Pajama Pants Nation

The NFL draft is coming soon. This event has become insanely popular–to the point where calling it an event isn’t an exaggeration. Many people, even sports reporters and broadcasters, do not understand its popularity. It’s been noted that sometimes it seems like the draft has surpassed the actual NFL season in terms of popularity. Well, I’m going to tell you why it is so popular–based on my experiences and observations. (No, I’ve done no research on this. Why do you ask?)
First a brief explanation of what the draft is. The NFL teams’ officials scout college players and rate them. During the draft event, the teams take turns choosing players. The worst team gets first pick and the best team gets the last pick. They do that for 7 rounds. It’s like choosing sides in a sandlot game except that the nucleus of the team is already there (they’re called “veterans”) and there’s no shame in being the last player chosen. This takes place over 2 days. So, the fan sits there watching the televised reading of names for hours on end. That’s why some people don’t understand why others do it. And that’s why I’m writing this; so maybe you’ll come to some understanding. Although, at no time will I suggest you try it.

The following reasons are in no order. Some of the reasons I subscribe to and some of them I’ve only observed. Each person enjoying the draft may enjoy it because of one reason, several reasons, or, though unlikely, all the reasons I state. As the saying goes, results may vary.

Reason 1: Christmas in April.
The draft is a lot like football’s version of Christmas. There’s a lot of eating and drinking involved. A bunch of heavy-set older gentlemen grant gifts to the masses by giving the local teams some exciting new talent. While individuals may have some idea what they are (that is, their team is) going to get, they won’t know until that day. The fans lie awake the night before with visions of superstars dancing in their heads. And, just like Christmas, the gifts that you’re most excited about at first can often end up forgotten in a few years. And the gifts you’re least excited about at first can end up being the most cherished of all. Finally, every team believes they found their savior.

And for those of you who don’t really get the whole NFL-Draft-as-fun idea, you now may have a better idea of what it is like to be non-Christian at Christmas.

However, unlike Christmas, Hallmark hasn’t taken over. Take that!

You may ask, why doesn’t free agency have the same fanaticism as the player draft?
Free agency isn’t an event, it’s more like a process. Free agents can be signed any time during several months and it would be difficult to keep up intensity for that long. Second, unlike the draft, you pretty much know what you’re getting, in terms or player quality, and what you’re getting is near the player’s ceiling for potential. Most often, when a team signs a free agent, you get what you’re expecting or worse. Only rarely does a free agent come in and play extraordinarily better than he had on the previous team. In the draft, you just don’t know what you’re getting. Some of the players you think won’t amount to much end up superstars. Some of the players you think are guaranteed superstars end up not amounting to much.

Reason 2: Withdrawal
When I was a youth, we had no world wide web. We didn’t have cable television in our home. We had about 4 channels. We had a newspaper delivered to our house and Dad would usually bring home another one. From the Super Bowl, at that time in January, to the training camps in July there was almost nothing in the paper about the NFL. I’d open the paper in the faint hope that they’d be something–anything!–about football. Or even football related. “Bud Grant Speaks at TIPS Fundraiser.” It’d be two paragraphs long, but I would read it for 20 minutes. On TV, not much happening, either. One day during the off season, they’d have a superstars competition. Otherwise, I’d have to resort to the occasionally Green Bay Packer documentary or the Pro Bowl. Except for the NFL Draft. For the week leading up to it, the paper would have previews. After the draft, the paper would have results. Team by team listings. Round by round listings. Profiles of the Vikings picks. Articles telling us things like how Buster Rhymes thought Minnesota was in Ohio and he was glad he was chosen by Minnesota because he’s always wanted to visit Ohio. Sure they were just names of people I’d never heard of, but it was football!

Even in today’s massive multi-media world, the draft still holds a bit of a special place. Sure, there are lots of people talking about football, but most of the time it isn’t anything significant. It replaces reading about TIPS fundraisers, but not much else. But what happens on draft day plays a role on Sundays in the fall.

Reason 3: Cannot Get Enough Football
Some folks are such fanatics, they simply will watch everything and anything having to do with football. It’s not a matter of going through withdrawal. These people don’t necessarily scan the paper daily for football material. They just love football and, when it is on, they watch it. No dependency issues; just good clean weekend-lost-to-football fun.

Reason 4: Career Advertising
Many football fans want to have a career in football. Certainly, most of us have dreamed of winning the Super Bowl. Some of us dream of putting together a winning team. There are people out there who would like to have a career in a football team’s front office; even as General Manager. They think that a start to such a career is to scout college players and report on them on web pages. I don’t know if that works or not, but it’s something people try. I have to admit; if I had any scouting ability (or, at least, watched college football) I might try it myself. Or I’d put a package together and send it to several teams. (I don’t know how many team HR offices headhunt on fan sites.) But these people put some time and effort into it. There are debates over their accuracy in rating the talent level of prospects, but work is being done. More power to them.

