Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Will the Heat Care Tonight?

On my way to lunch on Saturday, I was listening to ESPN Radio and the hosts were interviewing some media professional associated with the Miami Heat.  (Either that or they were talking to an NBA writer and just happened to only ask him questions about the Heat.  Given that we are talking about ESPN, that is just as plausible.)  The topic was the Heat coasting at times during the season, specifically during a barely-explicable home loss to the Bucks that dropped the Heat to 11-5.  The Heat have since won five in a row to get to 16-5, a record more befitting their talent, but the fact remains that even in a shortened NBA season, we can't rely on teams to be focused from game to game.  The stakes are simply too low.  What is the advantage gained by the Heat busting their tails to get to 50 wins?  The right to play those rare game sevens at home.  That's a small payoff for a major effort.  If you want an illustration of how low the stakes are in regular season NBA games, the Heat and Bulls - the two best teams in the East - played on Sunday and the discussion on Monday morning was not about the result, but rather about the fact that Carlos Boozer's son was caught going along with the "Let's go Heat" chant.

If you want to know why I've gravitated to European soccer as my second favorite sport after college football, the lack of importance of the vast majority of American pro sports games would be one of the major reason.  In contrast to the "will the Heat care today?" question that we have to ask ourselves before each game, on Sunday afternoon, I watched Barca labor to a 0-0 draw at Villarreal.  Unlike the Heat, Barca have earned the right to coast every now and again by winning 13 trophies in the past three years and change.  The theme of Barca's season in La Liga this year has been their struggles on the road, dropping points regularly in 0-0 and 2-2 draws.  Maybe Barca's players are having a hard time getting up for these games, but the key point is that they are punished for doing so.  The Blaugrana are now seven points behind Real Madrid and will require significant help from their arch-rivals to get back into the title race.  If the La Liga season were simply about seeding for a short post-season tournament, then Barca could go through the motions on the road and no one would bat an eyelash.  Instead, the stakes are high for each match and the penalty for not scoring at El Madrigal is significant.

I thought about this issue when reading Bill Simmons' column last night.  Simmons spends 1,261 words describing an elaborate plan to push the NBA regular season back with a later start date and conclusion, but he never grapples with the fundamental problem with the sport: the regular season is four-times as long as the playoffs, but isn't even one-quarter as important.  What about doing away with the playoffs to reward the teams that are the best over the long-haul?  Or at least limit the playoffs to one series like baseball did before 1969?  To quote Simmons:

"Because that's the way we've always done it."

For the record, I don't buy Simmons' notion that leagues should make radical changes and that there is no value in traditions.  A sport should follow a certain rhythm and the NBA is no different.  Get rid of that rhythm and you are disconnecting your fans from their patterns, which might lead them to no longer buy your product.  However, if the NBA is interested in a major change, then surely doing something to increase the stakes of the regular season is more important than the start date. 

Monday, January 30, 2012

Matt Ryan, Greg Schiano, and the Value of Coming from the College Football Proletariat

My column on Greg Schiano is up at SB Nation.  The thesis is that he might be better prepared for NFL success than most college coaches because he is used to coaching without a talent advantage:

Schiano might garner a series of "meh" reactions from college football fans based on Rutgers output after their explosion onto the scene in 2007, but his experience might be the right one to prepare him for the NFL. Starting in 2011 and moving backwards, here are Rutgers' recruiting rankings in the Big East according to Rivals: second, sixth, third, third, third, sixth, fourth, and third. The conclusion is simple: in an eight-team conference, Rutgers had decent talent, but nothing overwhelming. As a result, Schiano had to focus on getting more out of his three-star guys than his coaching rivals were getting out of theirs. That experience prepares him for the NFL, where talent is distributed far more evenly than it is in college.

