Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Gumbel on the NFL

Bryant Gumbel has gotten himself in some hot water for comments that he made in his closing remarks on HBO's "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" last week. Addressing new commissioner Roger Goodell, Gumbel gave the following advice:
"Before he cleans out his office," Gumbel said. "Have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Gene Upshaw's leash. By making the docile head of the players union his personal pet, your predecessor has kept the peace without giving players the kind of guarantees other pros take for granted. Try to make sure no one competent ever replaces Upshaw on your watch."

Gumbel's lines had the benefit of being fundamentally true, refreshingly candid, and pretty funny. Tagliabue's response, on the other hand, revealed a lack of amusement: "What Gumbel said about Gene Upshaw and our owners is about as irresponsible as anything I've heard in a long time." Let's quickly pass over the rather unseemly idea that Tagliabue is so inured to what goes on in the world outside of professional football that these words qualify as the most irresponsible he's heard in "a long time" except to say that given this sense of perspective, if Tagliabue ever speaks about anything involving events the real world, ever, he should be beaten with a helmet. Someone have him take a look at the news on a daily basis, please. Of more significance, the NFL Network, for which Gumbel is currently scheduled to handle play-by-play duties toward the end of the season, is in consultaton with league officials over Gumbel's comments. This is both absurd and unacceptable. Free speech, even on matters as largely frivolous as the NFL (even if the NFL takes itself way too seriously), ought to be sacrosanct for journalisst, which Gumbel certainly is. It seems that the solons who run the NFL cannot handle a little bit of criticism. I hope that Gumbel has the integrity to tell the NFL to pump sand if the league demands an apology for his comments, which were fully within his rights to say, and which were, again, fundamentally true. Upshaw is by far the least effectual labor representative in major sports, and the NFLPA by far the least effectual such union.

10 comments:

Tom said...

Your man Easterbrook disagrees over at TMQ. He makes a pretty strong case, too.

dcat said...

Nope. He's wrong. He's wrong, and he's wrong based in part on his own criteria -- you know how every year he hammers guys who hold out for more money in the contract even though they will never see that money? Well suddenly he is using that salary data as if it is real money, when as we know, vets get cut every year leaving that money on the table. It is fake.

Plus, of course, salaries have risen since 1994 at a higher rate, of course, because baseball salaries were already much higher. Beyond all that, why is he using salary increase as a percentage from 1994? Let's look at absolute salaries: The average NBA salary in 2003 was 4.9 million; the average baseball
salary was $2.37 million; the average NFL salary was $1.25 million. So NFL salaries have risen at a dramatically greater rate in football than in baseball since 1995, and football players still make half as much as baseball players, and that money for football players is not guaranteed and baseball player income is, and we are saying that Upshaw has done a great job IN COMPARISON WITH BASEBALL? Um, ok.

Baseball contracts are guaranteed. And he can argue that the guaranteed salaries has made play worse in the NBA (note how s he shifts from baseball as a mode of comparison to the NBA -- wasn't he just talking about baseball?) but I know that YOU have argued that play has gotten better in recent years, and I tend to agree.

Meanwhile he leaves the speech aspect at the door, which is sort of the substance of the debate -- if being wrong was a problem then 90% of the broadcasters out there would lose their jobs. He also does not bother to take on the fact that Tagliabue called Upshaw's comments the most iurresponsible thing he has ever heard for a while.

Nope -- Easterbrook makes a bad argument, flawed by his own usual standards of guaging player wealth, he switches gears midway depending on which league happens to be easier to attack -- thus he deals with rising salaries in baseball froma flawed framework then he moves on to quality of play in the NBA (what happened to baseball?).

Plus he does in fact say that Gumbel's speech ought to be protected.

Tom said...

I don't normally read TMQ because I think he's far too interested in things like the style of uniforms. Also, he's just not that bright on the football on the field (his basketball talk is cringe-inducing bad, but I digress).

Even his comments on the Tampa Cover 2 defense today were an indication of a pretty limited knowledge of what's actually going on on the field. Starting with the little speech that cover 2 means two deep zone, cover 1 means one deep, and cover zero is no one deep. Hey, guess what?: cover 3 means three deep and cover 4 usually means four deep. Notice any trends? That particular part of zone defenses is not especially complicated, and what Easterbrok had to say wasn't particularly elightening. He might have added that one of the reasons you need to have fast linebackers in a cover 2 scheme is because the standard way to attack a two-deep zone is to send a tight end up the seam to split the two safeties. One of the linebackers, usually the strongside guy, or SAM, but sometimes the middle backer, or MIKE, has to run with the tight end up the middle if that is the case. You need fast backers to recognize the seam pattern and run with the tight end. Actually, cover 2 is a defense that is designed for weaker defensive backs so that they keep plays in front of them, with the assumption that a strong front seven will eventually make big plays up front. It is not some sort of genius scheme by any means.