Reason 5: Participation in the League
Being a fan of professional football is a very passive occupation. You sit in front of the television and watch. Or you sit in the stands and watch. And you can sit in front of the television and watch people talk about the football they’ve watched. Or you can sit in front of the radio and listen to people talk about the football they’ve watched. Every once in a while you buy a jersey or something, but that’s about it, activity-wise.

Some folks, on the other hand, dress up for the games in wild outfits. They yell loudly. They dance around. They high-five the yelling, dancing, costumed fan next to them. They believe they are participating in the game. I don’t know if they are or not. Either way, they are not passive.

Setting up mock drafts–or predicting what players will be chosen by what teams–and ranking players also creates the sense of active participation in the game. Sure, perhaps no scout or front office person will ever see my scouting report on player X. But if one does, then I’ve helped shape the draft and played a role in what will happen on Sundays in the fall. And, just like writing a piece about the NFL draft for a blog, just the illusion that someone is paying attention to it is enough to satisfy the need for participation.

Reason 6: Everyone Thinks She or He’s a GM
Very related to reasons 4 and 5. Everyone (and by “everyone” I mean “people who fit this particular description”) wants to be a GM. Everyone knows who to start and bench on Sundays. Everyone knows what plays to run. And everyone knows which players to draft. This, by the way, is also one of the two biggest reasons fantasy football is so popular, I believe. (The other is gambling.) It’s about building a team the way you think a team should be built. It’s fun and you can use it for bragging rights. (“I told you we should have drafted Tom Brady when we had the chance! I knew he was going to be great!”)

There is a difference between reason 4 and reason 6. In reason 4, the fan is putting in the hard work and actually trying to make a go of it. In reason 6, the fan is using the hard work of the reason 4 fan, but isn’t actually putting in any hard work. In many ways, that makes the reason 6 fan more managerial than the reason 4 fan, wouldn’t you say?

Reason 7: The Draft isn’t a Big Event
So many of the folks reporting on the hugeness of the draft do so by comparing it to drafts of yore. I’m not sure that the draft is any bigger than before; but the media is. We have so many more outlets for getting information. We have so many more outlets for sharing information. We have so many communication routes to reach the reporters and columnists to ask about the draft. That there’s two-day full coverage of the draft, months of previews, and weeks of post-scripts is only the media catching up to the fans and overtaking them to the point of over-production–like they always do when they find something popular. It only seems like the beast has grown. It may be bigger, but that’s only because is was previously so underfed.

So those are my reasons for the popularity of the NFL draft. May the draft fanatics out there enjoy the weekend. May the loved ones of draft fanatics choose the use the time to enjoy your own hobbies. Me? I’ll be sitting in front of the television with my computer, my spreadsheets, my clipboard, my charts, a store-brand fruit-flavored soda, and a mound of nachos. For those of you still concerned about a loved one’s obsession with the NFL draft, take heart:

At least they’re not showing up at comic book conventions dressed as their favorite collegiate athletes.

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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.

© 2008, Mark Wentz

As most folks know, Barry Bonds is very close to passing Hank Aaron’s record for career home runs. Bonds, I think it is safe to say, is widely believed to have used steroids. This has, of course, caused much debate among sports fans and sports media talking heads. Should Bonds be banned from baseball before the big event? Should the record count? Should the commissioner Bud Selig celebrate the accomplishment? Should Selig acknowledge the accomplishment? Should Selig even attend the game?

Let’s put this in perspective, though. Yes, this has caused much debate among sports fans and talking heads. But EVERYTHING has caused much debate among sports fans and talking heads. There have been some doosies since I’ve started following sports. There was the controversy over putting lights in Wrigley Field for, gasp, night games! Some people thought Cal Ripken, Jr. should have skipped a game rather than break the record for consecutive games played. Some grew indignant when a golfer was allowed to use a golf cart. In recent years, Brett Favre has been afforded the luxury of countless web sites and sports shows giving him the pros and cons of retirement to weigh. (Oddly, no one is debating whether he should change the spelling of his name to mach the pronunciation or change the pronunciation to match the spelling. That’s a debate I’d like to follow!)

