Sehorn was the last white starting cornerback period. Two starters per team, 32 teams, and 20ish seasons, and not a single white guy until this year, with Cooper DeJean and Riley Moss.
I wrote about the emergence of Australian Rules punters in American football ten years ago after going to a UCLA game in which they lost to Utah largely due to Utah's Aussie punter:
If one looks at punting formations in the two leagues, one quickly sees the difference.
"In college, the ineligible receivers can go downfield before the punt, in the nfl they can't.
So in college really those 3 back guys do the blocking and everyone else goes downfield, maybe with the kicker taking some extra time by doing a rugby style punt.
In the NFL those guys on the line can't go downfield, so they stay on the line to block, and there's not much upside to delay the kick by moving."
When my son played Aussie rules football (we lived in Melbourne for 7 years) he (and all his teammates) learned multiple kicking styles depending on the game situation. In a game where kicking replaces passing, it’s easy to see why the kicking skill level improves for all. The hardest skill to pickup was “dribbling” the oblong ball. He was 12 and the Australian kids had been doing it since they were 4 or 5 years old. The Australians seem to punch above their weight in practically every sport they try. There were also fewer obese classmates in their schools.
In baseball, a tie goes to the runner at first base. It looked to me like at least a 50% chance that part of the football got to the first down line, so if there's a rule that gives the benefit of the doubt to the offense, then yes. On the other hand, I guess the ref spotted the ball inches short, and they have a rule not to overturn a ruling on the field without definitive evidence.
The best pictures I saw were from Allen's back, where it looked like his spinal column got right about to the first down line. It was close enough that it could depend upon whether Allen was holding the ball horizontally, which would mean one end of the ball definitely got over the line, or holding it vertically, in which case it was closer.
What's the rule? Any part of the ball or one end of the ball?
“Black quarterbacks often used to start off brilliantly, like Vince Young or Robert Griffin III. But their ability to run out of trouble during their youths usually kept them from developing as pocket passers after injuries sapped their quick-cutting running talent.”
Yep, this sums up the situation perfectly. Before his knee injury, Griffin was a phenom running the ball. He had legitimate track speed such that he could’ve participated in the Olympics and was a tremendous athlete. But he couldn’t throw the ball accurately on a consistent basis. The same is true of just about all of the black quarterbacks. They are primarily run first and don’t really develop as passers. A possible exception could be Lamar Jackson, who did have amazing passing stats this year.
Just a few years ago, the typical star quarterback seemed like a 37 year old white. There was a real golden age of old white guys around something like 2018-2021. Has there been a defensive innovation that finally ended the reign of the pocket passer?
There's more going for the first down on fourth and short, and in that situation it makes sense to put the ball in the hands of your best athlete and let him figure out what to do, so it makes sense to have a Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen at quarterback in that situation.
And how many Super Bowls do Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen have between them? Mahomes is actually sort of a combination of the two archetypes. He can chew you to pieces from the pocket, but he can also move around when necessary and he isn’t afraid to run. It’s clear you no longer want a quarterback who is absolutely immobile -- are you old enough to remember Jim Hart? -- but it’s not clear that the near-1,000 yard rusher is going to be what you want either.
“Super bowls” is fine to use as a stat when comparing QB legacies after their career. But in reality it’s a team stat, and rhe fact that their teams haven’t won a SB yet isn’t really a knock on Lamar or Josh’s skill set. Lots of things need to fall into place to win a SB and there’s some luck involved. They’ve both shown they can win consistently.
Also, I would consider Mahomes, Lamar, and Allen to be all of the same ilk. Theyre all dual threat QBs. Lamar was more of a runner but has now refined his game to become a great passer. Josh was a physical specimen with a cannon when he came out, and I think many were surprised at his level of athleticism.
I think innovation in football actually tends to reach the pro level last. A lot of large high schools 15-20 years ago started running spread offenses with 5 WR sets. They also start implementing the system early, like when the kids are on the middle school team. So they usually end up putting the best athlete at QB, the guy that even if the play breaks down in a 5wr set can still maximize their chances of making a play.
The spread started more than 20 years ago with Mike Leach and others. And in a football mad state like Texas, the head football coach at a high school has complete control from 7th grade one. One a long term coach will be coaching seniors who have been running his system for six or seven years.
Right. There was, for example, a huge amount of offensive innovation in option offenses in colleges and high schools from about 1968 onward but little made it to the pros.
