the results of the Baseball World Cup, the United States has only won it four times! Cuba is better at our "national past time" than we are. Sure, we won back to back Baseball World Cups in 2007 and 2009, but that was following a 33 year drought where the best we could muster was second place three times in that span. The US hasn't placed above 4th place in the recently established World Baseball Classic. In 2010, the US basketball team finally reclaimed the top honor in the Basketball World Cup after a fourteen year drought.

Of course, this is a bit deceptive given that a lot of America's most talented athletes refuse to play in international games. It makes sense given their money is coming domestically. Still, this is something that soccer has above most American sports: people actually want to play on their international club. Being actual "world champions" matters. There's a neat mixture of international and club play, and it all matters. And no one claims to be the "world champions" because they won their German or Spanish league title.

8. Promotion and Relegation

Europe has an interesting way of organizing their leagues in that teams can essentially be promoted to a better "division" or demoted to a weaker one depending on their performance. This prevents divisions from becoming brought down by too much lackluster franchise running. (Pretty much the entire Eastern Conference in the NBA should, frankly, have been relegated to a lesser league a long time ago.) Clubs don't typically want to be relegated, so even a bad team with a bad season is encouraged to keep trying to win. Losing out is not beneficial in the way that in America, if you have a bad season, you are encouraged to tank so as to get a better spot in the draft. (American fans seem to embrace the "never give up" idea in sports, until it's clear that you aren't going to win, in which case you should intentionally lose so you get a better draft pick, and they get frustrated at you if you still play to win.)

Promotion and relegation is not a perfect system. And indeed, there are often a number of financial hardships facing teams that are relegated (further incentive to play to win and avoid relegation). Still, it can't be any worse than many American leagues, where at some point, intentionally tanking is seen as beneficial. And then, of course, you get persistently poorly run teams like the Cleveland Browns or Oakland Raiders hanging around just filling space on the schedule.



WHAT I HATE ABOUT SOCCER:

1. Stoppage Time

Stoppage Time is one of those elements in an almost self-destructively traditional sport. Soccer fans are much like baseball fans in that any proposed changes are met with almost outright disdain. Perhaps no element of the game gets more ire from casual fans, with criticism being met almost two-fold from traditionalists, than Stoppage Time.

Soccer is a ninety minute game split into two, forty-five minute halves. Americans often roll their eyes at the fact the clock runs up instead of down, but that is kind of silly. A clock running up to fifteen minutes is no different than running down to zero. The big hold up with many people though is that when the clock reaches the forty-five minute or ninety minute mark, the game continues. The officials add a seemingly random amount of time back onto the clock. Keeping the clock running means that the matches end at roughly the same time. Rarely does a match take longer than two hours (something else fundamentally different from American sports where we're used to planning our entire afternoon or evening around a game).

But the problem is that Stoppage Time makes no sense and often becomes frustrating. There's no rhyme or reason to it, other than that it usually lasts between one and six minutes. Supposedly, the time is added back on to make up for the time wasted from injuries, goals, and substitutions made throughout the half. The theory goes, Stoppage Time keeps teams and players honest because if they flop and fake injuries or stay down for longer to stop play or take longer on free/goal/corner kicks, that time comes back on Stoppage Time.

The problem, of course, is that it doesn't. Stoppage Time has never and will never match the time wasting done in a half. Taking four full soccer matches available online, I edited each match to reflect a clock that stops when the ball is dead and not in play (similar to how it works with basketball). Almost always, the ball is only in play for thirty to thirty-five minutes. That means that on the best of days, the ball is live 80% of a given half. The biggest discrepancy in a half that I found was in a 2012 match up between Germany and Belgium. In the first half, there were no injuries and no substitutions, but there were two goals scored. One minute of extra time was added. Yet in the 46 minutes of the first half, the ball was only "live" for a total of 30 minutes (with an error margin of 10 seconds in either direction). That means almost an entire third of the half was just time waster. Further evidence that Stoppage Time is completely random: the two goals alone killed about two minutes and fifteen seconds off the game clock. Yet only one minute was tacked on at the end.

The second half wasn't much different. There were several injuries that took up to a minute each to sort out, four substitutions, and two goals. Three minutes were tacked on to the end. In the second half, the ball was in play for a total of 33 minutes and 55 seconds (error margin of 15 seconds in either direction). And the weird thing is, even that is a bit deceptive since Germany had taken a 2-0 lead early in the game and had resolved to kill clock with a brutal possession game. When breaking down the biggest time wasters of the game, goal kicks and goals scored were easily the most time consuming dead-ball events.