First, I’d like to clarify something: INCREASED MUSCLE MASS HELPS YOU HIT HOME RUNS! I’m no doctor and I don’t follow sports talk closely enough to know how widely held a belief this is, but there are some people who don’t believe that increased muscle mass helps one hit home runs. Their reasoning for this? You still need to aim and make contact to hit a home run, and steroids don’t help with that. I’ll take their word for the aim and contact part. But that doesn’t mean that steroids don’t help. I figure there are three aspects to hitting a home run: aim, timing, and power. You need to be able to aim the bat so it hits the ball. You need to time your swing so the bat crosses the plate round about the same time the ball does. Finally, you need enough power in your swing to launch the ball out of the park. The more muscle mass you have, the less you need worry about the power of your swing. You can concentrate on the aim and timing. However, those without more muscle mass have to concentrate on all three aspects, making it much more difficult to hit home runs. So, you’d have to do a lot of fancy talking’ to get me to believe that steroids don’t help one hit home runs.

Second, should steroids be illegal in baseball? I would think so. (I know: I shouldn’t go so far out on a limb.) Steroids give you an advantage in baseball, but so do eating well, exercising in the off season, studying the game and the opponents, etc. Let’s not forget God-given talent. But where I think steroids are an unfair advantage is that the other things I’ve mentioned make you a healthier and better person whereas steroids make you stronger but, at least in the long term, less healthy. It seems silly to expect a baseball player to make himself less healthy to be able to compete in a game. Allowing steroids puts pressure on healthy players to use them to keep up with the players who already do use steroids. That’s where I draw the distinction and why I believe steroids should be banned.

Third, career records in general are pointless. To compare Bonds with Aaron and both of them with Babe Ruth doesn’t make sense. There are too many variables for it to be a realistic comparison:

Rule changes.
More games in the season
Advances in equipment.
Advances in physical fitness.
Advances in medicine (some career-ending injuries are no longer career ending)
Changes in the expectations of professional athletes (especially regarding off season conditioning).
Stadium changes (roofs and dimensions)

These are all environmental conditions which can play a role in the number of home runs one hits. I wouldn’t necessarily say comparing career home runs is like comparing apples to oranges. It’s more like comparing Clementine oranges to Mandarin oranges. But I know it’s tilting at windmills to suggest sports fan not rank everything possible. Have your fun.

And sports debates are fun. More for some folks than for me; as I don’t have the talent evaluation skills to participate. (Although, I’m not suggesting that that limitation has prevented others from participating.) I don’t know what is more American than expressing your opinion on subjects which don’t actually matter regardless of whether the folks to whom you are speaking actually care about the subject or what you think. It’s in the constitution!

So good luck, Barry Bonds. Good luck, Hank Aaron. Good luck, Bud Selig. And good luck to the pitchers who have to face Bonds in the next few weeks.

In closing, there’s a 500-pound gorilla in the room. People just may be waiting to find out what I think about it; since I’ve addressed almost every issue except it. Okay, I’ll give you my answer:

Favre should change the pronunciation of his name to match the spelling.

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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.

© 2007, Mark Wentz

Oh ho ho! It’s the Super Bowl. Colts-Bears. Peyton Manning vs. guys who are decidedly not Peyton Manning. This is the concern of the game: will Peyton Manning finally win the big game? (Before the conference championship game, the question was will Manning finally win ANY big game?) Here is the problem; the talking heads have had two questions to discuss over the last 5 years. Second, can Manning win a big game? The first, of course, is will Brett Favre retire? If Manning wins the big game (and he will), the only question will be will Favre retire. If Favre retires (and he will (unless he doesn’t)), the talking heads will, for the first time in the better part of a decade, need to come up with new material. And they weren’t even very good with the old material.
So, as a service to my talking-head cousins, here are some topics for which they may discuss after Manning wins and Favre retires:

Domed stadiums: should they put that chia pet stuff on top of the domes to reduce glare?
Preseason game injuries: do we really need them?
Football field dimensions: Is it time for metric?
Corporate naming of stadiums: what are helpful mnemonic devices to help you remember which stadium is in which city?
Peyton Manning: can he win the small games?
Super secretive head coaches: Should we change the word “coaches” to “cases?”
Fact or fiction: are facts and fiction really mutually exclusive?
There. That should be a good start.

Now, results from my preseason predictions. I predicted the following teams would come in last place in their respective divisions: Jets, Ravens, Texans, Chiefs, Washington, Packers, Saints, and Cardinals. I was correct on three (actually, not too bad): the Texans, Washington, and the Cardinals. The Packers just missed the playoffs. All the rest not only weren’t last place, but made the playoffs. I really missed the Saints’ mark; they were just a Brees away from the Super Bowl. I, also, missed the First Pick in the NFL Draft prediction. Just barely, though. I predicted the Packers and they were only, oh, SIX games away from Raiders. Ooops. Better luck next year, Packers. You may still get it right sometime.