In fact, if Rutgers' merely decent recruiting rankings reflect that Schiano is an underwhelming recruiter, then this fact might actually be a good sign for Schiano in the NFL. When Saban and Pete Carroll moved to the NFL, they were both leaving behind a primary asset: top recruiting ability. That recruiting ability undoubtedly led to their success at LSU and USC, thus leading the Dolphins and Seahawks to pay for a skill that would not translate to the NFL. Schiano might not have experienced success on the level of Saban or Carroll, but if his success was the result of good player development and acumen with strategy and tactics in lieu of bringing in great players, then he is well-prepared for the NFL.
In retrospect, it was a bit of an oversight that I didn't mention Jim Harbaugh coming to the NFL from college and immediately turning the 49ers from a perennial laughingstock to a Super Bowl contender.  Harbaugh, like Schiano, came from a non-elite program where he had to do more with less (although Harbaugh was a better recruiter than Schiano and had the benefit of five-star Andrew Luck under center).  I also wanted to reference Bill Simmons' since-abandoned theory that college coaches are vastly inferior to NFL coaches, but I didn't feel the need for added snark.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Scott Loeffler and Creeping Sabanization

I posted a long-ish article yesterday morning about Scott Loeffler's hire at Auburn and what that shows in terms of the direction of the SEC.  Because I goofed in terms of categorizing the post, it only showed up on the sidebar of the page, so you would have to do some hunting to find it ... or you could just click on this link.  Here is the conclusion:

One point that I meant to make in the column is that the trend away from the spread is not a good development for Georgia in one respect.  When Florida was at its full pomp under Urban Meyer, one argument that Georgia fans made was that the Dawgs would have a recruiting advantage in a spread-crazy conference because Georgia would be somewhat unique and could tout its superior preparation for the NFL.  Matt Stafford going at the top of the Draft provided evidence for this point.  That advantage goes away now that Florida, Auburn, and (to a lesser extent because they were never really a spread team) LSU are all running pro-style offenses.  Style-wise, Georgia is just another team in the SEC.  Yes, they can tout where Stafford, Knowshon Moreno, and AJ Green were drafted, but Auburn can cite to Scot Loeffler's record sending quarterbacks to the NFL. 


We Expected Midway and Got Antietam







Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Mourinho's Fleet Arrives at Midway

Barcelona and Real Madrid meet this evening for the ninth time in the last ten months.  Real Madrid have won only one of the previous nine meetings, that in extra time at the Mestalla in the Copa del Rey Final last spring.  Los Merengues are five points clear of their hated enemy in La Liga, which one would think would be cause for celebration among their fans.  Instead, discontent is building because of Real's failure to beat Barca head-to-head.  Real got two shots at the Blaugrana in recent weeks, both at home.  In both matches, Real went ahead early and then lost as Barca's midfield asserted control over the matches.  Most gallingly for Jose Mourinho and Real fans, they can't even throw up their hands and say "Barca have the best player in the world and he beat us."  Leo Messi hasn't scored in either match, although he assisted on the equalizer in December and the winner last week. 

Mourinho's failure to beat Barca is now starting to become an issue.  Real Madrid is a massive institution, even by the standards of European mega-clubs.  It has a complicated political structure involving various executives and sometimes players (read: Raul) that often illustrates the saying "too many chefs spoil the broth."  For years, the manager was set up as a fall guy.  He didn't decide the style, he didn't have control over signings, and if anything went wrong, he would be the scapegoat for the failings of others.  The experience of Vicente Del Bosque at the Bernabeu is Exhibit A:


Del Bosque then added the World Cup to his personal trophy room in 2010.  Depending on Barca's trophy haul this year, his list of accomplishments is not that far removed from that of Pep Guardiola's four years in charge in Barcelona.  Guardiola is untouchable; Del Bosque got the boot because winning La Liga and losing in the last four of the Champions League (in a close, enthralling tie with Juventus) was just not enough.  Moreover, the guy who made the decision to axe Del Bosque - Florentino Perez - also happens to be the current president of the club.

One of the issues that makes Real a snakepit for a manager is the local media.  Madrid has two sports dailies - Marca and AS - that provide exhaustive coverage of the club.  Marca has especially close ties to Real, such that its campaign against Manuel Pellegrini during the first year of the new Galactico era in 2009-10 was thought to be encouraged (or at least tacitly permitted) by upper management at the Bernabeu.  So, when Marca prints an exchange between Mourinho and Sergio Ramos verbatim, this is not a good sign for Mourinho.  Here is Sid Lowe's description of the Marca story:

