Fantasy Football vs. Reality, by Nate Jackson

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An excerpt from retired NFL player Nate Jackson’s book, Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile, appeared in the September 16, 2013 issue of Sports Illustrated. The following is an excerpt of that excerpt:

Fantasy Football: A player’s statistics are all that matter.

Reality Football: No one knows anyone’s stats, not even their own.

Fantasy Football: NFL players are millionaires.

Reality Football: Many aren’t and never will be.

Fantasy Football: The NFL is all about Pro Bowlers and Hall of Famers. Everyone else is a scrub.

Reality Football: Everyone in the NFL is great at football. It’s not uncommon for a future Hall of Famer to get smoked in practice by a rookie free agent who won’t make the team.

Fantasy Football: It’s a quarterback’s league. Without a “franchise quarterback,” you have no chance. …

Reality Football: The action of the quarterback is determined by the 21 moving bodies around him and the coaches on the sideline. The quarterback is one man with one job. Either he does it well or he does not. After the game he stands naked in line for the shower like everyone else.

Fantasy Football: Roger Goodell is making the game safer. He is removing dangerous head shots from the game through fines and penalties, and has settled on a large fund to help retired players, contributed money to researching head trauma and established the Heads-Up tackling initiative, which teaches kids not to hit with their helmets.

Reality Football: You can’t hit without your head. And no matter how many times you say the word “safe,” football is not safe. It never has been and never will be. That’s the whole point.

Bay of Cigs: Playoff Time

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The regular season is (basically) over. October begins tomorrow. The Tigers are in the playoffs. All of this is good news, and the AL Central-clinching game– Jim Leyland’s emotional 700th win with the Tigers– was worth celebrating.

These Tigers are built to contend for and win a World Series championship, so, for Detroit, the real action begins in Oakland on Friday.

Unlike the A’s, the Tigers are entering the playoffs cold and disjointed. First and foremost, Miguel Cabrera’s abdomen/groin injury/ies appear anything but resolved. There’s no question that he’ll be in the lineup for every game this month, but I have plenty of questions about how productive he can be. Without his consistent hitting power, together with a serviceable level of capability on the basepaths and on defense, it’s difficult to see how Detroit can defend its American League championship and make a return to the World Series. Little is publicly known about Cabrera’s current health aside from what can be gleaned from watching him play, but I’m worried about the signals the visuals and the team’s silence are sending.

Second, the bullpen continues to be a serious weakness for Detroit. This has been an issue since day one of this season, and while it seems like there’s been some progress on that front, I don’t feel a lot more confident in the middle relief after 162 games than I did in March. There’s help here, though. Because the playoff schedule is such that a team only needs, at most, four starting pitchers, the Tigers can move Rick Porcello into the bullpen. Kid Rick is pitching very well right now, and he should be able to fill most of the middle relief gaps.

Third is the issue of late-game run support. I first raised this issue early in the season, and when I checked in after 100 games, the numbers looked even worse. I’ll do one more check of these numbers, but  my sense is that this is an area where the Tigers have improved a little bit. If this remains a problem, the pressures of the playoffs may exacerbate it, however.

Fourth, as more of a note, Justin Verlander probably should be the team’s fourth starter in the playoffs. The question I have about him is not about the number of “smart,” “rational” Tigers fans you can whip into a rage by talking about Verlander’s struggles, but about whether Leyland really will use Verlander as the third or fourth starter in the playoffs. I believe he will. Max Scherzer and, increasingly, Anibal Sanchez have separated themselves as Detroit’s clear top two starters, and if the Tigers are to succeed this month, it will be on the strength of their arms.

Fifth, Jhonny Peralta’s back with the team, and not a moment too soon. It looks like Peralta will be taking over a weak left field for the Tigers in the playoffs. Detroit needed his bat in the lineup, and there isn’t anywhere else to put him. He rejoined the team for their last regular season series, and he had a double and an RBI in his first game back. He had two hits in the second game of the series, and none in three at bats in the third game. Being a shortstop, his fielding abilities in left, backing up Cabrera’s limited range at third, raises some concerns, particularly with starting shortstop Jose Iglesias’ recent case of bilateral shin splints, but, as stated, there aren’t any viable alternatives here.