This is why Quin Ewers is going to be a sixth round pick in the pros. No pro team can afford to build a passing system that would work for Ewers given is limited mobility.
My tendency is to appreciate players who are better in the regular season than in the playoffs or vice versa but not deprecate for not coming through in the other part of the year. E.g., in baseball, Clayton Kershaw is better in the regular season than in the playoffs and Giancarlo Stanton is better in the playoffs than in regular season. Well, I like them both.
Pretty much every sport has had some sort of point-shaving or spot-fixing scandal. Do I think the NFL's next big scandal will happen in a Super Bowl? Probably not. But in all likelihood there will be something like the NBA's recent Jontay Porter scandal, where a guy pulls himself out of a game after a drive or two, claiming injury, and the guys who bet the under on his props make a fortune. But with modern technology on the side of the gambling companies who want to make as much money as possible, all of these sorts of things will eventually get tracked down. It's going to be very hard to do something like that and get away with it, but there are a lot of NFL players and some of them are going to be dumb enough to try.
Obviously the NFL's popularity will wane at some point; nothing lasts forever. But I don't see it happening anytime soon. It's going to remain a popular high school/youth sport among black Americans everywhere and white people in the South and Midwest, even if the liberal coastal elites don't want their kids to play.
It's an interesting point you make that analytics have been good for football and bad for baseball and basketball. If I had to guess why, I think football is just more complicated. 22 players vs. 10 in basketball, and baseball is really just a pitcher vs. batter individual duel with a bunch of window dressing. For example, the percentage of plays that are passes had been trending up for a while, but then it leveled back off. There's pretty much always some sort of counter for whatever an offense or defense does. But in basketball, there's not enough reason to take shots that aren't either layups or threes. And in baseball, throwing hard and swinging hard are what's it all about (I miss the days of Ichiro, who could've been a damn good power hitter but was content to slap it all over the field).
Football coaches had always been insanely hardworking compared to baseball coaches (e.g., see the baseball coaching staff in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four."). So they didn't need advanced statistics for most things.
But NFL coaches used to automatically punt and automatically kick the one point conversion unless desperate in the 4th quarter. Now they don't anymore. A simple innovation was giving the coach a laminated card explaining when to go for the two point conversion: e.g., you are down 27-22 and score a touchdown, go for two because a two point lead is a good way to lose 30-29 on an opponents' field goal.
They should probably change the rules to make field goal kicking harder so that kickers can become heroes again, the way they were when George Blanda was MVP in 1970 and Mark Mosely in 1982. If the average field goal percentage was 50% then a field goal kicker who goes 4 for 4 to win by a few points is a hero. Rules should be adjusted to increase the chances of heroes.
Professional football coaches are known for their time-numbing long hours. Forty years ago, workaholic Joe Gibbs, when he noticed an assistant look at a clock on the wall that read two o'clock, he had the clock taken down. Of all the sports, football is the sport where a head coach makes the greatest difference. Of course, coaches do burn out and it is amazing that Coaches Reid and Tomlin and Carroll have yet to burn out.
Baseball managers might make the least difference in a 162 game season. A manager's most important decisions revolve around pitching changes, giving players days off to keep them fresh, and lefty-righty platoon/pinch hit situations. A manager must manage with a long grind in mind. But they don't work that hard. When he managed in Washington in 2005, Frank Robinson flipped on the Lakers games on his office television after games.
The jokes about baseball is that the team will win 1/3 of the games no matter what the manager does, will lose one third of the games no matter what the manager does, and in 1/3 of the games, the manager can affect the outcome.
When there was the Univ. of Alabama betting scandal came out, several in the media explain how all of the online sports betting report all bets to a clearing house. That is how the guy was caught other than the people taking the bet knew something was up.
"...in basketball, there's not enough reason to take shots that aren't either layups or threes."
This isn't inherent to the game, it's a result of the way the game is officiated. The GUARDED three is a low percentage shot, but the effectively unguarded three has become easier to get because of relaxed traveling rules. This has nothing to do with "complication".
Great point about gambling becoming a big part of the sport. Several players have already been suspended for gambling on games they played on. Off topic a bit: Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas has been famous for years for never punting on 4th down, EVER, and they won several state titles. I’m sure the analytics had more to do with the change in the NFL, but the team was famous for not punting on 4th nationally among football aficionados.