"Marking Piqué"
"Well, you should have been marking Puyol."
"What? So now you're playing at being coach?"
This story represents all sorts of issues for Mourinho.  First, it illustrates a less-than-content locker room, which cuts against one of Mourinho's noted strengths: his ability to get wealthy, egotistical stars to all pull in the same direction, even if they might not like being on the bench or playing in a defensive style.  Second, it hints at cliques based on nationality, hence the "you Spaniards" remark.  (The current rumor is that there is a division between the Spanish and Portuguese players in the side.)  Third, it hits Mourinho where it hurts, which is that unlike Guardiola, he was not a successful player.  (Think Tracy Flick here.)  Fourth, the fact that Marca has a source within the team and ran a cover story pulling up Mourinho's kimono implies that Mourinho's political situation is not entirely secure.  For someone with a well developed sense of paranoia (Simon Kuper attributes this tendency to Mourinho growing up in a dictatorship), Marca's story is ominous.

Jose's teams generally don't play attractive football, with the match against Barca last week generally and Pepe's behavior specifically being a nadir.  If his teams win, then everyone is happy.  If they don't win, then there is really nothing to commend Jose at all.  Real Madrid are winning, but they are not accomplishing what Mourinho was brought to the Bernabeu to do: conquer Guardiola's Barca.  (Mourinho's wins over Barca at Chelsea and Inter were a major credential in hiring him.)  Thus, today's match is critical because it comes at an important juncture.  If Real can overturn the 2-1 deficit and win at the Nou Camp (a feat that Mourinho has never accomplished, despite three chances at Chelsea, two at Inter, and three so far at Real; he has four losses and four draws), then his reputation as a Barca-killer returns.  He will re-establish his credibility with his players and accumulate political capital to deal with management and the media in Madrid.  If Real lose, then Jose faces a genuine crisis because the impression will be further cemented that he cannot do what he was brought to Madrid to do.  It's one thing to lose to a historically great team; it's another to do it while deploying eight defensive players, including your compatriot - a center back playing midfield - stomping on Messi's hand.  It's strange for me as a Cule to say this, but today's match is more about the enemy. 


Sunday, January 22, 2012

Dirk Koetter and the Coaching Bell Curve




Thursday, January 12, 2012

Guys, The Roadblocks on 316 Are Not Necessary

I took a quick run this morning at the rumor that the Falcons are interested in Todd Grantham.  I guess if you are replacing one former Georgia defensive coordinator, you might as well do so by making another one, right?  Aside from the facts that Grantham's scheme is a bad fit for the Falcons' personnel and the team has neither the draft picks nor the cap space to re-tool in the offseason, I opined that there is no way in hell that Arthur Blank is going to piss off the significant portion of his fan base that spends their Saturdays barking:

A significant portion of the Falcons' fan base is comprised of Georgia fans. How exactly do we think that Georgia fans would react to losing their now-beloved defensive coordinator to the local pro football collective right before a season in which Georgia will be preseason top ten and expected to win the East and challenge for the SEC title? Arthur Blank didn't get to where he is by angering his customers. It would make a lot more sense for him to back the Brinks truck up to Steve Spagnuolo's house so the Falcons can sell their fans on the fact that they hired a Super Bowl-winning defensive coordinator.
So no, I don't think that this is happening.  In fact, I seriously doubt that the Falcons even considered it beyond "yeah, that would be a terrible idea."

If the Falcons wanted to do a change of scheme, how about the Air Raid?  It's almost certainly too radical for a winning team, but if some teams are going to move towards the spread 'n' shred, then why wouldn't someone try the other offense that is ripping up college football?  It's not like the run 'n' shoot was a resounding failure in the NFL.

Phil Jackson & Bela Guttmann

Jonathan Wilson’s latest article, which asks whether Barcelona will be a victim of Bela Guttmann’s famous three-year rule, is worth a look.  Here is the gist:
"The third year," the great Hungarian coach Bela Guttmann always said, "is fatal." If a manager stays at a club more than that, he said, his players tend to become bored and/or complacent and opponents start to work out counter-strategies. There are occasional exceptions, especially in weaker leagues, but at the highest level it seems to hold true that great teams last a maximum of three years – which is why Barcelona's draw against Espanyol on Saturday may be more significant than just two dropped points. This, after all, is Pep Guardiola's fourth season as a manager at the Camp Nou.
Now right off the bat, there is a problem with Wilson’s analogy.  Guttmann said that the third year is fatal, but in year three under Guardiola, Barca won the two biggest prizes available to it: the Spanish Primera and the Champions League.  It’s only if you modify Guttmann’s concept to “every year after the first three is fatal” that is has applicability here.  Additionally, Guardiola is a disciple of Johan Cruyff and Cruyff’s version of the theory is that a great team has a four-year shelf life.  This makes sense from Cruyff’s personal experience because his Barca Dream Team won four straight La Liga titles in the early 90s, as well as the club’s first European Cup, and then declined.*  Guttmann could make a side function at a top level for two years, so he thinks that that is the statute of limitations.  Cruyff’s team lasted for four, so he thinks that that is the limit.  There is a danger here of assuming that one’s personal experience is universal.

