I really hate people always trying to bring up the race issue. My alltime favorite player is Bill Russell. And that is for every sport not just Bball. My second favorite is Larry Bird, but only because he is white There are you happy.( I’m kidding )People who play and follow sports pick their heroes or people they like because of how they play the game and their personality. not because of their skin color. People who are casual sports fans may go by race. I dont know and could not care less.

Let me guess you are either a minority who loves basketball because it is dominated by blacks or you are a patronizing liberal who thinks if he tells all the brothers how much he loves basketball they will think “Wow what a cool hip white guy” Why are you so concerned about how many white stars are in the NBA. I dont see what bearing that has on the fact that my home team the Celtics stink and have stunk for almost 20 years.

One reason I played and coached sports for so long is because race plays little if any part in the closed environment of a team sport. No forced intergration, No liberal elitists trying to socialy engineer some bizzare multi ethnic,culturaly diverse scenario, where every group gets egual attention and is given equal value. It is just a bunch of guys/women working hard togeather to achieve a single goal. This is how special friendships are formed that last a lifetime. It is also the best way to get races to come togeather. I experienced the same thing while in the service.

So if you want to bring race up fine. but in my case you are way off target. I wont speak for plnelson. He is smarter than me. He can defend himself.

Another fact, the NBA’s best player right now is LeBron James and he is a model citizen. ”

But these players are the exception. They arose as a REACTION to the all the Kobe Bryants and Dennis Rodmans and Ron Artest charging into the stands at a Pistons/Pacers game 2 years ago.

“Yet you still watch MLB, why?”

‘You’ who? I stopped watching MLB years ago, for exactly the reasons I mentioned.

You write: “Two things have changed – the quality of play has gotten TERRIBLE with all the expansion teams. And also it’s hard to play well carrying around all that EGO that modern basketball players seem to have.”

You’re dead wrong. The fact is the best team the last few years has been the Detroit Pistons, a model team. This is a team without superstars, Chauncey Billops is their best player and anyone could have had him a few years ago. They have succeeded as a team, by checking their egos at the door and by playing great defense. They are a role model for kids everywhere. They would suceed in any era.

Another fact, the NBA’s best player right now is LeBron James and he is a model citizen. Has he shown you something with his ego that turns you off? Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, all model citizens who whose level of play could be matched up to any era. Sure you could give me some names of players whose egos hurt their teams but for every NBA player you give me, I’ll give you the name of a football or baseball player whose ego has been a detriment to their team. You say you don’t watch because of the lack of palming and traveling calls, are you serious? That’s like saying I not going to watch football because of the lack of Interference calls, or forget baseball because ot the lack of adherence to the strike zone. The lack of enforcement of these rules happens in every sport and like it or not, it’s to encourage more scoring.

My hope really is you will step back and look at the NBA anew. In the words of Rick Pitino, Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, are not walking through that door folks – but some new great players are.

I used to be a big baseball fan but I got fed up with the way money has distorted the game.

Also, in the old days of baseball you could hardly imagine your star players playing for anyone else, at least in the prime of their careers. Sometimes in their declining years a bona-fide star might get traded, or a star might begin as a rookie for another team, but during their prime they played for one team. Micky Mantle was a Yankee, period. Ditto with Whitey Ford. Ted Williams and Yaz were Red Sox. Stan the Man played for the Cards.

Nowadays baseball players are just mercenaries with no team loyalty.

Also i used to be a much bigger basketball fan a few decades ago (it probabl yhelped that in those days the Celtics were class of NBA for years.) Two things hav changed – the quality of play has gotten TERRIBLE with all the expansion teams. And also it’s hard to play well carrying around all that EGO that modern basketball players seem to have.

But nother’s QUESTION was why don’t other countries adopt football.

The “corporate structure” has nothing to do with that.

I work for a large, European multinational corporation. The Europeans are perfectly capable of using a “corporate structure” where it suits them. There is nothing uniquely American, about a hierarchical, heavily specialized corporation. Plenty of Japanese corporations have refined that concept to even greater heights than most US ones. Also, watch how football offensive teams break huddles, and how some Japanese corporations end strategy meetings.

Football doesn’t have a “corporate structure” because it’s American; Football has a “corporate structure” because that WORKS. I’ll bet a traditional Lombardi team wouldn’t be competitive in today’s NFL.

Having spent time in Japan and having worked on a cooperative project with a Japanese partner, I’ve often wondered why football isn’t popular over there. Many of NFL football’s values of self-sacrifice, team spirit, personal sacrifice for the team goals, and enduring pain, are elements of bushido, the Japanese warrior spirit. Instead, Japan has embraced baseball, which, with its individualism and lack of team play, would seem antithetical to Japanese values.

I have a question for you and others. I grew up playing all sports and really loved them. I currently am involved in sports. But I find myself becoming less interested in proffesional sports save the sox and pats. I could care less about the NBA, and that was my favorite sport growing up. I used to go right to the sports page when I was younger. Now I read it last. Just wondering if others have had this experience. Sorry I did not mean to change the subject.

Rc21 says: “Why must we try and over analyze everything.” Why? Because it’s better than watching TV. What”s wrong with analyzing something we spend so much time watching? Rc21, you have to admit, we watch NFL football so much, it must be taping into some major part of our culture, what’s wrong with talking about where that originates from?

