voluntaryXchange

Congratulations, Frank Reich

One thing I am super glad about is that Frank Reich got a (winning) Super Bowl ring, as offensive coordinator for the Eagles.

Frank Reich was the backup when the Bills lost 4 Super Bowls in a row, and he played a majority of Super Bowl XXVII.

Frank Reich is the answer to a fairly common football trivia question: what quarterback led the biggest comeback in both college football and the NFL? (Do note that it’s now the second biggest college football comeback).

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Yes, this is a navel-gazing appreciation from a Bills fan.

We didn’t know Reich was any good either. Then Kelly went down for 3 weeks early in the 1989 season.

Reich had played a few downs in 1985 (pre-Kelly) and 1986. Then he had gotten no snaps at all for 2 straight seasons.

And he got the start on Monday Night Football against the top team in the league, the Los Angeles Rams. He won. In a comeback during the 2 minute warning. Then he won 2 more games. And went back to the bench. The Bills flamed out that year, losing 3 of the last 4, and their playoff game to a dropped touchdown in the last minute.

It was clear to everyone by mid-October that 1990 might be the Bills year. Many people forget that the Bills went to the Meadowlands and beat the Giants before the Super Bowl. The Bills also knocked out Phil Simms for the season. Funny that: the Giants knocked out Jim Kelly for a few weeks later in that quarter. In came Frank Reich for about 40 minutes to preserve the lead. The next week was against Miami in Buffalo, for both the division title and the number one seed in the AFC playoffs. I was there. No one had any doubts. Reich won by 10 points, and it wasn’t that close. Reich got a losing ring that year.

Another year of mop-up duty followed, and Reich got another losing ring.

The Bills started showing signs of coaching weakness in 1992. Reich did backup until the final game. The Bills and Oilers had a heated rivalry at the time, and Kelly was injured in the final game, and the Bills ended up as a wild card. The next week they played … the Oilers.

The Oilers had won the previous week 27-0, and got up 35-3 on the Bills halfway through the third quarter. Then Reich led 4 touchdown drives in 7 minutes. The Bills came coming, and won the game with a 5th Reich-led touchdown drive a quarter later.

People forget that Reich started the next game too. The wild card Bills went to Three Rivers Stadium to play the top seeded Steelers (who had already beaten the Kelly-led Bills in mid-season). Reich beat them too, 24-3.

People also forget that Reich played most of Super Bowl XXVII. The Cowboys knocked out Kelly in the second quarter. That was the blowout game, when the Bills had 9 turnovers. The Bills were losing the game 14-7 and the turnover battle 3-0 when Reich came in. And you know what? There was hope for the Bills. Yes, I was an optimist, but I made the point towards the end of the third quarter that if you’re winning the turnover battle 5-0 and your only up by 2 touchdowns on a top team … you might be in more trouble than you guess. Maybe the Cowboys needed those 4 more turnovers. If it helps to get your mind on this, the Bills fumbled 9 times and recovered 4 of them. Do ya’ think they thought they were jinxed?

He went back to the bench for 1993, and played in a few games in 1994 too.

In 1994, Reich went in the expansion draft, and became the Carolina Panthers first starting quarterback. He didn’t last too long, had an OK season with the Jets, and closed out his career with the Lions.

Why I’m Rooting for Brady and the Patriots Today

I am not a Patriots fan. I am not a Tom Brady fan.

Heck, I haven’t been a football fan since the 20th century. But everyone watches the Super Bowl, right?

Plus, I grew up a Buffalo Bills fan. The Patiots were the also-ran’s of their divisions for most of their first 40 years. They never won anything because … the Patriots sucked. There didn’t need to be another reason.

But I’m rooting for Brady today. And the Patriots.

All because of this nonsense over Brady’s 11 year old son kissing him on the lips.

To me, this is the worst case of over-the-line, infantile trolling, that I’ve yet come across.

It’s completely uncalled for, clueless about being a father, clueless about being a son … even clueless about kissing on the lips. Objecting to it is projection of a rather depraved sort.

Fathers deserve better.

Sons deserve better.

Eleven-year olds deserve better.

That Last Play

What was Georgia thinking?

