Bleacher Report - Articles by RedEmigre

Walk Before You Can Run: Washington Redskins Improve (a Bit) in the Air

RedEmigre — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:43:03 -0400

The bad news is that Washington's aerial attack wasn't good enough to win their first meaningful game of 2009. While the defense bottled up the Giants run game, Eli Manning did just enough through the air and the Redskins running backs underperformed just enough that New York could hang on to win 23-17.

The good news? While it was by no means a flawless performance—mistakes included a lazy interception, a missed third down, and the decisive strip-fumble-return-td from Osi Umeniyora—Washington's passing was a lot better than last year.

Unusually for the Redskins, most of their bright spots in the game in fact came through the air. QB Jason Campbell finished 19 of 26 (73 percent completion), looking poised and strong armed for much of the game. Just as crucially, he didn't spend the whole time on his back.

Standing up = better passing

The offensive line—bane of the 2008 season—played better in pass protection than many expected, given the unit's poor performance in recent years and the lack of serious upgrades in the offseason.

The Giants' league-best defensive line, which once hung 12 sacks on the Eagles' Donovan McNabb in one game and then won them a Superbowl, only reached Campbell three times, and the young QB could step into a decent pocket most of the time.

Campbell himself looked far more comfortable for the most part. Whether because this is his second year in the Jim Zorn system or because his vertebrae weren't being bent inwards by Justin Tuck every other play, he was able to keep his eyes downfield, go through his progression and use training ground mechanics.

His errors were few, but unfortunately they were significant, including lead feet on Umeniyora's game-deciding TD play, an underthrown slant to Santana Moss on third down and an unforgivable interception thrown from beyond the line of scrimmage.

Heading for the West Coast

Jason Campbell never really seemed a good fit with a West Coast offense—arm too strong, release too slow, waste of a good deep passer—but for perhaps the first time in Coach Zorn's tenure, there were many moments on Sunday where he seemed at home.

Time and again on Sunday Campbell dropped back five steps, pump faked, and fired a pass between the Giants' linebackers for first down. The result was a high completion percentage, including a significant number of second and third progression, medium yardage throws to TE Chris Cooley and slot receiver Antwaan Randle El.

After a year of running the "Midwest coast offense"—driven by the need to feed RB Clinton Portis 25 carries a game—Coach Zorn spent much of the game calling three- and four-receiver sets, with far more liberal use of the two tight end formations he's apparently been itching to unveil.

Campbell appears generally happier in shotgun formation, and demonstrated his ease by delivering the ball quicker on empty backfield plays, as multiple receivers stretched the defence.

The receiver group itself was solid but unsurprising, dominated by Randle El's 7 catches for 98 yards and Cooley's 7 for 68 and a score. The Giants gameplan revolved around preventing big plays to Moss on the outside and blitzing often, which left the middle of the field open for the interior receivers.

Santana Moss may not be too happy about his touches, but the Redskins have long needed an alternative to throwing it his way, and last year too often the lack of pass protection forced the passing game to be nothing more than a series of short dump-offs to a back.

Sunday's more measured approach meant more passes beyond the first down marker, fewer predictable halfback and bubble screens, and less contrived playaction.

Eventually the offense even found a bit of a swagger, as they passed their way down the field in the last two minutes to score a sharp consolation TD via Cooley.

About those draft picks...

For this game, Coach Zorn's focus on the two veterans on the inside was a canny and fairly successful move, giving Campbell comfort and providing most of the Redskins' first downs.

It could, however, be an unpopular one with a front office desperate to see more balls thrown to Malcolm Kelly and Devin Thomas, (high draft picks in 2007), both ineffective again on Sunday. Thomas in particular is in danger of being outshone—not only by unit leader Moss, wily veteran Randle El and lovable lump Cooley, but also by preseason sensation Marko Mitchell.

Mitchell, a late round afterthought in this year's draft, stunned onlookers in training camp and the preseason and forced his way onto the bottom of the depth chart. If Thomas continues to play with less drive than Homer Simpson (and the unfortunate Kelly continues to be injury-prone) Mitchell will get his shot at some point, and then all bets are off.

Owner Daniel Snyder is keen to win, but whether GM Vinny Cerrato's ego can cope with his first solo draft acquisitions continuing to underperform is yet to be seen. Coach Jim Zorn may yet end up between the rock of losing and the hard place of demoting the GM's blue eyed boys.

Next week—more scoring please

The Redskins in Week One are better at passing than they were, even if they're not yet lighting up the skies.

That would be a good step for most offenses coming off a season where they ranked 23rd in passing, and sensible Washington fans (i.e. not the impatient and gluttonous GM or owner) have reason to be encouraged—strong protection, sensible strategy and decent execution against one of the league's best defenses is nothing to sniff at.