* – Cruyff suggested that Barca should have broken its 2006 Champions League-winning side apart because it was coming to the end of its cycle, although that team had really only been together for three years.  The bottom really fell out in year five when the Blaugrana finished third in La Liga and suffered the ultimate humiliation of forming a Pasillo for Real Madrid after Los Merengues clinched the league.  Samuel Eto’o and Deco both got cards intentionally in the preceding match so they would not have to participate, which is a major reason that both were ultimately drummed out of the club.

Wilson’s article got me thinking about American sports and whether a three- or four-year rule applies there.  One could make a good argument that it applies in the NBA.  Because basketball requires more natural teamwork than baseball or football,* it would seem to be a proper candidate.  Look at recent NBA history.  The Bulls won three titles, then Michael Jordan went away.  They won three more, then Jerry Krause broke the team apart.  The Lakers won three in a row, then Shaq and Kobe could no longer co-exist.  Once a team gets to the top, it seems that it has a three-year statute of limitations before the combination of egos and pressure create an untenable situation.  Phil Jackson, did you ever know that your intellectual forefather was a Hungarian nomad?

* – Football obviously involves players working together, but to do so, they are often following instructions in the form of a play.  Basketball, because it is less controlled by the coaches, requires organic cooperation from its players.

In addressing whether Barca can be an exception to the three-year rule, Wilson points out a distinction that would not apply to NBA teams:

Yet in many ways, Barcelona are a side set up to endure. Like Ferguson, who reflected last week on how those who have been brought up at a club have more instinctive loyalty, Guardiola has a stock of homegrown talent. The impression is that most players play for Barcelona because they want to rather than because it's a convenient way of paying for the cars and clothes and rounds of Jaegerbombs.
The Lakers and Bulls didn't build their teams by signing players when they were twelve and then teaching those players over the course of years how to play in a certain style.  With the exception of Dani Alves, Barca's current core comes from the La Masia cocoon.  These players grew up together, were taught how to play together, matured together, and have now won a room full of trophies together.  That experience is simply different than what the NBA's dynastic teams experience.

I'm currently reading Soccer Men, which is Simon Kuper's attempt to explain what modern soccer* stars are really like.  One of the themes of the book is that players don't feel the same way that we do about teams and matches because for them, it's a job.  For instance, Bernd Holzenbein, one of the starters on the team that won the 1974 World Cup in a famous final against the Netherlands, recalls West Germany's win in 1954 with greater fondness.  As he describes his feelings, he was a fan in 1954 and a professional in 1974.  The chapter on Fernando Torres is also interesting, as it explains that Torres was an Atletico Madrid fan almost from birth, but had no problem moving to Liverpool because it was a better opportunity for him.  We want to think that the players we love feel the same way about the clubs that we love, but that usually isn't true.  On one end of the spectrum, we expect that LeBron, Wade, and Bosh don't feel any strong connection to the Miami Heat as an institution.  On the other end, it will be interesting to learn how strong the connection is between Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi and Futbol Club Barcelona.   

* - Kuper explains in the book that soccer is actually a British term and the sport was referred to by that title instead of football until the 70s.  I am going to be more comfortable using the term and not worrying that I come off as too American.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Quick Thoughts on the National Title Game

  • I said before the game that Bama would need to fin decisively for me to give them my #1 vote.  I’d say they achieved that aim, wouldn’t you?