I’ve watched that last play by Alabama — in slow-motion from behind the quarterback — about 20 times now.

A lot of people blame Georgia’s “cover 2” defense.

Maybe, but I don’t think so.

In cover 2, the two safeties are deep, and they each cover half the field. If it was a cover 2, the safety on the offense’s left should have closed with the intended receiver and prevented a catch.

But it’s not so simple: neither Georgia safety commits to that cover 2 on the flags.

Think about that: Alabama sent 4 receivers deep, with 2 going to either flag, and both safeties sat on the hashmarks. This includes the safety on the strong/right side who had 2+ receivers coming into his area the whole play.

Yes, Tagovailoa did look off the defenders to the right, but the defenders don’t react much to that.

Arguably, Davonta Smith is not even the most wide open receiver on that play. Check out the video: Alabama sends 5 receivers, 4 of them deep, and they get 3 open deep and 1 going short. That only happens in zone.

Georgia’s defense was layered 4-5-2. The disguise is that it was man-to-man for the two corners on the end of that five. If you look up the middle, 2 of the 3 guys from the middle line and the 2 safeties have the middle locked down the whole play. Inexplicably, one of those 5 drops into an underneath zone on the far right and is defending against something that isn’t there.

And, do the Pythagorean theorem: Tagovailoa made a throw 45 yards down field, and 15 yards to the side, which is a 50 yard throw. If he has to go ballistic to make that distance, the safety can close. But he didn’t: it’s pretty much a frozen rope.

So here’s what Georgia was doing: 1) they took away the middle, 2) they defended against the scramble to the much broader right/strong side, and 3) they bet the true freshman didn’t have the arm yet to wing it 50 yards.

The more I watch that view from behind the quarterback, the more certain I get that Georgia did exactly what it wanted. They ended up with a 1-1 on the left, a 3-2 matchup in the middle, a 2-2 on the deep right, and a stalker on the short right. The key is the safeties on the crossovers: 2 white shirts cross over the middle and the safeties do nothing! Their job was not to get drawn away from the middle. Tagovailoa tried, and when they didn’t move, he went outside to a 1-1 on his near side. That’s much safer than the overnumbered middle, or into the heavier traffic on the messier far right side.

That’s not a bad bet on Georgia’s part. Guys aren’t fully developed at that age. And how many could actually throw it 50 yards at that age? Admittedly I wasn’t a quarterback, but I’m a big guy and I could do about 35. We all lie that we could do better (that’s why coaches look at your out routes to gauge your distance).

Why would Georgia do that? Because they were defending against the field goal not the touchdown. They had Alabama out of range, and the didn’t want a short pass over the middle, or a scramble to the strong/right side to get them back into range.

This is a better story than the cover 2 failure one going around. And it also doesn’t excuse the cornerback who missed the chuck on Smith. Not only did he get a step, but he got it to the inside, making for a shorter quicker throw.

Here's the video. You might want to go to the original, since I can't get this embed to show the full width. And you should pause it at about the 23 second mark, just before the ball is thrown, with the view from behind the quarterback. Look at both safeties. The story of the look off works best if one safety falls for it. But it’s far less likely to have been a successful look off if neither safety fell for it: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me … unless my plan is to sit the safeties on the hashmarks to take away the middle and they are doing their job. Oh … and look at the center right almost on the edge of the video as the Georgia defender makes his chuck, and clears on his receiver to distinctly turn upfield to defend against the scramble. That’s where the missing man is … and not over the top of Davonta Smith.

Georgia chose to cover the deep middle, the short middle, the deep right, and the short right. Georgia chose to leave open the short left (it’s the near side, where congestion is the defense’s friend in college ball), and to leave the deep left in single coverage.

No chuck, good move, pure speed, good read, tight throw, game over.

So stop blaming that poor Georgia safety: he did not break the coverage he was assigned to, and he hustled to get in the picture at the end of the play.

Why Macro Is So Hard: What Passes for an Expert

This is actually an addendum to a topic that’s already part of the canon (here’s an example, and it’s been in the principles lecture on this topic for years).