As a final note, I think it’s the case that you know your own team, and therefore your own team’s weaknesses, better than you know anything about your team’s opponent. These Tigers are very good, and have been historically good at times this season. Starting Friday, we’ll find out whether they will be at their best when there’s no other option.

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Related
Full postseason schedule
Tigers-Athletics preview

Previously
 Heeeeeere’s Jhonny? – 9/12
Crime & Punishment – 8/7
Trader Jose(s) – 7/31
100 days of summer run distribution – 7/25
Are the Tigers the unluckiest team in baseball? – 6/28
Forget what you know – 6/25
History and Revision – 6/12
Tigers beat Braves 7-4 as part of series sweep of visiting Atlanta – 5/7
April in the D – 4/26
Jet Set (Sigh?) – 4/23
Run distribution, science, and the likelihood of a Detroit comeback – 4/15
WSJ throws a wet newspaper on the Tigers’ 2013 chances – 4/3
A Tiger is a Tiger is a Tiger – 3/29
The Departed – 3/14

Utility Jam

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The Detroit Tigers clinched first place in the American League Central division this week, and with that, a spot in the playoffs. For a variety of reasons, this season saw an increased role for utility player Don Kelly, and while a proper update on the full team as the playoffs loom remains forthcoming, today’s Jam, performed by the Don Kelley Band at one of my favorite music venues in the world, is a nod to Donnie K.

Roddy White TV

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Roddy White jumped on the twitter horn Sunday morning to share his reactionary thoughts to the weird thing happening where San Francisco’s Aldon Smith was going to play despite having been arrested for DUI a few days prior. In particular, White didn’t like the way the pregame shows were covering the story:

The pregame shows didn’t like White’s tweets, unsurprisingly, and the message was that White, who has a history of tweeting sometimes cringe-worthy messages (telling the jurors in the George Zimmerman case to “kill themselves” being probably the most egregious example), should be quiet and focus on the game ahead.

While I can’t endorse White’s offseason tweet about the Zimmerman jurors, I think Roddy is thinking about the game ahead when posting tweets he knows will draw national attention to him during the season.

White is the ostensible “number one receiver” on the Falcons. True, Julio Jones would be the “number one receiver” on many other NFL teams, and Old Tony Gonzales and Harry Douglas aren’t bad options either. There’s a reason we refer to a team’s “receiving corps,” however: they function as a unit. The arithmetic of the game generally allows defenses to shut down the passing attack of a team with only one good passing option. (This fact makes Calvin Johnson’s accomplishments in Detroit all the more impressive.)

The important fact here is that White is playing with a high ankle sprain that appears to be significantly limiting him during games. He continues to play, though, because as the team’s ostensible “number one receiver,” he will draw defenders away from Jones, Gonzales, and Douglas. White’s decoy role is even more important following the injury to running back Steven Jackson.

White’s effectiveness as a decoy depends, in some part, on the extent to which he is on the minds of defensive coaches and players as they prepare for and play games against the Falcons. Within reason, anything White can do to draw attention to himself– even just keeping his name, but not his injury, of course, in the news– should result in some benefit to his team. That may be the reason his team has never (publicly) reprimanded him for his outspoken ways.

ALDLAND Podcast

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Super exciting edition of the ALDLAND podcast this week. The ALDLAND-Grantland rivalry is taken to another level as Brendan calls out Grantland’s coverage of the popular video game Grand Theft Auto V. College football is obviously also on the menu, as is a little slice of baseball wild card action. Tune in next week when we finally get around to the NFL.

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

College Football Week 4: POLL

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pollingLots of college football fans say that the polls don’t really matter, can’t really matter, because they don’t accurately reflect what’s happening on the field. What were those voter-computer-robots watching, anyway? Were they even watching? These concerns don’t apply to ALDLAND’s College Football Poll, which will do you one better than reflecting reality, though it does that too: How about affecting reality? Check out what happened to Florida QB Jeff Driskel after he was the winner-loser of week two’s poll: out for the year. Cast a vote of consequence below.

