Saturday Learning Series - Football edition

Basic Football defenses explained.  I'm not sure if there is still a lot of taking a knee during the national anthem going on, but I'm going to check in on it tomorrow.  With that in mind, here's a primer on NFL defenses for those who don't understand.

Saturday Learning Series - Superbowl Edition (Part 2)

Earlier today, the Saturday Learning Series turned it's attention to football. Why not, the big game is tomorrow and a lot of people watching will not be familiar with some of the concepts they'll see during the game, and watching like that, the plays can seem like random mad scrambles with no strategy behind what's going on. Nothing could be further from the truth. Football is a highly strategic sport and is as much chess match as it is physical contest.

Bearing that in mind, let's now take a look at the basics on the offensive side of the football, starting with the offensive formations:

Because there are so many types of plays that can be run on offense, it's impossible to provide a compact explanation. But let's start with the really basic notion that in order to advance the ball down the field to score points, an offense can either run the football by carrying it, or by making a forward pass and catch to cover more ground in less time (theoretically). There are different styles or approaches on offense and these styles are what you are more likely to hear about during any football game. The common types we are going to look at are the Vertical Offense, The West Coast Offense, The Option (or Read Option), and The Pistol.

Unfortunately, there aren't as many clear and simple videos on offense to the highly fluid nature of the options available as well as the interpretations as to what qualifies as what. So if you are keen to learn this stuff, you'll have to sit through some verbiage.

The Vertical Offense

The vertical offense (a type of spread offense) is one designed to spread the defense out so that they have to cover the whole field. That means deep and shallow, passing and running. Luckily there's video for this one. Firstly there's the vertical passing game, then the accompanying vertical style run game (in a spread focused offense).

The West Coast Offense:

From the NFL itself, the West Coast offense was one of the Top 10 things that changed the game.  Here`s a brief but basic comparison of the West Coast versus the Vertical offense.

The Read Option Offense:

This offense relies on the Quarterback reading the defense and selecting which option to sue depending on how the defenders react;

The most common option scheme in the NFL is run out of a one-back look from the shotgun or pistol alignment with the running back on the inside zone and the quarterback “reading” the initial path of the edge defender (defensive end, outside linebacker) through the mesh point.

With zone blocking up front, the quarterback can give the ball to the running back (dive) or keep (pull) based on his “read” of the unblocked edge defender.

If the edge defender crashes on the dive, the quarterback will pull the ball and press to the outside. If the edge defender stays up the field or “slow plays” the mesh point (lateral shuffle to play both dive and keep), the quarterback can hand the ball to the back.

The Pistol:

Here`s what Bleacher Report says about the Pistol Offense;

...Chris Ault had installed himself as head coach two years before and his new "Pistol" offense one year before. Ault wanted to combine the passing strength of a spread-out shogun offense with the power running game of a traditional I-formation.

Ault shortened the shotgun snap, placing his quarterback four or five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the running back directly behind the quarterback...

The short distance between quarterback and center allows for a much faster snap, and the short distance between running back and quarterback allows for quick handoffs and fast-developing run plays. The quarterback still gets an eagle-eye view of the defense, though, without standing so far back that he doesn't pose a threat to run.

And here's a video breakdown.

And there you have it, a brief primer of some of the basics of football offenses.

Saturday Learning Series - Superbowl Edition (Part 1)

Since the Superbowl is tomorrow, it seems like a good time to educate potential casual viewers as well as some more seasoned fans, including myself, on some of the less well known and understood aspects of the game.

The first piece today will provide you some information on the different sort of defensive formations and terms you are likely to hear about during tomorrow's game.  Let's start with a really good and informative video on the different positions and roles.

Next let's look at a few common types of defense: The Nickel defense, the dime package, the cover 2, and the blitz.

The nickel defense - extra pass coverage:

Dime defense - Why run it? A sure passing situation (1 of 4):

Dime defense - positioning the players (2 of 4):

Dime defense - How to run a dime defense, double coverage (3 of 4):

Dime defense - Rushing the QB (4 of 4):

The Cover 2:

And finally probably the best simplified description of all, Football Sheology;s explanation of the Blitz:

Nate Silver is helping me out

Self proclaimed libertarian/liberal Nate Silver is helping me out.  The man who has had an extremely successful political prognostication record is aiding me in my Yahoo football pool.  Not directly or personally, but via his Five Thirty Eight NFL prediction lab.  Silver's initial forays into notoriety were as a baseball analyst.  Let's face it, sports statistics are powerful tools, just as political statistics are.

Predictive analytics are a wonderful field and so powerful in being able to effectively predict many things.  While our political alignments are not synchronous, I really respect Silver's analytic abilities.  

