Dave’s Football Blog

Three years ago, I wrote about Carolina Panthers v. New Orleans Saints game in which the Saints, down by four points with 1:56 left to go, failed to stop DeShaun Foster from getting a key first down and let him run into the end zone for a touchdown. The Saints then scored a TD of their own less than a minute later and made a two-point conversion, cutting the 11-point lead to 3 and giving them a shot at winning.

I suggested that DeShaun Foster was better off taking a knee after getting that first down, rather that running into the end zone, because then the Saints never would have gotten the ball, and the Panthers could have run out the clock with a 4-point lead. As you might expect, the FanHouse commenters thought mockery was the proper response to that idea, in part because the Panthers still won the game.

Three years later, Maurice Jones-Drew takes a knee at the 1-yard line for the Jacksonville Jaguars, setting up a game winning 21-yard field goal and preventing the New York Jets from getting the ball back. It was a riskier move, because the Jags were trailing by a point with 1:48 left, but Jones-Drew seems to be attracting universal praise for making a smart strategic play.

The point here is that you don’t give your opponent the opportunity to score if you don’t have to. This is why Bill Belichick really went for it on 4th down on his own 28-yard line against the Colts. Converting meant Peyton Manning would not get the ball, and the Pats could run out the clock. Punting meant Manning was all but guaranteed to get the ball and engineer a game-winning drive. Plus, Belichick put his faith in his best player — Tom Brady — to get the job done.

We shouldn’t criticize Belichick for choosing to go for it. We should, however, get on his case about the play he chose to call. Honestly, the coaches couldn’t have picked something better than that?

Here are some other interesting football stories you might have missed:

• UNC serves up its most fortunate illegal forward pass since 1895. [WRAL FANKind]
• Dan Marino inadvertently shares his true feelings about the Wildcat formation. [Awful Announcing]
• Chicago Bears fans are sore losers, even when they win. [FanHouse]
• Allen Iverson as a Philadelphia… Eagle? Right. [The Sporting Blog]
• Japan calls on South Africa to ban the vuvuzela. Yeah, good luck with that, fellas. [The Guardian]
• Katy Perry launches new line of West Ham United lingerie. Now we know what Michelle Obama is getting for Christmas. [The Guardian]
• Belated congratulations to the Raleigh Venom, champions of Division II USA Women’s Rugby. [WRAL FANKind]

What better way to start the week than with an old guy flippin’ the bird?

Yes, Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams was clearly enjoying his team’s win over Buffalo yesterday, so much so that he proudly stood up, pointed at the Bills, and gave them the finger — two fingers, from the looks of it. Oh, and he did that in a luxury box with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell looking on.

I suspect Bud’s fine won’t be quite as big as Chad Ochocinco’s fine for that one-dollar bribery stunt. I also suspect Bud will gladly pay up. After all, what’s the point of having money if you can’t have a little fun spending it?

UPDATE (6:00 PM): Wow, I was way off on the size of the fine. Ol’ Bud was fined $250,000 by the NFL today.

(Spotted on Shutdown Corner.)

We have apparently reached the portion of the NFL season where everyone is bored to death and looking for random crap to talk about. Never mind that there are two rather important games this weekend with AFC playoff implications. (Bengals @ Steelers, Pats @ Colts) No. The world has decided it’s time to talk about football helmets, and whether they’re 1.) ugly, and b.) unnecessary.

First off, designer Ken Carbone spent Fast Company’s time telling people that NFL helmets offended his sensibilities as a designer. So he decided to make new ones — a concept that has “Oh, hell…” written all over it. First, he made a new helmet for the Washington Redskins:

For the Washington Redskins I tried a design direction that might be considered more politically correct in most circles by removing the Native American portrait, emphasizing the feather motif from the headdress and using it more dynamically on the helmet.

Except, of course, that the end result looks less like an Native American feather headdress and more like your typical Halloween peacock outfit.

Hey, there’s an idea. Let’s just stop calling them the Redskins all together and make them the Washington Fightin’ Peacocks. Then all the cheerleaders can dress just like that, but in maroon and gold. (We should have Vinny Cerrato go recommend this to Daniel Snyder immediately, just to prove how bulletproof Vinny’s job seems to be.)

Then there’s Carbone’s design for the New England Patriots

America! Fuck yeah!

While Carbone derides helmets for being ugly, though, some researchers have decided that helmets are actually hurting players more than helping them. Their ingenious solution? Take the helmets off. And who’s suggesting this? Australians. Of course!

One of the strongest arguments for banning helmets comes from the Australian Football League. While it’s a similarly rough game, the AFL never added any of the body armor Americans wear. When comparing AFL research studies and official NFL injury reports, AFL players appear to get hurt more often on the whole with things like shoulder injuries and tweaked knees. But when it comes to head injuries, the helmeted NFL players are about 25% more likely to sustain one.

Unless Barry Hall is playing, of course.

Andrew McIntosh, a researcher at Australia’s University of New South Wales who analyzed videotape, says there may be a greater prevalence of head injuries in the American game because the players hit each other with forces up to 100% greater. “If they didn’t have helmets on, they wouldn’t do that,” he says. “They know they’d injure themselves.”

What would be the end result of American football without helmets? Do I need to bring up 1908 again? Most NFL players aren’t going to suddenly stop leading with their heads right away — not until a few people die from on-field cranial fractures. When that happens, nobody will give the game time to slow down and look more like old-fashioned rugby. No. They’ll go right back to wearing helmets, and they’ll do so because the risk of slow, long-term brain damage seems better than the risk of instantly having their gray matter see the light of day.

More importantly, though, removing the helmet from American football takes away from what the game really is — modern gladiatorial combat without the swords. It’s a violent game for violent tastes, and it’s what the American people have chosen for the last century or so. They’re not going to quit just because a few jocks get their brains scrambled over time.

Maybe football helmets are ugly, then, for more than just design reasons, but it’ll be a long, long time before anyone decides to get rid of them. In the meantime… hey, Steelers v. Bengals. WHO YA GOT!?

As I sat here getting ready to watch my Pittsburgh Steelers in another big Monday Night Football game, I watched Ron Jaworski give a bit of his usual solid game analysis. As you can see from this video, David Anderson of the Houston Texans has seen some of Jaws’ analysis as well — quite a bit of it, from the sound of things.

I didn’t so much laugh as say, “Damn, that’s pretty good.” Your mileage may vary.

(Spotted on Awful Announcing.)