An alternative to not punting is for punters to get better by learning Australian Rules football skills. Either approach is more promising than the traditional American approach.
Punting made a lot of sense in 1930s football with a lot of 7-6 games when it was hard to move the ball. But now a punt is, basically, a turnover.
Whereas mine is that Netanyahu was pretty much Mel Gibson (with a dead hero brother) when he went into politics. That there are other reasons to listen to him after he's stayed at the top of the slippery pole for decades is neither here nor there.
Mahomes has more star comic character actor looks than leading man looks. As does Peyton Manning. But, yeah, Brady, Elway, etc etc etc
I'm guessing star quarterbacks were always stars and the top eight NFL QBs are the winners of a vast Darwinian struggle to be the best of the best.
It's a little bit like in the Olympics where lots of athletes are so genetically specialized for their sport that they are a little funny looking, but the male pole vaulters are famously handsome. (The female pole vaulters tend to be gorgeous, but that may be a selection effect of having rich dads and cheerleader moms who build a pole vaulting pit in the backyard so their daughter can be state champion in the pole vault rather than the 17th best cheerleader.)
Here's a question: Around the turn of the millennium in the nicest neighborhood in Dallas, there were two strong-armed best friends growing up: Matthew Stafford and Clayton Kershaw. The former quarterbacked the LA Rams to a Super Bowl victory and the latter pitched the LA Dodgers to the World Series victory. Why did the former become a football quarterback and the latter a baseball pitcher? They grew up to be almost identical in size: Stafford is listed at 6'3" and 232 pounds and Kershaw at 6'4" and 225 pounds.
Here's a thought experiment. Say that at an American high school 40 years ago, two 13 year olds enroll the same year: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. They've both had old-fashioned American suburban upbringings playing many different sports. Which one do the high school coaches go nuts over?
My guess is that the other coaches let the soccer coach have the weirdly short-legged Messi without a struggle and humor him when he raves about how this kid could be the greatest soccer genius of all time. But the tall Ronaldo ... every coach wants him. You can imagine Ronaldo as a tennis player, a basketball guard, a Gretzky-like ice hockey player, a baseball player, a swimmer, etc ...
My guess is that in America, probably the football coach winds up with Ronaldo as his quarterback prospect. That's the pecking order, with quarterback at the top.
Steve needs to remember to divide cheerleaders (the one who do flips, build human pyramids, and stand of others shoulders to dance team members who are the college's version of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. A pole vaulter would be too tall to be an effective cheerleader or probably dancer.
As an example, Sarah Shahi, the actress was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader and is 5 foot 3 inches. Whereas Katie Moon, the current pole vault medal holder is 5 foot 8 inches.
Just a little tidbit. Mark Rypien's public high school team in Spokane, Washington used to defeat John Stockton's Catholic school team all the time. Rypien became a highly competent quarterback who played best under Joe Gibbs' system with the Washington Redskins. Stockton became one of the greatest point guards in NBA history.
OT. I am calling for an emergency re-release of this column in light of the Washington-Reagan Airport place crash, allegedly involving a D.E.I. air-traffic controller:
Trump, at 11:30am EST press conference the day after the accident, directly blamed DEI. (The media's old go-to, the phrase "without evidence," has made a return-appearance.)
This followed Vice President Vance also making such remarks, more indirectly and diplomatically. Trump came in and wasted not even five seconds before directly blaming DEI. "We only want psychologically superior people" to be air-traffic controllers, said Trump. He repeated the claim repeatedly in a variety of way. Asked for proof, he said "Because I have common sense."
I'd say your Dec 2023 "DIE in the Air" column is in the spotlight, one way or another; whether it's jumping the gun on the true cause or not, due to the usual loose talk by DJT.
Perplexity: "According to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) internal report, one air traffic controller was performing the duties typically assigned to two people68. This controller was simultaneously managing helicopters in the airport's vicinity and directing planes that were landing and taking off from the runways"
""Those disabilities at the federal government as a matter of policy, as identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. The FAA website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism all qualify for the position of a controller," [Trump] said.
...The diversity initiative Trump referred to was in place during his first term."
Anyway, it's the helicopter pilot I'm wondering about. Did he/she/they replace someone disqualified by a propensity for White Rage or resistance to taking the Jab?