The best thing about football is they play in any element, enough said.

1 ) Rich countries already have sports like soccer and rugby, and American football probably cant repay the investment required to bring it to the mainstream (which is what the previous poster said)

2 ) Poor countries probably cant afford the equipment, and also probably would not be able to tolerate the injuries since it would leave them crippled for life if they only had limited health care!!

I think football is a very expensive sport to play. You need to have very large rosters compared to baseball and basketball. It’s too exhausting for one player to play offense and defense in the same game (at least for long – Patriots players like Mike Vrabel and Troy Brown often switch off but only for a few plays) . So with offenseive and defensive players and special teams, and allowing for positional specialization and enough bench to cover the inevitable injuries, and you really need teams with 50+ man rosters. Add to that the additional specialization needed for coaching and training, plus necessary practice squads and you’re talking about huge personnel costs compared to other sports.

And then there’s all that equipment. And the cost of maintaining a field that gets badly torn up in ordinary play, and the medical cost of the injuries that result from such a rough game, and I think American football is in another league (so to speak) from the other sports, financially.

I think the cost factor explains a lot more than any alleged cultural differences regarding aggressive Americans -vs- peaceful, pastoral Europeans. The British play rugby, the Spanish have bullfighting, etc.

Football is an extremly complex sport especially at the higher levels. The political and societal comparisons I find to be humorous, Why must we try and over analyze everything. Football like all sports, should be looked at for what they are..Sport. Good for the mind and good for the body.

The thing I find interesting about football as well as other sports is how much luck, and officiating comes into play. In many cases it makes or breaks you. In the late 70,s Sugar bear Hamilton gets called for a vey controversial penalty allowing the Raiders to go on and win the super bowl. A few years ago We remember the famous tuck play with Brady. If not for that, the Pats watch the super bowl on T.V.

A good coach does not impose his philosophy on the team he looks at the tools he has and adjusts his game plan accordingly. For years Bill Parcells was known as a “running coach” but now he passes as much as anyone – he has the tools.

Check out pryoungs point about “play” above.

Also someone please answer a question I hoped they would get to in the show, why has American football not translated well to other nations, as opposed to baseball and basketball?

Football doesn’t come CLOSE to baseball WRT corporate bottom-line thinking!

Baseball is all about money. One of the reasons I STOPPED following basball is because of how much of it always seemed to be more appropriate for the business pages than the sports pages, with salary disputes and rich teams buying other teams’ star players, and crippling strikes and naked attempts to buy pennants.

By comparison, the NFL looks like a bunch of pinko-commie socialists with their salary cap and revenue-distributing schemes and adjustments in draft picks, all in an effort to maintain a level playing field.

Furthermore, anyone who regard baseball as a thinking man’s game hasn’t studied an NFL playbook. I know they don’t LOOK very smart, but I’m convinced football players must have minds like computers to be able to digest (and REMEMBER!) those complex plays, and be able to adjust rapidly to different looks the other team is throwing at them.

I’ve been a football fan since the third grade (when I was friends wih Billy Sullivan’s son, Patrick before they packed him off to private school) and for years suffered the embarrassment of rooting for the Patriots, who, more often than not, were an automatic “W” for the OTHER team’s record. But I stuck by them and these last few years have been WONDERFUL for football fans here in New England.

First I want to thank David for actually contributing to the blog, something we need much more of.

The conversation started out with a discussion about the different dynamics between the Offensive and Defensive sides of the ball. Y.S. Kim Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland writes something interesting here: http://www.physics.umd.edu/robot/einstein/kant/kant.html

“I would like to stress that Taoism is not confined to the ancient Eastern world. It is practiced frequently in the United States. Let us look at American football games. The offensive strategy does not rely on brute force, but is aimed at breaking the harmony of the defense. For instance, when the offensive team is near the end zone, the defense becomes very strong because it covers only a small area. Then, it is not uncommon for the offense to place four wide-receivers instead of two. This will divide the defense into two sides while creating a hole in the middle. Then the quarter-back can carry the ball to the end zone. The key word is to destroy the balance of the defense.”

As a massive 5-7 former high school offensive linemen, I know some of the complexities that goes into blocking for a runningback or quarterback. I thought the game was interesting before I played but once I learned the subtleties of zone-blocking and trap-blocking, I was sold for life. A devestating block can often be as interesting as a long pass play down the sidelines. Intricacies such as a blocking scheme are what make watching football and endlessly interesting game to watch and learn about. Football seems to have the ultimate balance of wit and skill.

Go Pats! He he!

George Carlin compares Football to Baseball…

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs – what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups – who’s up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog…
In baseball, if it rains, we don’t go out to play.

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: we don’t know when it’s gonna end – might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we’ve got to go to sudden death.

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there’s kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there’s not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you’re capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! – I hope I’ll be safe at home!

Thanks!
Bill McDonough in Beverly MA

There are as many subtle points to football as there are in baseball, but rather the culture surounding the sport makes it seem more brute.

An awesome study of college football culture is Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, the story (and blog) or Warren St John as he follows the Crimson Tide.