Who's the Best?

When we talk sports, we spend a lot of time discussing “bests”.

The true purpose of sports is to demonstrate superiority over rival high-schools, cities and nations by making their women weep and humiliating them on the field, hopefully without (much) bloodshed. We attach real emotional weight to the question of who is the “best” because it reflects on our own school, town or country.

These arguments get heated quickly. Frequently, though, people aren’t even talking about the same thing. What does it mean to be the “best”? As far as I can tell, what someone tells you about this says far more about who they are than it does about sports teams.

Is the best team simply the one that wins the championship? Many will argue this—largely because they have a need for some objective criteria. These people note (correctly) that if we do not settle the question of “best” on the field, we can never really settle the question at all. These people fear uncertainty and tend to dislike deep thought.

But are we really to believe that the 2007 Giants were the best team in the NFL? Of course they weren’t. Or that Porto and Monaco were the best teams in European futbol in 2004? They were not. This is not to say that the Giants and Porto didn’t earn their championships—it’s just that “champion” does not mean “best”.

But if the debate doesn’t end there, what’s the next step?

Is the “best” simply the most consistent team? Did the 2007 Patriots earn the title of “best” because of their unbeaten season? Were the 2001 Seattle Mariners the best because they won a record number of baseball games (and then proceeded to lose before reaching the World Series)? The people that favor this conception of best tend to be plodders—people who get through their lives with dedication, consistency and practically no ingenuity. The problems with this are obvious: being “clutch” matters to us. When you can’t win the Big Game, winning all those other games almost makes the ultimate failure worse.

There’s still another view of “best”: the best team is neither one that is the most consistent nor the one that gets hottest at the right moment. The best team is the one that hits the highest highs—it’s the baseball team with the perfect game, the football team that leaves their opponent with negative rushing yards, and numerous picks. It’s the soccer team that connects so many of their passes that you’re mesmerized by the movement. This type of “best” is typically preferred by impractical types who can barely hold down a job.

Which, incidentally, is where I end up. A well-executed double play, a spectacular catch, the build-up in front of goal (even when there's no goal): these are the things that make me think of a team as the "best". There are always cynical teams. But I do not watch to see who is the most cynical.

A Morning Well Spent

Sometimes it's fun to argue about small things.

Me, in an email to friends:

You are up by one point late in the game, and for the sake of argument, let us say that you have a good (but not great) offense, and a good (but not great) defense. You score a touchdown to go up 7 with, say, 2 minutes left. Do you go for two or kick the extra point?

Now, in my 20 years of watching football, I have never (!!) seen a team go for two, which to me makes no sense. Here is my breakdown of why you should:

Go For 2:

If you make it: Game is over, you have pretty much guaranteed that in making it a two-possession game, you win.

If you miss it: You are still up 7, and let's be honest few coaches have the balls to go for two to win a game, so your real worst- case scenario is still probably a tied game and overtime.

Go For 1:

Yes, you do require a team to convert a 2-point conversion, but most teams do this at about 60%+, so it's not that tough, and certainly easier than getting an onside kick and
getting the ball back.

My friend from Alabama insisted that no coach in his right mind would pull this stunt, but to me I can't see why not. If you have a chance to win the game, take it. Sometimes the seemingly safe bet is the wrong bet.

Am I wrong?

~Brian


REPLY FROM KARL:

Here's why your opponent is correct, and it has nothing to do with football. Coaches are fired for making "incorrect" decisions. If the 2 point conversion fails, it will be viewed as a coaching error (regardless of the decision's football merits) because it is unorthodox.

On purely football terms, I think it makes a difference whether you're playing college or NFL because NFL overtime is more of a crapshoot.


REPLY FROM GRAHAM:

Setting Karl's point aside, I still say you go for one in most situations. This needs to be thought of in terms of making a tough play. The kick is the easy play, going for two is the tough play. Either you take the easy play, go up 8, and force your opponents (if they manage to score a TD) to make the tough play, or you force yourself to make the tough play and, if you miss, allow your opponents to force OT with the easy play.

I'm sure we can imagine scenarios in which it makes sense to do what coach Fobi wants, but in general, I say take the point.


REPLY FROM MICHAEL

Oh Dr. Fobi and your game theory questions.

Draw out the risk/reward scenario as a 2x2 box matrix. What you'll find is that your assumption of the 60% of making a 2-point conversion is the critical factor. If that number is say 33% (or any number less than 50%), you'll see that kicking the 1-point is the best option (because the other team is likely to fail a 2-point to tie). For any value over 50%, you'll see that your original 2-point option is correct. This of course depends on both teams having roughly the same chance of 2-point success.