A very quick first take is that the helicopter was on a route that limited him to at or below 200’ . The collision occurred at 400’ from what data has been released. I’m extremely hard on DEI in any flight operations, but I think this one is going to be pinned on the helo pilot.
It’s very early to say with confidence. Both aircraft were assigned standard routes to fly. The helo was directed to fly behind the airliner and acknowledged that he had the airliner in sight and would comply. Clearly, he did not.
The airspace around DC is the most heavily regulated in the world.
My quick take would be to eliminate the helicopter traffic there, but I’m sure there are factors outside of my knowledge to be considered.
There have been many calls to close DCA, but the nearest alternative is 30 miles away, and our members of Congress won’t hear of it.
I’d wait a few days for more info to come out.
There’s an airline pilot with a YT channel that does great work on analyzing these incidents. His channel is called Blancolirio.
Dejean has legitimately impressed black football analysts. Domonique Foxworth joked he was adding an apostrophe to Cooper’s last name, since he was playing like someone who typically would have an apostrophe in there somewhere.
The NFL has a great niche for high profits. It is the perfect viewing sport for television. The last half of the NFL season occurs when the weather is unpleasant in most of the country so tens of millions of people are trapped at their televisions. An NFL game has intermittent commercial breaks that allows for bathroom/snack/beer breaks and, more importantly, television commercials that rake in money. The games are usually exciting except for Jets and Jaguars games. The NFL has done a good job pushing its product on women. An NFL game offers a day of socialization for friends, filled with beer, snacks and nice food. Women like the socialization factor of that.
But not all is well and good with the NFL. It has an aging fan base very strong with the Baby Boomers who are beginning to die off. Fewer Americans play football at school levels mostly due to fears of concussion. This should lead to a drop of interest in football. The fear of concussions and law suits is another problem. Professional football is becoming a black ghetto- over seventy percent of players are black- that might lead to a decline of white support. Eighty percent black NBA basketball is already a black ghetto whose television ratings in America are small. America is 18 percent Hispanic. Few Hispanics are interested in American football. Most follow the national teams of the nations they've immigrated from. Finally, football is not exempt from the current birth dearth. Not enough new fans are being born.
The second biggest sport when it comes to rating and fan attendance is college football. And if one believes that Hispanics do not care about football, I recommend visiting the Dallas Texas area sometime.
One may want to point out the good NFL QBs married to cheerleaders (and one can include dance team members) versus other things such as being a fellow athlete.
I think you are prescient about the gambling. At one time, the NFL was paranoid about gambling. It’s why Vegas didn’t have a team for a long time. No gambling ads or promotions. NFL employees could get in trouble for playing the slots or gambling on other sports. Now, Vegas has the Raiders and every other commercial is for Draft Kings. Sports betting on the phone is going to destroy lives, and when that becomes obvious, the NFL will get blowback.
States have had lotteries for decades and no one cares. 44 states have casinos. No one cares about the harms of gambling. What would change that if law enforcement is ever permitted to claw back stolen money that is lost on gambling.
Sehorn was the last white starting cornerback period. Two starters per team, 32 teams, and 20ish seasons, and not a single white guy until this year, with Cooper DeJean and Riley Moss.
What's up with the Aussie punters?
When is President Trump going to slam the door shut before these guys ruin our glorious game? They are also suspiciously white.
I wrote about the emergence of Australian Rules punters in American football ten years ago after going to a UCLA game in which they lost to Utah largely due to Utah's Aussie punter:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/aussie-rules-over-ucla/
Australians are extraordinarily skillful at punting.
Aussie punting works better in college than the pros because the punting rules are very different
How are the rules different?
16% Aussie punters in the NFL as of September, 2024 seems quite a few.
If one looks at punting formations in the two leagues, one quickly sees the difference.
"In college, the ineligible receivers can go downfield before the punt, in the nfl they can't.
So in college really those 3 back guys do the blocking and everyone else goes downfield, maybe with the kicker taking some extra time by doing a rugby style punt.
In the NFL those guys on the line can't go downfield, so they stay on the line to block, and there's not much upside to delay the kick by moving."
When my son played Aussie rules football (we lived in Melbourne for 7 years) he (and all his teammates) learned multiple kicking styles depending on the game situation. In a game where kicking replaces passing, it’s easy to see why the kicking skill level improves for all. The hardest skill to pickup was “dribbling” the oblong ball. He was 12 and the Australian kids had been doing it since they were 4 or 5 years old. The Australians seem to punch above their weight in practically every sport they try. There were also fewer obese classmates in their schools.