Beyond that, his discussion of non-cover 2 defenses is kind of ridiculous. Yes, some defenses have the d-lineman playing two gaps, but others have the linemen shoot gaps. D-lineman in all defenses run any number of slants and twists to try to disrupt the offensive blocking schemes. I personally like the 3-4 for the flexibility it provides, and for all of the talk about the wonders of the cover 2, let's keep in mind that Chicago and Tampa both played in the thin NFC last year, and that the best defenses of the last five to ten years (the Patriots, Squeelers, and Ratbirds) have been predominantly not cover 2 based, and two of them (NE and Pittspuke) have been 3-4s. (Tampa Bay is the great exception.) The cover 2 is just another defense, no more, no less.

All that said, I think Easterbrook is more right than wrong when it comes to the preening, self-righteous Gumbel. Leaving aside whether or not he had the right to say what he said, because of course he did, I still think it was a stupid ass way to make what might have been just a slightly legitimate point. Players do not get guaranteed contracts in the NFL, but they do get good signing bonuses, and they make good money considering there are over fifty guys on the roster. Nobody is in the poor house, so even if you think Upshaw is not doing everything for the players, you shouldn't resort to personal attacks on the guy. But beyond that, I'm not sure why Upshaw should have to have a contentious relationship with the owners. The NFL is a great product, only the Cardinals' ownership has any kind of reputation for being particularly cheap with the team (and that seems to be passing) so there is no real pressing need for labor disputes.

Maybe Bryant Gumbel likes strikes and play stoppages, but I kind of prefer watching a bunch of rich guys get richer playing a great game that has some measure of parity every year. (And from what I understand, the NFL pension program nowadays is good and getting better--including increasing for for pre-1977 players.) As Easterbrook argues, Gene Upshaw deserves a great deal of the credit for the smooth operation of the league. At the very least, Upshaw deserves not to be personally insulted by a 115 lb. self-important blowhard like Bryant Gumbel.

Thunderstick said...

You know what is awesome...chicken mcnuggets!!

dcat said...

Tom --
I don't disagree with you. The problem is that your case is a whole lot better than easterbrook's, whose most cmpelling evidence is a flourishing league whose personnel makes half as much as baseball and whose contracts are not guaranteed. Plus, let's not pretend that the NFL's system entirely inures them from work stoppages. !987 was not that long ago, and the last time the NFL CBA was up it almost came to blows, which would have led to non blows.

Chicken McNuggets are indeed tasty morsels.

dcat

Tom said...

You know what the problem is with Chicken McNuggets? They're all high fallutin' now. What's with this "all-white meat" crap? What was wrong with the occasional piece of rubbery gristle or ball of squishy chicken fat? It added to the adventure, dammit.

dcat said...

You speak of the "occasional piece of rubbery gristle or ball of squishy chicken fat". "Occasional"? OCCASIONAL? I want rubbery gristle and chicken fat through and through, dammit. Any "meat" should be incidental.

dcat

Thunderstick said...

Anyone that believe that those things, despite recent ads, are all-white meat is a moron. That's just a marketing ploy to make the place seem healthier. It's the same rubbery stuff it's always been. So are Wendy's crispy chicken nuggets. I challenge anyone to go to Wendy's and actually find one of those nuggets that they would consider crispy.

God bless McDonald's

dcat said...

I've also never met anyone named Wendy's at one of those places.

I did once meet a "Mack Donald," but one of us was drunk.

dcat

Tom said...

Thunderstick,

As a former KFC employee who knows a little something about fried chicken parts, I can tell you that I have enjoyed many a crispy crispy nugget from Wendy's. And I don't care what you say about the actual content of the food, McDonald's has knowingly and willingly abandoned their proud gristle/fat roots when it comes to McNuggets, and they have the audacity to brag about it. Not to sound too much like David Brooks here, but no trend in the last ten years has been a greater indication of the decline of American civilization than the wussification of the McNugget. I weep for the children.