Now on to the Super Bowl. Another prediction wrong. I said that I thought Tony Dungy would retire from coaching. He’s not only coaching, but coaching in the Super Bowl. He and the fore-mentioned Packers will, hopefully, attend getting-it-right seminars in the off season. Before that, though, he’s got a game plan to work up.

During the play offs, head coaches like to tell the players that they are disrespected and no one has faith in them to win. The Us-against-the-World works. (Well, 1/2 of the time–one of the teams has to win, you know.) They could be 3 touchdown favorites with all the writers writing glowing accounts of the team and the players will still believe that everyone has them as underdogs.

That changes this year. The Bears ARE underdogs. NO ONE is writing glowing accounts of them. They are NOT respected in this game. Their own moms are wearing Peyton Manning jerseys. (Okay, that’s a stretch . . . some of them are wearing Bob Sanders jerseys.) Count me among those who think this should be a cakewalk for the Colts. With any other team, overconfidence might be a concern. However, there are too many key people for the Colts who know they need to win this game and are not going to take the Bears for granted. The only concern they have is stopping the Bears running game as run defense had been a huge concern for the Colts during the end of the season. Of bigger concern is this: when you have Colts running after Bears, you know the ecosystem has been royally screwed up.

So, Bears, you’re correct. No one likes you, everyone thinks you’re junior varsity, and there are a bunch of nuns looking to steal your milk money.

Next topic?

The Hall of Fame. On the Saturdays before the Super Bowls, they elect the next class for the Hall of Fame. This year’s finalists are Fred Dean, Bob Kuechenberg, Derrick Thomas, Richard Dent, Bruce Matthews, Thurman Thomas, Russ Grimm, Art Monk, Andre Tippett, Ray Guy, Andre Reed, Roger Wehrli, Gene Hickerson, Charlie Sanders, Gary Zimmerman, Michael Irvin, Paul Tagliabue. 3-6 will be elected. The interesting one in that group is former commissioner Paul Tagliabue. If he is elected, he will change the entire dynamic of the Hall of Fame. He didn’t really bring a whole lot to the NFL except money. The NFL made a ton of money. Marketing, television contracts, stadium naming. You name it, the NFL made money off of it. He didn’t really advance the game at all. He just delivered money. If he makes in, does that change how players are elected? Offensive lineman, sorry. You don’t bring in the customers, you aren’t marketed to the masses. Quarterbacks? Oh, we make tons of money off you. Here, take the golden entrance to the Hall of Fame. Or maybe I’m just over-reacting. (Just a bit.)

Here are the nominees for whom I am rooting (I’m not saying they’re the best, just that they’re the guys I hope are deemed the best): Ray Guy, Bob Kuechenberg, Russ Grimm, Art Monk, Gary Zimmerman, Andre Tippett. In that order.

More about the Super Bowl itself. I don’t know whom to root for in the actual game. I like the Bears better than the Colts, but I strongly want Tony Dungy to win. If the teams would quick trade coaches, I’d be set. That’s not going to happen, though. Since I have no talent evaluation skills, let’s see what I can come up with. Hmmm. I know:

ANAGRAMS!

Here are some anagrams of Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears.

For the Colts:

SCALD A PINTO IN OILS: Reminds players to watch what they eat before the game
IN A PLASTIC LID SOON: Don’t forget your equipment on game day
CASINO DIP A SIN TOLL: Fans should be wary of too much betting
A DOLT PANICS IN SOIL: Dome teams don’t fare well on natural fields.
The Bears:

GO CHASE A CRIB: A Chicagoland taunt?
SCAR A BIG ECHO: Just a reminder that some injuries can be a lasting reminder of events like this
I GRAB COACHES: Latrell Spreewell in the house?
COACH EARS BIG: Now the Chicagoland taunts are just getting childish
It’s a push. No good. Let’s try the coaches. Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith

Dungy:

DOGY TUNNY: the only one that came up, and not very good at that
Smith:

HOLIEST VIM: Both coaches are known to be guided by faith, yet are aggressive coaches
SHOVE LIMIT: Reminder to defenders about the 5 yard limit before illegal contact
OLIVE SMITH: Cool, but what, exactly, does an olivesmith do? Add the pimentos?
IT LOVES HIM: The game loves Lovie as much as Lovie loves the game.
Okay, we have a winner: Tony Dungy. I have never seen the anagram web site come up with only one anagram. Usually, it finds hundreds (95 percent of which make no sense). To have a name which only garners one anagram is a feat dwarfing any Super Bowl achievements. Go Tony!

Sorry, announcers; it’s time to start dreaming up new story lines. You won’t have Dungy and Manning to kick around anymore.

HEY, GIN, GET ME A JOB!

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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.

© 2007, Mark Wentz