Category: sports

2020-2021 NFL Regular Season

For most of the offseason, I’ve been psychologically and emotionally detached from the NFL, primarily because I thought the prospects for an NFL season was incredibly low. But since very few of the players or staff haven’t gotten the virus, once practices started, I have become way more optimistic. In any event, because of that initial detachment, I’m even less confident in my ability to gauge the quality of the teams, but I’m going to take a stab at thoughts about which teams have the best chance to have success and win the Super Bowl.

Off the top of my head, here are the tiers Continue reading “2020-2021 NFL Regular Season”

Do Whites Not Want to Know About Racism?

That’s what one African-Amerian Seattle sportswriter suggested in the two tweets below, which comment on recent statements made by Pete Carroll. I’m less certain about that claim, and I’ll share my thoughts after the two tweets:

Were Magic, Bird, and the 80s Anomalies?

Amazon Prime has older NBA games their airing now. When I say older, I mean in the 70s and 60s. I watching a few quarters of Kareem and the Big O with the Bucks, Rick Barry and the Warriors, among others. Watching a few of these games reinforced a hypothesis I had about Magic, Bird, and the NBA in the 80s–namely, they were anomalies, and the 80s were an exception rather than the rule. I’ll explain my reasons for feeling this way in the next post.

Michael Jordan’s Leadership

I have a lot of respect for Michael Jordan as a basketball player (and he seems like a decent enough guy). I don’t think I’ve ever had a negative impression or thought of him. Until now. I haven’t been watching The Last Dance, but I’ve been listening to some of the comments about the series. The ones I heard today, from Shannon Sharpe, specifically about Michael Jordan’s leadership was the first time I can remember having a negative impression of Jordan. I’ll go more why I feel this way in this thread.

Football Question: How Should a Team’s Offense Play If Their Defense is Weak?

I feel like I’ve asked this question before, but after a cursory search, I couldn’t find any thread. I apologize if this I’m repeating myself. This question often comes up when I’m interacting with Seahawk fans in the last two years–primarily because their defense hasn’t been good. A lot of people seem to think that, with a weak defense, a team should be more aggressive about scoring, which usually means passing the ball more in a way that maximizes scoring opportunities, rather than controlling the ball. Intuitively, this seems correct. A more conservative offense makes sense on a team with a great defense. That is, don’t take chances on offense, and don’t worry about scoring a lot because the defense can win the game.

However, I think one can make a conservative offensive approach when the team’s defense is weak. A conservative approach will minimize the defense’s snaps and time on the field, minimizing their exposure and also enabling them to play at their best by resting them. This second point is crucial if the defense the problem main problem with the defense is that they hit their breaking point relatively quickly.

Actually, I think a balanced offensive approach is the ideal. With a weak defense, scoring is critical–more critical than if the defense were dominant. So the offense should be good at ball control and scoring. Indeed, I think this is only viable path to a serious playoff run. An offense that’s too conservative is not going to cut it, and an offense that is aggressive will have to be fantastic at scoring TDs to make up for the defensive deficiency. That’s type of offense is difficult–you need the personnel, OC, and it puts tremendous pressure on the offense.

Where do you guys stand on this?