Continue to voting

Socializing endurance athletics

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The Wall Street Journal has a sports section, something that came along with, or at least greatly expanded following, News Corp.’s takeover of the paper in 2007. It’s sort of what you might expect: a mixed-bag of quality in writing and presentation with more emphasis on tennis and sailing than other sports pages. It features writing from some really smart, talented people like Jason Gay and, formerly, David Roth (of Classical fame and now in an expanded role at SB Nation), and we try to feature those smart articles on this site. Because the paper doesn’t have to uphold a reputation as a source for sports– the move to expand sports coverage appears to be aimed at increasing website clicks– its “sports writers” might be more likely to come to their sports articles with varying backgrounds and varying levels of commitment to the sports world. Once in a while, it even feels like the WSJ’s editorial board drops in on the sports section, and that’s the feeling I had when I read last week’s article about running.

A “generational battle is raging in endurance athletics,” the article announces. “Old-timers are suggesting that performance-related apathy [exists] among young amateur athletes,” which “helps explain why America hasn’t won an Olympic marathon medal since 2004,” among other things.

There are numbers that support the conclusion that “kids these days [are] just not very fast.” At this year’s Chicago Triathlon, for example, older runners, as a group, did better than younger runners. Younger American runners are not surpassing older ones in world competition.  Continue reading →

Upton Abbey: Episode 7 – Dessert Seized

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upton abbey banner

There will be extra baseball in Atlanta this year. The Braves clinched the NL East title over the weekend, ensuring themselves a postseason berth. With a few days left in the regular season, their potential playoff opponents include the Cardinals, Reds, Pirates(!), and Dodgers.

The good news: Jason Heyward is back in the lineup sooner than expected– thirty days after a New York Met fastball broke his jaw. In the last twenty-two games Heyward played before the injury, Atlanta was 18-4. They were 13-13 in the twenty-six games without him. Heyward may not be fully healed, but the team needs him back in the lineup, and bringing him back for these last few regular season games was the only way they could allow him to get back into playing mode before the playoffs begin.

Heyward_Braves_baseballThe odd news: As part of its remodeling effort, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution began offering a live, online feature for Braves games called Gametracker. It’s similar to ESPN’s online Gamecast product. Gametracker is a nice way to keep track of Braves games, but it seems odd that, as of last week, it would think relief pitcher Luis Ayala plays for the Orioles. First, Gametracker only tracks Braves games. Second, while Ayala did appear in two games for Baltimore this season, he’s appeared in thirty-five for the Braves, the team he joined in April of this year.

ajcbrav

Finally, third baseman Chris Johnson has been having a nice year at the plate. Way nicer than anyone expected or really can explain, in fact. One concern entering the playoffs is that, with the offense sputtering and his awareness of his potentially fluky success and the increased importance of that success to the team’s success, Johnson will start to overthink his plate appearances and squelch his offensive proficiency.

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Previously
Episode 6 – I Can See Clearly Now?
Episode 5 – Guess Who’s Not Coming To Dinner
Episode 4 – A Three-Course Meal
Episode 3 – Hosting Royalty
Episode 2 – Lords of the Mannor
Episode 1 – Beginning, as we must, with Chipper

Seeing Barry Bonds

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This is not a new idea, but after seeing a recent picture of Barry Bonds, it seemed worth reprising.

Here’s Bonds in 1992. Age 28.

Bonds in 2007. Age 43. Besides having ballooned physically, Bonds is doing a coupe of interesting things here. One, he is wearing a Rod Beck memorial patch, like the rest of his teammates did that year. That’s how I dated this photo. Two, he apparently was wearing Ryan Klesko’s batting helmet. Klesko and Bonds were teammates for one year.

Bonds in 2012. Age 48. From the hosting site:

Now comes word that Bonds over the weekend was hanging around in Aspen and spending time on his bike in the mountains. How much does he weigh now? The guy in the neon green shirt is 6-5, 185. Bonds was said to be 6-2, 228 in 2007.

Time to invest in Bonds again?