FREE AGENT

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IT’S IN THE GAME

BY SOLOMON LIEBERMAN

savants at FootballOutsiders.com

B
ig, bloody, victorious men make for good stories – that’s recently created a Speed Score index
why we worship the NFL. But as much as we rely on a win which takes a running back’s weight
to sweeten our Sundays, it’s the promise of violence that we into account to “more accurately reflect
crave. Helmeted men with brick-like bodies fling themselves how a player’s 40-time comes into play
at one another at tendon-tearing, cranially concussive speeds. As on the field.” It’s beautiful:
players get bigger and faster, the hits become even more crushing – 200(player weight)
maybe too crushing. (40-yard dash time)4
A score of 100 is safe, and 110-
Halfway through the 2008 season, AP report. “We’ve really lost the essence plus exceptional. For example: MVP
penalties for unnecessary roughness of what real American football is about.” LaDainian Tomlinson achieved a 111.7
were up almost 40 percent, and But the NFL sees it differently. “Players in 2001. Applying the Speed Score
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell are fined when they violate specific to defensive players – the pursuers –
responded by aggressively fining rules; it’s not based on how hard they seems like a natural extension, so I did
players for chop blocks and other hits hit,” says Corry Rush, AFC information the math: Kearse? 119.1. Urlacher in
that can cut careers short. See: Priest manager with the NFL. Maybe they’re 2000? 116.3. But they’re not alone. First
Holmes’ Styrofoam spinal column. both right. came the freakish defensive players,
But Goodell might consider the NFL’s “Football has always done this dance and recently, their counterparts:
longstanding battle between pain and around, ‘how much violence is too backs, receivers and tight ends with
gain, and how much of both the players much violence?’ Usually, football adapts big bodies and blazing speed. Recent
can handle. in an effort to sanitize the violence,” rookies Brandon Jacobs, Calvin Johnson
Football “is not a toe-to-toe brawl, says Dyreson, who described the NFL and Vernon Davis all had Speed
and it’s not supposed to be that,” as no more violent today than it was in Scores of 120 or higher. According to
explains Dr. Mark Dyreson, associate 1968. However, the men creating that FootballOutsiders.com, the 2008 class of
professor of kinesiology at Penn State violence are more imposing now than rookie running backs posted four of the
University. “It’s a more comfortable, ever before. The trend began in 1999, top 24 scores in the last decade.
controlled, sublimated violence that fits when 262-pound defensive end Jevon
a sort of modern, corporate sensibility.” “The Freak” Kearse hit the NFL running In the end, and as it should be, I think
So, while I cheer for my player to reach a 4.58-second 40-yard dash. That’s a the fans will be the judges. The NFL is

PHOTO COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES: 200116326-001/DAVID MADISON/DIGITAL VISION/GETTY IMAGES

the end zone unscathed, I also cheer for
enemies to be de-limbed, without any
moral dilemma. “It’s almost cartoonish
in a way…it’s become as if these players
aren’t real people,” says Dyreson. It
appears that Goodell is offering more
protection for his cartoons…er…
commodities…er…players.
Some of Goodell’s fines were levied
against actions not even penalized dur-
ing the game, and players like pro-bowl
safety Troy Polamalu are not enthused.
“I think regarding the evolution of foot-
ball, it’s becoming more and more flag
football, two-hand touch,” he said in an
lot of poundage careening across the a business and interested in protect-
gridiron to blindside an over-ambitious ing its investments, but the fans know
running back. bumper-bowling when they see it.
Speed can make or break a ball Consider the boxing ring, where most
carrier’s career. Media and scouts fights these days seem to end routinely
hunger for new analyses, and the in decisions and the once vaunted
heavyweight division is now diluted
with dilettantes that couldn’t stand, no
less fight, for 15 rounds. As a result, the
“It’s almost legendary sport is being supplanted
cartoonish in a sadly by the hackish UFC, where the
way…it’s become fans are guaranteed blood with victory.
When it comes to the NFL, I shudder
as if these players from an imaginative whiff of the next
aren’t real machination. I’ll just hold my breath.
people.” One Mississippi, two Mississippi…

12 January 2009