Steve, was it a first down?
Josh Allen's fourth down sneak?
In baseball, a tie goes to the runner at first base. It looked to me like at least a 50% chance that part of the football got to the first down line, so if there's a rule that gives the benefit of the doubt to the offense, then yes. On the other hand, I guess the ref spotted the ball inches short, and they have a rule not to overturn a ruling on the field without definitive evidence.
The best pictures I saw were from Allen's back, where it looked like his spinal column got right about to the first down line. It was close enough that it could depend upon whether Allen was holding the ball horizontally, which would mean one end of the ball definitely got over the line, or holding it vertically, in which case it was closer.
What's the rule? Any part of the ball or one end of the ball?
Any part of the ball.
We are getting to the point where balls could be loaded with very precise geolocators that would tell us their exact spot.
Any part of the ball, and the first down marker was inches short of the 40 yard line (so buffalo didn't even have to get all the way to the 40).
“Black quarterbacks often used to start off brilliantly, like Vince Young or Robert Griffin III. But their ability to run out of trouble during their youths usually kept them from developing as pocket passers after injuries sapped their quick-cutting running talent.”
Yep, this sums up the situation perfectly. Before his knee injury, Griffin was a phenom running the ball. He had legitimate track speed such that he could’ve participated in the Olympics and was a tremendous athlete. But he couldn’t throw the ball accurately on a consistent basis. The same is true of just about all of the black quarterbacks. They are primarily run first and don’t really develop as passers. A possible exception could be Lamar Jackson, who did have amazing passing stats this year.
Pretty much every QB in the league is a threat to run now, including the white ones.
Just a few years ago, the typical star quarterback seemed like a 37 year old white. There was a real golden age of old white guys around something like 2018-2021. Has there been a defensive innovation that finally ended the reign of the pocket passer?
There's more going for the first down on fourth and short, and in that situation it makes sense to put the ball in the hands of your best athlete and let him figure out what to do, so it makes sense to have a Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen at quarterback in that situation.
And how many Super Bowls do Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen have between them? Mahomes is actually sort of a combination of the two archetypes. He can chew you to pieces from the pocket, but he can also move around when necessary and he isn’t afraid to run. It’s clear you no longer want a quarterback who is absolutely immobile -- are you old enough to remember Jim Hart? -- but it’s not clear that the near-1,000 yard rusher is going to be what you want either.
“Super bowls” is fine to use as a stat when comparing QB legacies after their career. But in reality it’s a team stat, and rhe fact that their teams haven’t won a SB yet isn’t really a knock on Lamar or Josh’s skill set. Lots of things need to fall into place to win a SB and there’s some luck involved. They’ve both shown they can win consistently.
Also, I would consider Mahomes, Lamar, and Allen to be all of the same ilk. Theyre all dual threat QBs. Lamar was more of a runner but has now refined his game to become a great passer. Josh was a physical specimen with a cannon when he came out, and I think many were surprised at his level of athleticism.
I think innovation in football actually tends to reach the pro level last. A lot of large high schools 15-20 years ago started running spread offenses with 5 WR sets. They also start implementing the system early, like when the kids are on the middle school team. So they usually end up putting the best athlete at QB, the guy that even if the play breaks down in a 5wr set can still maximize their chances of making a play.
The spread started more than 20 years ago with Mike Leach and others. And in a football mad state like Texas, the head football coach at a high school has complete control from 7th grade one. One a long term coach will be coaching seniors who have been running his system for six or seven years.
Right. There was, for example, a huge amount of offensive innovation in option offenses in colleges and high schools from about 1968 onward but little made it to the pros.
This is why Quin Ewers is going to be a sixth round pick in the pros. No pro team can afford to build a passing system that would work for Ewers given is limited mobility.
He’s not going to be a 6th round pick, he will probably go in the 1st round this year with the thin QB class.
Anyone who drafts him in the first round is wasting a first round pick.
https://www.si.com/college/texas/football/texas-longhorns-qb-quinn-ewers-receives-horrible-nfl-comparison-01jjsje5pfpn
Lamar Jackson is really good.
I hope he wins a Super Bowl eventually.