And when it comes to football, where I previously used to use a model I had created to predict winners (albeit an unsophisticated model), and I did pretty well, I have not kept it up and have regressed to a feel-based approach with some rudimentary analysis appended to it.  Silver's picks year to date have outperformed my fairly significantly; so why not leverage his insights, I figure?

Go Packers. Maybe.

The NFL analogy

Imagine if you will that the NFL, instead of postponing the Minnesota Vikings vs. Philadelphia Eagles game this weekend until Tuesday (?), it had actually declared a winner and assigned scores.  The game instead of being played on field would have been decided by bureaucrats.  Why bother to play the game if the winners can be pre-determined by fiat.  It's a little more blatant than pressuring the referees to make calls that favor one team over the other, which would still be wrong.

Now imagine a commissioner that believes every game should result in a tie.  A commissioner that felt the teams should spread around the skilled players more evenly.  What's the incentive for players to play hard or at all in that case?  

That's progressivism and it exists in your government America.  It is antithetical to successful teams, successful players and successful plays in football.  Why would it be any different in the real world?

No need to draw that analogy out.  Just remember every vote for an expanded government is like a vote for a bigger commissioner's office and that means more power that can be abused now or in the future.  

Obama - Losing Ugly

In football or any other sport, you want to win.  But you don't want to win because of a fluke injury to a key player on the other team.  Not only does it consist of benefiting from the misfortune of others, but it also tarnishes the victory - you didn't beat their best, you beat a diminished team.  Maybe you couldn't have really beaten them.  Using the analogy of politics as sport, President Obama might be that injured opponent, and the Republicans appear to be capitalizing on that.  But there's a couple of problems with the analogy.  Firstly, politics is a lot uglier than sports and sportsmanship doesn't win you any trophies in politics.  Secondly, and more importantly, President Obama doesn't fit the injured opponent as much as he fits the image of the opponent not knowing what plays to call and throwing a lot of interceptions for the GOP to capitalize on. The President, after a great opening drive, has started losing, and losing ugly. At this point the GOP would probably be happy with any sort of win.  But Obama isn't losing because of an injury, he's just losing due to poor performance.  In other words, he's losing ugly.

Can you tell I'm happy football season is under way?

In Politico today, Jeremy Lott makes the case that President Obama is likely going to lose on his three big agenda items so far; Cap & Trade, the Employee Free Choice Act, and health care reform. After winning on the stimulus bill and the omnibus bill early on, the 'game looked like a lopsided victory was underway for the Democrats.  They had a deeper bench (the 77 seat majority in the House and th filibuster-proof majority in the Senate).  The managed to take the football and score an opening drive touchdown.

The Republicans, still on defence nearly stalled the Cap & Trade drive, and now in field goal range, the plan seems stalled in the Senate.  They might not even be able to settle for the field goal.  But it has been the other big drive, health care is where the interceptions have started to occur.  That might be something that affects everything else, like the Employee Free Choice Act.  And that's where we might see two different aspects to Obama losing ugly.

Think of 2010 as halftime, and consider that the game clock is really running down.  It's going to be ugly for teh Democrats if those three drives fail.  That will represent a full scale failure in the eyes of Democrats and the eyes of President Obama himself.  But the other aspect is that you might start to see President Obama start getting ugly in his behavior.  If the Republicans have become accustomed to Obama decrying demagogary and being a demogogue about it now, imagine how bitter he could become and how ugly it could get if he doesn't score.  He seems to take these failures poorly already.

But losing ugly could turn into losing REALLY ugly, if a double dip recession materializes.  That's just what many people see happening. According to the Financial Times of London, there is good reason to be, if not pessimistic, at least realistic about the possibility;

“Are we going into a W[-shaped recession]? Almost certainly. Are we going into an L? I would not be in the slightest bit surprised,” he said, referring to the risks of a so-called double-dip recession or a protracted stagnation like Japan suffered in the 1990s.

“The only thing that would really surprise me is a rapid and sustainable recovery from the position we’re in.”

The comments from Mr White, who ran the economic department at the central banks’ bank from 1995 to 2008, carry weight because he was one of the few senior figures to predict the financial crisis in the years before it struck.

On Monday Mr White questioned how sustainable the signs of life in the global economy would prove to be once governments and central banks started to withdraw their unprecedented stimulus measures. “The green shoots are certainly out there – the question is what kind of fertiliser is being used on them,” he said.

Indeed, losing ugly for President Obama if that double dip hits, could very well mean a 50-70 seat swing in the Congress at halftime (2010), and a few seats in the Senate to boot.  If that' how the game progresses, there's a very real probability that Obama loses the complete game in 2012.