So, here’s Deadspin’s headline from another example:

Florida's Go-To Stadium Economist Is A
Hack, A Shill, And Also Not An Economist

Everyone should know by now that sports stadiums and arenas are a very bad investment for their communities.

In this particular case, Tampa is building a stadium for a team that doesn’t even have Tampa in its name.

Wha, wha, what?

Tampa is building a stadium for the Toronto Blue Jays to use for spring training.

(Now, if you’ve never been to spring training, it is a thing, but not a big thing. We’re talking about 15 or so games, held over 5 weeks, that average about 5K fans a piece.)

For perspective, Tampa is spending 4 times on this stadium what my university is spending on a new business building.

Maybe one reason is they hired a consultant who produced an economic report indicating that it was a good way to spend their money:

If Bonn’s studies don’t sound very economically robust, perhaps it is because Bonn isn’t actually an economist! He is a professor at FSU’s school of hospitality, where he teaches marketing and wine-tasting, and his degree is in resource development.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean Bonn can’t do the economic work; I also do not have a degree in economics. Then again, I don’t charge $23,000 for economic impact studies …

For clarity, Bonn wrote the report, and the “I” in the quote is the author of the linked piece on Deadspin.

Technorati Tags: why,is,economics,so,hard,tampa,stadium,toronto,blue,jays,expert,advice

The Best Insight On Trump

From Salena Zito:

… The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

That helps me (although I’m still not sure if I can take him seriously or not).

I first saw this shortly before the election, but I’ve been too swamped to post it.

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For my part, while I have disliked Trump for going on 35 years, I have been quietly saying for the last year or so that he must be doing something right to have stuck around for so long.

I’m not sure what that is, but as I get older, and I recognize how life wears you down, I’ve come to appreciate that staying power is underrated.

And this reminds me of doing research with JT on explaining the likelihood that batters will be voted into the baseball hall of fame. Every model we ran kept showing us that longevity was more important than the flashy stats put up over a long career. Here’s Maureen Dowd from the morning after the election:

Trump was like Rasputin, being declared dead time after time, but living on.

Technorati Tags: trump,seriously,literally,quote,zito

Bills Fans Are the Drunkest

Color me unsurprised that Buffalo Bills fans show the highest blood alcohol content at NFL home games.

I’ve been to quite a few of those games.

I’ve been to the tailgate parties that start at 8 am, and go till 7 pm.

I was at a game where they tore down the goalposts.

Technorati Tags: buffalo,bills,fans,nfl,most,drunk

For the Teenager In All of Us

There’s a move women gymnasts are doing in the Olympics that cannot be spoken of. Because the straightforward name for it is “The Dick”.

It was invented by gymnast Marisa Dick, and moves are usually named after the person who first did them in competition. You can see a GIF of it here. Full coverage with a better Dick video here.

Sorry. I just had to.

The vXfamily was amused by this.

Technorati Tags: olympics,gymnastic,dick

Olympic Medal History Graphic

The New York Times has outdone itself with this one. They have a whole series, by sport, of flowing time series charts showing weighted medal counts.

Here’s Women’s Gymnastics:

It was dominated by the Soviet Union, but first Romania, then the U.S. came out of nowhere.

If interested you really must click through. It’s too much to excerpt, and the quality of the reduced-size images is not that great. It’s entitled "A Visual History of Which Countries Have Dominated the Summer Olympics".

I am a sucker for this sort of thing.

Via Lifehacker.

Technorati Tags: olympics,medal,count,country,graphics,time,series

Slow Motion (Big Wave) Surfing

I’m a sucker for surfing videos. This one shows guys riding huge waves in slow motion:

SURFING @ 1000 FRAMES PER SECOND from Chris Bryan on Vimeo.

I’ve never surfed, but I’ve always wanted to. I’d be lousy at it: I was never good at sports that require great or flexible balance. And I’m actually one of those hammerheads that likes wiping out; it makes me laugh.

Via Kottke.

Technorati Tags: slow,motion,surfing,video

“I Just Threw Up In My Mouth a Little”

A vivid one-liner from the movie Dodgeball! … and really … just about the only appropriate response to Mississippi State being ranked # 1.

Technorati Tags: mississippi,state,football,ranking,1,dodgeball