My tendency is to appreciate players who are better in the regular season than in the playoffs or vice versa but not deprecate for not coming through in the other part of the year. E.g., in baseball, Clayton Kershaw is better in the regular season than in the playoffs and Giancarlo Stanton is better in the playoffs than in regular season. Well, I like them both.
Griffin never mastered the quarterback slide which ended up ruining his career.
Pretty much every sport has had some sort of point-shaving or spot-fixing scandal. Do I think the NFL's next big scandal will happen in a Super Bowl? Probably not. But in all likelihood there will be something like the NBA's recent Jontay Porter scandal, where a guy pulls himself out of a game after a drive or two, claiming injury, and the guys who bet the under on his props make a fortune. But with modern technology on the side of the gambling companies who want to make as much money as possible, all of these sorts of things will eventually get tracked down. It's going to be very hard to do something like that and get away with it, but there are a lot of NFL players and some of them are going to be dumb enough to try.
Obviously the NFL's popularity will wane at some point; nothing lasts forever. But I don't see it happening anytime soon. It's going to remain a popular high school/youth sport among black Americans everywhere and white people in the South and Midwest, even if the liberal coastal elites don't want their kids to play.
It's an interesting point you make that analytics have been good for football and bad for baseball and basketball. If I had to guess why, I think football is just more complicated. 22 players vs. 10 in basketball, and baseball is really just a pitcher vs. batter individual duel with a bunch of window dressing. For example, the percentage of plays that are passes had been trending up for a while, but then it leveled back off. There's pretty much always some sort of counter for whatever an offense or defense does. But in basketball, there's not enough reason to take shots that aren't either layups or threes. And in baseball, throwing hard and swinging hard are what's it all about (I miss the days of Ichiro, who could've been a damn good power hitter but was content to slap it all over the field).
Football coaches had always been insanely hardworking compared to baseball coaches (e.g., see the baseball coaching staff in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four."). So they didn't need advanced statistics for most things.
But NFL coaches used to automatically punt and automatically kick the one point conversion unless desperate in the 4th quarter. Now they don't anymore. A simple innovation was giving the coach a laminated card explaining when to go for the two point conversion: e.g., you are down 27-22 and score a touchdown, go for two because a two point lead is a good way to lose 30-29 on an opponents' field goal.
They should probably change the rules to make field goal kicking harder so that kickers can become heroes again, the way they were when George Blanda was MVP in 1970 and Mark Mosely in 1982. If the average field goal percentage was 50% then a field goal kicker who goes 4 for 4 to win by a few points is a hero. Rules should be adjusted to increase the chances of heroes.
Professional football coaches are known for their time-numbing long hours. Forty years ago, workaholic Joe Gibbs, when he noticed an assistant look at a clock on the wall that read two o'clock, he had the clock taken down. Of all the sports, football is the sport where a head coach makes the greatest difference. Of course, coaches do burn out and it is amazing that Coaches Reid and Tomlin and Carroll have yet to burn out.
Baseball managers might make the least difference in a 162 game season. A manager's most important decisions revolve around pitching changes, giving players days off to keep them fresh, and lefty-righty platoon/pinch hit situations. A manager must manage with a long grind in mind. But they don't work that hard. When he managed in Washington in 2005, Frank Robinson flipped on the Lakers games on his office television after games.
The jokes about baseball is that the team will win 1/3 of the games no matter what the manager does, will lose one third of the games no matter what the manager does, and in 1/3 of the games, the manager can affect the outcome.
When there was the Univ. of Alabama betting scandal came out, several in the media explain how all of the online sports betting report all bets to a clearing house. That is how the guy was caught other than the people taking the bet knew something was up.
https://sports.yahoo.com/former-alabama-baseball-coach-given-15-year-show-cause-by-ncaa-after-betting-scandal-173611059.html
Making sports betting legal and monitored has probably lowered the chance of cheating.
"...in basketball, there's not enough reason to take shots that aren't either layups or threes."
This isn't inherent to the game, it's a result of the way the game is officiated. The GUARDED three is a low percentage shot, but the effectively unguarded three has become easier to get because of relaxed traveling rules. This has nothing to do with "complication".
Great point about gambling becoming a big part of the sport. Several players have already been suspended for gambling on games they played on. Off topic a bit: Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas has been famous for years for never punting on 4th down, EVER, and they won several state titles. I’m sure the analytics had more to do with the change in the NFL, but the team was famous for not punting on 4th nationally among football aficionados.