Realistically it depends on how good YOUR team is at 2-point conversions. If your team is >50% then you take the 2-point as you suggest. If your team is suspect then go for the 1 regardless of the other team. That way at least you get a tie and can go to over time. You can figure in how good the other team's offense/defense combination is to see if overtime is weighted one way or the other in the same type of 2x2 matrix and work backwards.

Mike

REPLY FROM ME:

But, that neglects to include the fact that at this point, the two teams tasks are in decidedly different positions. Wouldn't the 2x2 matrix have to take into account your success at making 2-pointers and the other team's adeptness in the two minute offense AND their ability to score 2 or kick a PAT? In other words:

My math is:
Make it= 60% chance of success

Their math is:
(chance of scoring TD in 2 minutes) x (the chance that they will make PAT or 2PT)

~Brian


REPLY FROM MIKE:

It's easier if you assume that each team is basically the same (has good/good offense/defense with equal chance of success in OT and of 2-point conversions), then I think you start with a 2x2 matrix of just what happens in regular time, since in OT they have the same chance of everything (again assuming they are equal). In that case the most important matter is chance of 2-point success in a single 2x2 regular time matrix.

If you DON'T assume that there is equal everything, then I believe you start with a 2x2 matrix of JUST what happens in OT. That gives you the basic chance of your vs other teams success in OT and you can plug that into a new 2x2 matrix for the regular time portion. In that case it matters both what the chances are for 2-point success (both yours and the other teams) as well as the chance of winning in OT from the first matrix.


REPLY FROM KARL

The funny thing is, the coaches do have those cheat sheets, they have a lot of data at their disposal, but they still seem disinclined to take certain chances, like going for it on fourth and 1 when you're within field goal range.

Part of it might be that the data isn't completely helpful (if going for it on 4th down were normal, the data might well change). But part of it seems to be that coaches aren't making purely rational decisions. People have visceral reactions to risk. That's why you get guys like your 'Bama fan who simply can't conceive of a situation where it makes sense to go
for the two point conversion.


REPLY FROM JONAH:

We need to hook the bama fan to a memory-scan machine or find a therapist and find out whether he (he?) ever got burned, either as a fan or while betting or as a player, in this situation. an important emotional angle here is that if your team goes for two and gets it, the win is guaranteed but is less tied to a game-ending situation. It's a de facto win, and unless it's a game of serious consequence, that might water down the rush of victory. if you don't get the two, though, and still win, you end up winning but with a sense of possible doom until the clock hits zero. ...and if you end up losing, you just took a punch in the stomach.

personally, i think a lot of it has to do with a sense of ambivalence about the idea that a two-point conversion can be used to make the game "over." same thing with fouling in b-ball when up by three at the end of a game. it seems "unsportsmanlike" somehow. (now brian's really gonna blow up!)


REPLY FORM BRIAN C:

I don't have too much to add here, so I'll just be a homer and point out that Belichick, in the (home) game against Atlanta earlier this year, went for it on 4th and 1 from the Pats' own 24, up only 6 in the third quarter. I'm sure it helps that he has a LOT of leeway with the fans about his decision making... reinforced by the fact that he's pretty often right, as he was in this case. :)

I remember reading an article where he was asked about that study that encouraged more 4th down conversion attempts. Couldn't find it online, but did find a book excerpt:

"I think I understand some of the points that were made in there and I think he has some valid points," Belichick said after reading Romer’s study in the summer of 2002. "There’s sometimes an emotional aspect, and momentum, if you will, to those decisions, but I’m not sure how to calculate that. One of the points he was making was that if you go for it, particularly when you’re inside the opponents’ twenty, even if you come up short, you’ve got them backed up, they got eighty, ninety yards to go. Do the mathematical percentages of them scoring in that situation versus you getting the ball, and so forth and so on, and that’s a valid point. On the other hand to go down there and get nothing out of it, psychologically there’s an impact there on your team."

"I think that some of those are legitimate points and you just have to evaluate the situation to your team, the team you’re playing," he added. "I see where a lot of that’s coming from."


I still think heads would explode if he went for two to be up 9 in a late-game situation. I'd love it, personally.


REPLY FROM ME:

I hate (x5000) when people foul with 3-point leads at the end of a game. I know that we've gone a bit far afield here, but I think that it is like guys flopping at the end of soccer matches to bleed the clock out. I'm not sure what the rule would look like to prevent this, though Kobe did punish the Warriors this year by hitting a three point shot and getting fouled at the end of a game.

That's right, if there is one person who can clean up sports, it is Kobe Bryant. Kobe and Bellicheck... the defenders of honor and good in sports? Go figure.