  • If anyone else has any idea what LSU was trying to accomplish on offense, then please let me know.  They kept running screens against a team that was pressing them.  They kept running option with a quarterback who was indecisive in running that play.  (Kudos to Kirk Herbstreit for taking a break from discussing the emotions of college football to explain what a lousy job Jordan Jefferson was doing with that play.)  They waited until the fourth quarter to run the toss play that has been a staple of their offense, and then they didn’t go back to it after it produced one of their only good runs of the game.  Likewise, they started the second half by running a pair of plays seeking to get Odell Backham between the corner and the safety in Bama’s cover two, the first of which almost worked and the second of which did, but then they never went back to that pattern.  They never went to Jarrett Lee despite the fact that Jordan Jefferson was atrocious.  They punted on fourth and short down two scores in the fourth quarter.  In sum, LSU’s coaches seemingly approached this game with the midnset that they were going to minimize a losing margin. 

  • In contrast, Bama’s offensive plan made sense.  They gave AJ McCarron simple reads (“more Dick and Jane than War and Peace”), especially using flag routes to the sidelines that he consistently dropped in the bucket.  They were focused on great execution of simple passing plays.  It helped that the Bama receivers, which I viewed as a weakness going into the game, played their best game of the season.  Brent Musberger seemed confused that the Tide were able to have success throwing on Tyrann Mathieu, but Mathieu’s fame this year comes from everything but coverage.  It’s not that he’s a bad cover corner, but he isn’t elite in that department.

  • I wrote after the Sugar Bowl that Michigan's ability to avoid Virginia Tech's repeated mistakes was a skill, in and of itself.  Bama showed that same skill last night.  No turnovers, one penalty, and no hare-brained tactical decisions by Saban.  In the realm of stating the obvious, it's preferable for a team to be mistake-free AND outgain the opponent by almost 300 yards.  The score might not reflect it, but Bama turned in one of the all-time dominant title game performances in college football history because they were so superior in terms of yardage and yet were able to do so without sacrificing their ability to avoid mistakes.

  • My prevailing feeling at the end of the game was feeling wistful that college football doesn’t have a 4-8 team playoff.  I’m not the biggest playoff fan in the world because there is a tradeoff between the side of a tournament and the value of a regular season.  That said, I’m also a guy who is fascinated by history.  This Bama defense was one of the best defenses in modern college football history.  In an offense-heavy era in college football, they didn’t get to test themselves against a really good offense.  It’s not Bama’s fault.  Normally, you would think that a schedule that included Penn State, Florida, Tennessee, and Auburn would give several good tests for an offense.  This year, all of those programs were down, especially on the offensive side of the ball.  We’ll never get to see how the Tide would have done against Andrew Luck or Oklahoma State’s version of the Air Raid or Oregon’s version of the spread ‘n’ shred.  Imagine Andrew Luck trying to decipher one of Nick Saban’s shifting coverage schemes.  Imagine Dre Kirkpatrick covering Justin Blackmon.  Imagine DeAnthony Thomas in space against Donta Hightower.  One of the benefits of expanding college football’s postseason is that we would get more matchups like that, but we are denied that opportunity.  I hate ending the college football season on a note of frustration, but that’s how I feel this morning after having seen a truly great defense test itself against a mediocre offense.    

Monday, January 09, 2012

Mularkey Fuera!

You know that when I am channeling the ever-disgruntled fans at Atletico Madrid,* then thinks are not going well.  Here's the column.  As usual, I am complaining about the focus on Michael Turner:

Leaving the playoff struggles aside, the most basic criticism of Mularkey is that he doesn't understand the strengths of his own attack. The Falcons are at their best when Matt Ryan is throwing the ball around to the toys that Thomas Dimitroff has bought for him.

The Falcons' running game is overrated by people who only look at raw numbers. Michael Turner was 39th in the NFL in DVOA this year. Put another way, he was below average in terms of his success rate on a per-play basis. Collectively, the Falcons' running game ranked 25th in the NFL by Football Outsiders' numbers. If you look at the more conventional yards per carry number, the Falcons jump all the way up to 22nd. An objective observer would look at this team and conclude that their approach in January should have been to throw the ball and then use the run on occasion to keep the defense honest. Mularkey, whether because of ideological rigidity or a misguided notion of avoiding the Giants' pass rush, stubbornly gave Turner nine carries in the first half. Those carries produced a whopping 27 yards. Did Mularkey react to this evidence by refraining from wasting downs in the second half? No, he started the half by giving Turner three more carries that produced ten yards. The Falcons blew their chances when the defense was playing really well.
I heard a good call this morning on 790 by a fan arguing that the problem is that the running game is so uni-directional.  The Giants' runners can all change direction and cut back, but Turner just plods between the tackles whether or not the blocking is there.  Interestingly, the Falcons are above-average in their percentage of runs going outside, so I'm not sure that this criticism is valid, but it sure feels right after yesterday.