And this is absolutely the norm. If the argument is that Stoppage Time keeps players honest and prevents them from killing time, then the argument is extremely flawed. In reality, taking extra time for throw ins, corner kicks, goal kicks, substitutions, and "injuries" is always beneficial for a team in the lead because that time is almost guaranteed to disappear. Relying on Stoppage Time to prevent time wasting is hardly as effective as stopping the clock.

Purists will then argue that stopping the clock will break up the flow of the game. This argument, of course, makes no real sense either. The flow of the game is already being broken up by time wasting! Players already stay down longer to stop the flow of the game. Goalies take extra time on goal kicks, free kicks either happen very quickly or take forever to set up. The game is already chopped up with dead ball things. Stopping the clock does nothing to break up the flow of the game. It merely creates a more accurate means of time keeping and means that you actually play the amount of soccer intended.

I can appreciate the concern that stopping the clock might open the doors to commercial breaks and TV time outs, but soccer is totally different from basketball and American football in the way that stopping the clock doesn't stop the game. It wouldn't create commercial breaks (unless, perhaps, in the case of major, time-consuming injuries). This seems like a legitimate concern, but one that is slightly misplaced.

The 2014 World Cup has created a strange new argument. We've seen an almost absurd number of Stoppage Time goals this year. The argument goes something along the lines of, "well, if you didn't have Stoppage Time, you wouldn't get this:"




A classic and iconic moment in US Soccer history, to be sure. And, of course, it happened in the 91st minute - Stoppage Time. But here's the thing: the time in Stoppage Time doesn't disappear if you stop the clock. These late, last gasp goals happen if you stop the clock! If you consider that almost 20% of any given half is literally just time wasting, then those two, three, four minutes of Stoppage Time would just be a part of that.

Bottom line: there's absolutely no real reason that Stoppage Time is still a thing except for the traditionalists who fear change (and, perhaps, efficiency). It absolutely does not prevent teams from killing time. There's no reason not to kill time if you've got the lead. Stay down an extra minute! Odds are extremely favorable that that minute isn't coming back. However, Stoppage Time is confusing, arbitrary, and random. And that is quite a turnoff.


2. Flopping

Soccer fans are fast growing tired of hearing casual fans (and non-fans) complain about flopping in the sport. "Flopping" (or more affectionately referred to as "diving") is actually existent in all sports. Any Celtics fan from the last decade is more than familiar with Paul Pierce's tendency to flail around to draw a foul and get to the line instead of actually playing the game. And in the NFL, wide receivers will do much to sell a pass interference call.

However, it is actually especially problematic in soccer. Flopping happens a lot. To be fair to the players, most casual (and non) fans don't or can't appreciate the actual agony felt in many of those collisions. Anyone who has played soccer knows that shin pads do little to actually prevent pain. And when you're sprinting around for an hour and a half, it doesn't take much to knock you over. Nor does it take much to make you sore.

But then you see crap like this:

Again, every sport has more than its share of theatrics, but against Mexico, Arjen Robben had more flops than shots on goal. And in the end, it paid off. Sure, did he get legitimately fouled in the box earlier in the game that got missed? Yeah. But his biggest flop of the entire game at the end of the second half drew a penalty in the box for the game winner. His flop literally won the game for Holland.

Before Robben's classic game full of flops, you can look back at the opening of the 2014 World Cup in which Neymar's flop inside the penalty box drew a foul call from the official, and it tied the game up. This was also one of the most egregious flops of the entire tournament. It's one thing to have all the theatrics of rolling around in agony; it's another to have athletes literally give up on a play, playing for a call instead of the ball. Again, this happens in all sports, but it does seem to happen a lot in soccer. In fact, the most successful international clubs (namely in South America and Europe) get nearly twice as many fouls called in their favor than anyone else in the world. It's so obviously a problem that the New York Times even published an article that suggest the US doesn't flop enough!

What's funny is that it's primarily a problem in the men's game. One study found that in men's soccer, more than eleven injuries occur, with an average of over seven minutes of time wasting. The women's games, by comparison, average just under six injuries per game with just a couple minutes of time wasting. (This is actually one of the reasons I actually sometimes prefer women's soccer.)

I understand that soccer fans hate hearing about the diving problem, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to deny that it isn't a big problem. Every sports has theatrics.

Even the NFL has a bit of a problem with theatrics.

It's hard to tell if soccer ultimately has a worse case of the flops than the NBA or NFL, but one of the differences is that flopping does seem to be more successful in soccer than those other sports. Flopping in the NBA - like most calls in the NBA - depend on your star power and reputation. LeBron James, for example, gets away with a lot of flops. Chris Paul does not, because he has a reputation as a flopper so officials are already looking for it. In the NFL, flopping by kickers  and punters is supposed to be a penalty itself, but it's never called and if everyone were honest, they are probably coached to do so.