Back to the point, I think that the 2-pt conversion is more honorable because instead of breaking the rules to prevent end-of-game drama, you are actually playing within the rules to end the game. Now, that obviously leads to a more complicated question as to whether rule, convention and practice have made fouling in basketball and flopping
in soccer part of the game. Have at...

~Brian


REPLY FROM NICK:

"Breaking a rule" is just an option to take the liability. I can't see a functional difference b/w "playing within the rules" and "breaking the rules" besides some clear intent to harm. Maybe it goes against some sort of "spirit of the game," but I appreciate creative application of the rules, of which penalties are a component.

Shadow Ball

A great many people have no particular reason for choosing the teams they do. Growing up in Eastern Oregon, my brother’s best friend was a big Cowboys fan, my best friend pulled for the Chargers, and among my little clique, I had Celtics, Lions, Giants and 49er fans. We were all Oregon-raised, and the only thing that seemed to unite us, sportswise, has a shared refusal to join in rooting for what passed for the local team: the Seahawks.

My stepdad, who raised me, was, equally inexplicably, a Rams fan, and I grew up an Oilers fan. An odd mulit-generational moment united us in our choice of teams. He grew up in an era in which only HBCU’s had black quarterbacks, and the Rams’ rather bold decision to start James Harris made him a life-long fan, even though he has had to sit through more than three subsequent decades of almost unmitigated failure, frustration and folly. I, in turn, settled in the Oilers in 1991 –the year I first became an NFL fan- after seeing Warren Moon lead Houston over the Chiefs by shredding their vaunted secondary for 527 yards.

Now, I understand that there is a problematic aspect of choosing a player because of his race, but even these many years later I still find myself doing it. If you told me that I had to put together a team with the fate of the universe on the line, I would tell you that I would want Randal Cunningham at the helm. I have always felt that Donovan McNabb was treated differently, and had to handle more pressure than anyone in the league. I even have a soft spot for Michael Vick, dog-fighting and all.

It’s not hard to understand why, I suppose. The victories and failures of black quarterbacks are in many ways emblematic of what the race has, on the whole, gone through. James Harris represented something of the first iteration of black football helmsman. In the era of The Jeffersons, the vanguard of black achievers often found themselves in lonely country, unable to ever be good or mediocre; they were excellent or gone, and success had to come without the support system of peers to buttress you or trailblazers to lead the way. The 1980s saw something of a regression for the black community, and, just as Jesse Jackson served as a sort of reigniting of hope in politics and thereby pave the way for today’s Obamas and Corey Bookers, so too do today’s generation of quarterbacks give rightful praise to Doug Williams and his masterful performance in the Super Bowl as being the moment that made them believe they could do similar things.

Even now, the black quarterback’s journey runs parallel to the larger societal situation. Certainly, no quarterback can say, like 20 years ago, that they could not get a break solely because they are black. But, the NFL or college starter still finds themselves treated differently and subject to pressures that the Mannings and Bradys of the world would never see. One cannot, for example, imagine a black quarterback being the recipient of the kind of adulation that Tim Tebow receives, nor would Peyton Manning or Tom Brady ever had to deal with the foolishness and racism of a Rush Limbaugh. No doubt there still also exists a pressure to put promising young black players at other positions. Much as with the election of Obama, or the business successes of hundreds of prominent black businessmen, one cannot allow the shining successes of top minorities to allow us to believe that all is fine for the masses of folks below.

So, now I find myself again rooting for the Titans/Oilers, again helmed by the third iteration of Warren Moon. But, in actuality it’s not moon that Young reminds me of, it’s a raw Randall Cunningham, a player who in his own right is sort of a tragic figure. Only once, very late in his career, was he gifted with any other offensive playmakers. He was perhaps the most under-utilized talent of his generation and, all told, might have been the best player I’ve ever seen play. My dad, watching Cunningham do his magic against the Giants, gave me a sheepish chuckle and smile when I told him that Cunningham might be the best I’d ever seen. “Sure son,” he quipped, “but that’s just because there a hundred brothers from a hundred small towns who never got to throw the rock.”

What the Civil War Tells Us About SEC Football

As the nation unraveled in the aftermath of the 1860 election, all eyes fixed on South Carolina, the most pugnacious and truculent of Southern states. Reflecting on the sheer madness of what was about to ensue, a Richmond reporter famously quipped that South Carolina was “too small for a Republic, and too big for an insane asylum.” In many respects, this could often have been rightly said of the South as a whole. Throughout American history, the South has been seen as an odd entity within the larger American body politic; at the same time, though, it remains utterly mainstream American, with a history as integral to the founding, maintenance and success (an failures, to be sure!) of the Republic as any region. This tension in which the South is both utterly American, yet completely marginal makes the region an inscrutable mystery to the observer. It is perfectly within the proper conception of the South to note that the most quintessential American town, the fictional Mayberry, was in North Carolina, while at the same time noting that most of the South would seem like a foreign landscape to any visitor from the north or west more familiar with any of the great metropolitan centers on either coast.