* - The full chant there is "[Insert name of inept manager or club owner], cabron, fuera del Calderon."  Catchy, no?

Friday, January 06, 2012

Customary Invective About New York

You didn't really think that I would let a week like this go by without a paragraph on my love for New York sports culture, did you? 

Adrift on a sea of potential ennui, there is one subject that in my experience unites Atlanta sports fans: we hate New York teams. I've yet to encounter a non-Big Apple transplant Atlantan who views the teams from New York with anything but contempt. When their teams come to our venues, we get overrun with loutish, gold chain-festooned former New Yorkers who have John Franco mustaches with no shred of irony and who cheer lustily for teams from a city that they fled because they didn't want to pay $3,000 per month for 500 square feet. When we turn on the TV, we get inundated with news about their teams as if they are our teams. Their shills in the media have completely appropriated baseball history as being the story about New York teams and their games against one another or the Red Sox. Nothing will quite bring out passion quite like being dismissed as a bystander.

Unfortunately, the post then deals with reality, which is that Atlanta teams have a terrible history against New York teams in the postseason.  I missed an opportunity to make a joke about Rutgers football not being in a position to play the Dawgs in a bowl game.  Sorry about that.

Wednesday, January 04, 2012








Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Mark Richt and the Cult of the Field Goal

My column about the import of Richt's colossal mistake against Michigan State is up at SB Nation. The criticism of the decision not to attack in the first overtime is obvious; here is the attempt to contextualize:


* - Take it from a Michigan fan. We all complained about Lloyd Carr making conservative decisions at the end of games that overvalued kickers, the clock and timeouts while undervaluing the possibility of winning a game with his consistently good quarterbacks. We didn't appreciate the fact that Carr was putting good teams on the field that were in position to blow close games in the first place. Three years of Rich Rodriguez were enough to bring Carr's positive attributes into full focus. For instance, the Big Ten Network had a timely showing of the 2000 Orange Bowl yesterday afternoon. In that game, Carr laid up for a field goal at the end of regulation. He could have put the game in the hands of future Hall of Famer Tom Brady, throwing to future top ten pick David Terrell and protected by four future NFL starters on the offensive line. Instead, he put the game in the hands of the immortal Hayden Epstein and was only bailed out by Alabama kicker Ryan Pflugner one-upping Epstein by missing an extra point. Carr deserves lots of credit for assembling a great team and a smaller amount of criticism for relying on the wrong aspects of that team. College coaches should not rely on their kickers unless all other resources have been exhausted.
If you want a more substantive criticism of Richt, it is this: eleven years at the helm in Athens has shown that he is dependent on Florida having a bad coach in order to be successful. When Richt came to Athens, Steve Spurrier was putting one of his best Gator teams on the field in 2001, a team that should have played Miami for the national title in Pasadena if not for a pair of injuries to Ernest Graham. Spurrier then flew the coop for Dan Snyder's filthy lucre. He was replaced by Ron Zook and Richt enjoyed his heyday: three division and two conference titles. Urban Meyer then came onto the scene*, and Richt did not take another trip to the SEC Championship Game until Meyer had fled the stage. Now, the elite programs in the conference are in Tuscaloosa and Baton Rouge, a point that was drilled home in the second half of the title game against LSU. Is Richt going to require regression from one or both of those programs in order to win a third conference title? Quite possibly? More generally, can we accept that Richt is a good, but not great coach? I certainly can, but it will be easier if days like yesterday become more frequent.
* - It does bear mentioning that Richt's second title came in Meyer's first year in Gainesville when Urban was going through the growing pains of De-Zookification.
The point that I do not address is what part(s) of the pie chart do we use to reach the conclusion that Richt is good, but not great.  In other words, is his quality recruiting what makes him good and his staffing decisions prevent him from being great?  That question will require a lot more consideration.