Though counting "flops" in any game of any sport is an extremely time consuming endeavor and thus, is difficult to determine whether there are more flops in a particular sport, it does feel  like not only does soccer suffer more, they're also more beneficial. FIFA - like the NFL - is supposed to prohibit the behavior. Diving is itself punishable by a yellow card. In most occasions though, the "simulation" actually results in a foul or card for the opposing player. In 2009, UEFA suspended Eduardo da Silva for two games after video replay showed him flopping on a play that, in the game, netted him a penalty kick. MLS has also implemented post-game fines for players flopping. Ultimately though, these efforts don't appear to really be bucking the trend (though they should still exist - it would be terrible if a player was suspended on a second yellow card he got for contact with a flopping player).

Part of the problem is that players understand that theatrics will eventually pay off. However, smart soccer players only account for part of the problem:

3. Officiating

The other part of the problem is that FIFA officiating is notoriously awful. The rules might be simple, but it also leaves a lot of room for judgment. When watching more and more soccer matches, it's easy to realize that no one really knows what constitutes a foul. Officials in every sport call games differently. There's very little consistent in games that largely rely on judgment calls. Soccer doesn't just rely on judgment calls; it also does little to make life easier for the official.

Where American football is constantly trying to figure out how to officiate games more efficiently - instant reply, re-aligning refs, having multiple refs on the field - soccer is content to just let basically one guy do everything. There is one side judge on each half of the field who is responsible for calling offside and perhaps fouls close to them. The problem though is that they are stationed on just one side of the field. It's often difficult to see plays happening all the way on the other side of the field. Then, there's the time keeper (who, as we discussed earlier, just makes stuff up).

Finally, there is the main official - the only one on the field. There might not be a group of referees as fit as soccer officials. They have to do almost as much running as the players! But that's also part of the problem. Because the game can often move very quickly and the official has to keep up, and because the field is so large and there are so many players on it, the officials seem to call games based on reactions rather than what they actually saw. It's a lot of "I think I saw."

One solution might be to keep one official on the field and then having two officials - one on each end by the goals - responsible for just one half of the pitch. This would make it easier to officiate on fast counter attacks, or just help out given how many players are on the field at one time. Soccer has added the tennis replay technology for goals, so see if a ball crosses the line in really close situations. This is obviously a great addition, and it's strange that it took so long to implement. Still, officiating in soccer is easily some of the worst and most horrendously inconsistent in all of sports. Adding a couple of more officials could help that. If the argument against it is that it will get confusing, I'd just point out that in the NBA, multiple officials call fouls and things. There's no reason it can't apply to soccer as well.

Or, they could just put two linesman on opposite sides of the field with their flags. Side judges already make calls like offside, foul, and handball. More eyes on the field of play haven't necessarily helped the NFL - where officials often miss the initial action and only look at an area once a player hits the deck (which is strange because it means officials are making calls based on what they think happened rather than what they actually saw ) - but it certainly can't hurt. 

4. Penalty Kicks

Penalty kicks are another point of contention between new fans and purists. Personally, I hate them as a game decider, but understand their significance in the game itself. However, something one can take away from this year's World Cup is how PKs are often rewarded in a way that isn't in the spirit of the rule. The idea of the penalty box is to prevent defending players from committing egregious fouls as attacking players zero in on goal. It makes sense. It's kind of like how in American football, pass interference is such a big call to prevent defensive players from blatantly taking out the receivers when they can. It keeps defenders honest.

The insanely high rate of PK conversions reinforces this concept. It varies very slightly by league, but PKs are converted upward to 80% of the time. The rules surrounding PKs also make things extremely favorable for the kicker. For starters, the ball is placed so close to the goal that a keeper has only a half second to react. The keeper is also not allowed to move forward off the goal line, even though the kicker can start and stop his approach on the ball at will (see Neymar).

The problem is that many fouls inside the box are not really egregious enough to merit a PK. It's not to say fouls don't happen in the box that affect the play, of course. But look at that Robben play again (in the "flop" section). If you watched that play live, it's impossible to say if that were developing into anything. Mexico's defense was pretty good that day, and either way, you can't say for sure that that play was going to end in a goal even if he were legitimately fouled (which he wasn't). Even his play earlier in the game in which he was actually fouled in the box to a no-call, you can't say for sure he was going to score. And it wasn't the most egregious of fouls.