An alternative to not punting is for punters to get better by learning Australian Rules football skills. Either approach is more promising than the traditional American approach.
Punting made a lot of sense in 1930s football with a lot of 7-6 games when it was hard to move the ball. But now a punt is, basically, a turnover.
Steve, why are quarterbacks so handsome?
The least attractive quarterback I can think of is Big Ben, and even he's okay looking.
What gives?
Nobody pays attention to what an ugly guy says.
The entire American government pays attention to Netanyahu and he’s no Mel Gibson.
Nobody is "Mel Gibson" at 75.
https://na.cx/i/NuUatHP.webp
Even Mel Gibson isn't "Mel Gibson" at 69.
That’s kind of my point.
Whereas mine is that Netanyahu was pretty much Mel Gibson (with a dead hero brother) when he went into politics. That there are other reasons to listen to him after he's stayed at the top of the slippery pole for decades is neither here nor there.
The position requires a lot of self-confidence.
Mahomes has more star comic character actor looks than leading man looks. As does Peyton Manning. But, yeah, Brady, Elway, etc etc etc
I'm guessing star quarterbacks were always stars and the top eight NFL QBs are the winners of a vast Darwinian struggle to be the best of the best.
It's a little bit like in the Olympics where lots of athletes are so genetically specialized for their sport that they are a little funny looking, but the male pole vaulters are famously handsome. (The female pole vaulters tend to be gorgeous, but that may be a selection effect of having rich dads and cheerleader moms who build a pole vaulting pit in the backyard so their daughter can be state champion in the pole vault rather than the 17th best cheerleader.)
Here's a question: Around the turn of the millennium in the nicest neighborhood in Dallas, there were two strong-armed best friends growing up: Matthew Stafford and Clayton Kershaw. The former quarterbacked the LA Rams to a Super Bowl victory and the latter pitched the LA Dodgers to the World Series victory. Why did the former become a football quarterback and the latter a baseball pitcher? They grew up to be almost identical in size: Stafford is listed at 6'3" and 232 pounds and Kershaw at 6'4" and 225 pounds.
Here's a thought experiment. Say that at an American high school 40 years ago, two 13 year olds enroll the same year: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. They've both had old-fashioned American suburban upbringings playing many different sports. Which one do the high school coaches go nuts over?
My guess is that the other coaches let the soccer coach have the weirdly short-legged Messi without a struggle and humor him when he raves about how this kid could be the greatest soccer genius of all time. But the tall Ronaldo ... every coach wants him. You can imagine Ronaldo as a tennis player, a basketball guard, a Gretzky-like ice hockey player, a baseball player, a swimmer, etc ...
My guess is that in America, probably the football coach winds up with Ronaldo as his quarterback prospect. That's the pecking order, with quarterback at the top.
Steve needs to remember to divide cheerleaders (the one who do flips, build human pyramids, and stand of others shoulders to dance team members who are the college's version of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. A pole vaulter would be too tall to be an effective cheerleader or probably dancer.
As an example, Sarah Shahi, the actress was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader and is 5 foot 3 inches. Whereas Katie Moon, the current pole vault medal holder is 5 foot 8 inches.
So, she's about the same height as Cyd Charisse.
Just a little tidbit. Mark Rypien's public high school team in Spokane, Washington used to defeat John Stockton's Catholic school team all the time. Rypien became a highly competent quarterback who played best under Joe Gibbs' system with the Washington Redskins. Stockton became one of the greatest point guards in NBA history.
OT. I am calling for an emergency re-release of this column in light of the Washington-Reagan Airport place crash, allegedly involving a D.E.I. air-traffic controller:
"DIE in the Air," Dec 2023, by Steve Sailer.
https://www.takimag.com/article/die-in-the-air/
Let's see what happened first.
Trump, at 11:30am EST press conference the day after the accident, directly blamed DEI. (The media's old go-to, the phrase "without evidence," has made a return-appearance.)
This followed Vice President Vance also making such remarks, more indirectly and diplomatically. Trump came in and wasted not even five seconds before directly blaming DEI. "We only want psychologically superior people" to be air-traffic controllers, said Trump. He repeated the claim repeatedly in a variety of way. Asked for proof, he said "Because I have common sense."
I'd say your Dec 2023 "DIE in the Air" column is in the spotlight, one way or another; whether it's jumping the gun on the true cause or not, due to the usual loose talk by DJT.