This tension has produced any number of ramifications for both the nation and the region, and they are both unique to the region and operate in a rather predictable manner. The Southern man often sees their institutions as completely integral to, separate from and better than broader national endeavors. As someone who has followed Southern history, I see the chest-thumping in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) as completely within this paradigm. We are told, repeatedly and vociferously, that the SEC plays the best football in the nation, and is utterly dominant and a class above all other conferences. Faster, stronger, better and more entertaining, the SEC plays a brand of football more akin to the NFL than NCAA. Or, so we are told.

Two observations about this Southern football exceptionalism are instantly obvious. First, this is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, fans of college football were largely fans of their particular conferences. With bowl tie-ins, it was a rare and special occasion in which you actually saw your team play a great team from another conference,
and most people had little, if any, real abiding interest in the goings-on of other conferences, and how highly or lowly another conference was regarded did not really impact your team. If, for example, you won the Pac-10, you went to the Rose Bowl, and that was that. In this context, the recent obsession (largely unrequited) that LSU, for example, has with USC would make no sense. The only real exception to this rule was Notre Dame, a team that has rivalries across the nation, and thus provided something of a harbinger of the intense feelings that football nationalization would bring.

Second, the need to trumpet its own conference remains largely a Southern phenomenon. Even when USC traveled to SEC West Champion Arkansas and dropped 70 on them, neither Pac-10 fans nor USC supporters saw this as evidence of conference superiority. In a part of the country in which regional identity remains a minor thing, there simply is not the same ingrained propensity to see match-ups between teams as referenda on entire regions or conferences. Of course, had LSU invaded the Coliseum and similarly dismantled a Pac-10 power, the narrow view taken by USC would not have been taken by LSU’s fans. Californians –and Oregonians, of course- are proud of and love their states, but Westerners have not gone through war, Reconstruction, poverty and a protracted and bloody racial conflict in the same way that the South has, so whereas an acute inferiority complex remains and integral part of the Southern psyche, the Westerner gains nothing on a psychological level by proclaiming that nobody plays college football like they do out west. On the other hand, history, psychology and memory in the South make it all but inevitable that Southerners would fixate on their own conference and proclaim its superiority.

Interestingly, though in high profile match-ups the SEC has more often played Big Ten teams, its fans reserve their most vitriolic rhetoric for the Pac-10. Again, this also fits within the larger conception of how Southerners see themselves and why so many of them see the Pac-10 as the antithesis of what they are. SEC schools, with the exception of Vanderbilt, are all located in small backwater towns, whereas Pac-10 teams are all within an hour or so of major cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and Phoenix. This rural-urban conflict makes Pac-10 success even more insufferable to the largely rural South. Indeed, politically, economically and socially these two regions could not be more different.

Of course, the unanswered question is whether the SEC is actually better than the Pac-10. On the Pac-10 side is the pretty clear advantage that they have had in head-to-head games in the last 15 years. Winning a little better than 60% of the games would suggest that it is the better conference, or at least fatally wound the notion that the SEC is clearly the top conference in the land. Think of it as a corollary to the old Federer-Nadal Rule: if you can’t even beat your principle rival, how you can claim to be the best?

On the SEC side of the argument, they point to their recent dominant performances in the BCS Championship games. The SEC wins titles. This is not the moment to offer a detailed attack on the BCS, but suffice it to say that BCS has enormous flaws in how it picks teams. Among the biggest flaws is that SEC teams have made it to the title game usually by not scheduling a single difficult non-conference opponent. Florida is particularly guilty in this respect. In other words, if you win the SEC with one or no losses, you will make it to the title game. Though Alabama’s game against Virginia Tech this year was a notable exception, if you stack up the non-conference schedules of the top Pac-10, Big Ten and SEC schools over the last ten years, the SEC schools would, in fact, be quite embarrassing.

Going into the bowl season, we will certainly hear a lot about SEC speed, and how the SEC teams dominate all comers from other conferences. Likely, the fact that this year’s SEC entrant, Alabama, was wood-shedded by Utah last year will be ignored. In the end, it is not much worth much effort to try to argue against SEC dominance, not because it isn’t true but because Southerners are simply psychologically and historically predisposed to oppose any notion that suggests that it is anything but a singularly unique and exceptional conference. Similarly, Pac-10 fans should just ignore the rabble coming from Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, Knoxville and the rest of the SEC hamlets because it will continue for reasons that have a lot more to do with Appomattox and Gettysburg than anything that ever happened on a football field.