Point being, to aware a PK on most of these fouls seems like overkill. Awarding a PK is almost the exact same thing as awarding a goal. Tell me if most of those fouls, even if totally legit, merit a goal as a punishment? The way PKs are often awarded simply by "being in the box" instead of what is actually happening on the play makes for what is easily the harshest penalty in all of sports. The only thing kind of like it is the NFL's pass interference in the endzone. If you chuck a ball into the endzone from your own 40-yard line and the refs perceive contact on a receiver in the endzone, the ball gets placed at the 1-yard line. That's literally a 59 yard penalty, and barring a turnover, is practically guaranteed to result in points. It's one of those things where the spirit of the rule is often ignored. Sure, in neither case are points absolutely guaranteed. I don't have statistics on how often PI calls in the endzone result in points (either a touchdown or a field goal), but it's safe to assume that it's a pretty high percentage as well.

The other problem is the overtime rules for soccer. For some reason, they abandoned the much superior "Golden Goal" rule, which is quite simply first-to-score wins. And if no one has scored after thirty minutes, it goes to PKs. PKs are a terrible way to decide the outcome of a game. It's almost like if an NFL game were still tied, they lined kickers up at the 40-yard line and had them kick until someone misses. Or if the NBA decided a game by having players go through free throws until one team misses. Sure, it's exciting and the build up is thrilling. As much as I hate PKs as a way to end a game, even I can admit that there is nothing more tense than penalty kicks. Even if the team I'm rooting for wins (as Costa Rico did against Greece), I still feel a little let down that they took a great game and reduced it to chance and guess work.

Perhaps I wouldn't mind PKs so much if they altered the rules from in-game PK rules. For example, what about letting the goal keeper move forward when the player begins his approach to the ball? Guys like Neymar do a strange stutter step thing, rushing, then stopping, then rushing again before making the kick. It's obviously a ploy to try and draw the goal keeper off the line so in the rare circumstance he miss a kick, he gets a do-over. Wouldn't it be more fair and exciting if the goal keeper got to rush the player once he begins his approach? It'd still be an advantage for the kicker, but at least the goal keeper can actually have a real shot at saving it, rather than seeing if they guess correctly, get lucky, or the kicking player cracks under the pressure and misses (which is actually more common than a keeper saving it, especially if you're an English player).

What's kind of funny, by the way, is that goal keepers actually increase their chances of saving it if they don't move much instead of diving in one direction or the other. The kicks are so close and happen so quickly that even guessing correctly still means the kick is likely to go in. Yet the perception is that if a keeper - even realizing that his chances are increased by not moving far - doesn't move, fans will think he didn't try. Often times, trying to stop a PK increases the likelihood of the PK going in. It's this sort of "illusion of effort." Goalies even admit that even if a kick goes right down the middle and they dove to one side and it goes in, they feel worse if they don't dive to the sides.

I don't disagree that PKs are a better alternative to "keep playing until someone wins at the end of a period" idea. After 30 minutes of overtime, those players are dead tired and their legs are jelly. They've got nothing left. The argument then goes that for player safety and welfare, it should go to PKs instead of another period. This is a fair argument, of course, provided you ignore that they specifically abandoned the Golden Goal rule, which means that players must play an extra 30 minutes even if they score a goal first. We saw this twice this week. After 90 minutes of a standstill, Germany scored in the first two minutes of Extra Time against Algeria. This meant that they had to play 28 more minutes for the same result as a Golden Goal scenario (Germany ultimately won 2-1). This also happened for Belgium, who after being stopped by Tim Howard for 90 minutes, scored in the first few minutes of Extra Time against the US in a game that also ended with the same result as Golden Goal rules. (I'd be curious to find out what percentage of games that go to Extra Time are won by teams that score first. My guess is that they more often than not win.) And really, what exactly is wrong with Golden Goal rules to begin with? As a US fan, I can appreciate having had that opportunity to tie it back up again, but at the same time, if we're going to give up a goal in under three minutes of Extra Time, we deserved to lose.

Penalty Kicks just leave a bad taste in the mouth of what was otherwise a great game. It's a bad way to decide a game, and in-game PK calls are often a ridiculous reward for a foul that more often than not wasn't worth a goal. It's not called in the spirit of the rule. Especially given how bad the officiating is and how bad the flopping situation is.





Overall, soccer is one of the great sports of the world. It's a shame it has such a traditional, purist fan base, because there is much that could be improved upon. Still, flaws and all, it's a growing sport in the US and only a matter of time before it finally breaks through the cusp.

Still, my argument is not that soccer is the most entertaining or best sport in the world. If you find it boring to watch, nothing is going to convince you that it isn't. While I can respect baseball, you'll never convince me that it's exciting (or even entertaining, really). So I get it. I'm just making the case that some of the arguments against soccer are rather unfair. It's more about respecting the game even if you don't like it. A lot of the complaints I hear from American sports fans often makes me wonder what everyone's idea of "sport" really is. I love soccer, and I don't think there's a better sporting event in the world than the World Cup. Of course, I still think the sport has much to improve on.