Perplexity: "According to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) internal report, one air traffic controller was performing the duties typically assigned to two people68. This controller was simultaneously managing helicopters in the airport's vicinity and directing planes that were landing and taking off from the runways"
""Those disabilities at the federal government as a matter of policy, as identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. The FAA website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism all qualify for the position of a controller," [Trump] said.
...The diversity initiative Trump referred to was in place during his first term."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/reagan-airport-crash-live-updates-white-house-military?id=118247845&entryId=118273650
So, we need to employ dwarfs in ATC since we can't employ them in a Snow White movie or stage show.
The audio released by fox contains two male voices in the control tower.
"Male"? What's that?
Anyway, it's the helicopter pilot I'm wondering about. Did he/she/they replace someone disqualified by a propensity for White Rage or resistance to taking the Jab?
A very quick first take is that the helicopter was on a route that limited him to at or below 200’ . The collision occurred at 400’ from what data has been released. I’m extremely hard on DEI in any flight operations, but I think this one is going to be pinned on the helo pilot.
How could it have been avoided?
It’s very early to say with confidence. Both aircraft were assigned standard routes to fly. The helo was directed to fly behind the airliner and acknowledged that he had the airliner in sight and would comply. Clearly, he did not.
The airspace around DC is the most heavily regulated in the world.
My quick take would be to eliminate the helicopter traffic there, but I’m sure there are factors outside of my knowledge to be considered.
There have been many calls to close DCA, but the nearest alternative is 30 miles away, and our members of Congress won’t hear of it.
I’d wait a few days for more info to come out.
There’s an airline pilot with a YT channel that does great work on analyzing these incidents. His channel is called Blancolirio.
Dejean has legitimately impressed black football analysts. Domonique Foxworth joked he was adding an apostrophe to Cooper’s last name, since he was playing like someone who typically would have an apostrophe in there somewhere.
The NFL has a great niche for high profits. It is the perfect viewing sport for television. The last half of the NFL season occurs when the weather is unpleasant in most of the country so tens of millions of people are trapped at their televisions. An NFL game has intermittent commercial breaks that allows for bathroom/snack/beer breaks and, more importantly, television commercials that rake in money. The games are usually exciting except for Jets and Jaguars games. The NFL has done a good job pushing its product on women. An NFL game offers a day of socialization for friends, filled with beer, snacks and nice food. Women like the socialization factor of that.
But not all is well and good with the NFL. It has an aging fan base very strong with the Baby Boomers who are beginning to die off. Fewer Americans play football at school levels mostly due to fears of concussion. This should lead to a drop of interest in football. The fear of concussions and law suits is another problem. Professional football is becoming a black ghetto- over seventy percent of players are black- that might lead to a decline of white support. Eighty percent black NBA basketball is already a black ghetto whose television ratings in America are small. America is 18 percent Hispanic. Few Hispanics are interested in American football. Most follow the national teams of the nations they've immigrated from. Finally, football is not exempt from the current birth dearth. Not enough new fans are being born.
The second biggest sport when it comes to rating and fan attendance is college football. And if one believes that Hispanics do not care about football, I recommend visiting the Dallas Texas area sometime.
"Not enough new fans are being born."
360 million Americans isn't enough? For what?
Why are QBs handsome?
They marry the cheerleaders, and produce even better looking little QBs in training.
One may want to point out the good NFL QBs married to cheerleaders (and one can include dance team members) versus other things such as being a fellow athlete.
It would be a pleasant research task!
Remember, models and actresses do not count unless they were college cheerleaders/dancers.
Of course models and actresses count if the question is "Why are QBs handsome?"
Off-topic: Nicholas Kristof gingerly approaches the World's Most Important Graph:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/opinion/africa-population-youth.html
I think you are prescient about the gambling. At one time, the NFL was paranoid about gambling. It’s why Vegas didn’t have a team for a long time. No gambling ads or promotions. NFL employees could get in trouble for playing the slots or gambling on other sports. Now, Vegas has the Raiders and every other commercial is for Draft Kings. Sports betting on the phone is going to destroy lives, and when that becomes obvious, the NFL will get blowback.
States have had lotteries for decades and no one cares. 44 states have casinos. No one cares about the harms of gambling. What would change that if law enforcement is ever permitted to claw back stolen money that is lost on gambling.
Stolen from who?
"Clawed back" to give to who?