There is, however, still a lot to work on. The Skins continue to eschew the deep pass, and whilst the Giants were nice enough to leave big holes at the intermediate level, at some point Washington will need the long ball to punish 3-4 blitzing teams like the Cowboys or Chargers.

In addition, a true No. 2 wideout is still yet to materialise, and whether it's the college star Kelly or oversized rookie Mitchell, the team will need an physically dominant receiver to beat press coverage and/or score in the red zone.

This week saw more of a true Jim Zorn passing attack than the Skins have been able to use before, and the team looked more comfortable—and certainly more successful—through the air than at any time in recent memory. Next week's matchup against the hapless Rams should provide the opportunity to take another step forward.

Winning Hearts & Minds: Taking The NFL Global

RedEmigre — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:11:34 -0400

Your correspondent has happened to be in Istanbul over the last week, and every taxi driver, bellboy, and barman has struck up a conversation with the wandering Englishman about Wednesday's Champions League final—even though it contains no Turkish team, no Turkish players, and took place in Rome.

Every bar and hotel screened the full 90 minutes, and international news channels(including CNN) had both pre and post match analysis as part of their news bulletins for days surrounding the game.

No-one will have been watching more closely than Roger Goodell. The NFL Commissioner’s accelerating efforts to internationalise the American version of football are aiming to create the sort of global interest that the Champions League effortlessly generates, and the 2009 final provides the league and the owners with both a clear goal and a demonstration of how far they have to go.

Tug at my heartstrings

Wednesday’s Champions League final was watched by over 200 million people in 230 countries, generated around $435 million in revenue, and generated billions of column inches and screen hours in news and other free media round the world. Within the world’s most popular sport, the European club final is the premiere global annual match, and is only surpassed by the quadrennial World Cup in cash and media attention.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the NFL is a long way behind. With a few exceptions in specific countries including: Mexico, the UK, Germany, and Canada, few of the world’s six billion residents pay any attention to the NFL. Despite periodic marketing drives—and in contrast to many countries adoption of other US cultural exports—the NFL has failed to connect with potential audiences worldwide.

International sports fans, especially in blue-collar areas, tend to have other sports(soccer, rugby or cricket) embedded in their culture at an early age. Not only is the competition therefore well entrenched, but to make matters worse the foreign equivalents of the demographic groups which form the bedrock of the NFL’s support at home have a disdainful view of the sport.

Partly this is historical—the league embraced glossy theatrics and flashy divas some decades ago, at a time when most global fans preferred earthier, seemingly less money driven sports. It’s also cultural: men who fanatically follow sports and pour their cash into TV packages and merchandise are often a little macho in their outlook, and will take some convincing that a sport played in “suits of armour” isn't, well, a little soft.

Fortress NFL

To some degree, however, world fandom’s shunning of US sport in general is also a reaction to its shunning of them.

This isn't purely a football thing—the American cultural unfortunately has an exceptionalist streak which sees the world as stopping at the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and this turns off many global citizens. Whilst evangelising about the US as the "shining city on the hill" is an important part of the American national identity, it can leave others feeling patronised and unwelcome—whether it’s over Iraq, the economy or the World Series.

In sporting terms, this is shown through rhetoric and marketing—holding annual "World Championships" containing only American teams does nothing to make others feel welcome.

Until recently, NFL games were held in the US, starred(almost) solely American players, and seemed to pay little regard to whether the rest of the world noticed or cared. This unfortunately exacerbates the wider anti-American sentiment that has become prevalent in recent years, which casts the country as myopic, self-obsessed, culturally hegemonic, and unwilling to adjust its own views to accommodate those of others.

Yes We Can

Commissioner Goodell therefore faces an uphill struggle to make football the world’s game, though the international strategy—combined with a general downturn in Americaphobia following November's election—is starting to put a dent in reflexively hostile attitudes.

To move beyond this and make serious contact with hearts and minds abroad, the league will have to demonstrate in some highly public ways that it's serious about engaging with the global social fabric—and this means US fans will have to give up some of the exclusive rights and access they currently enjoy.

As with other aspects of the international strategy, the Commissioner isn't waiting for an invitation—the current furore over holding a Superbowl in London could be Goodell's "Clause Four" moment, where a public fight with the reactionary "America First" elements of the fanbase helps position the league as a liberal beacon of inclusivity.

The lights of Rome have illuminated the glittering prize this week, and the NFL isn't wasting any time in moving towards it. If they are to grasp it fully, however, Commissioner Goodell and the owners have a huge diplomatic and cultural mountain to climb.

Originally posted at PlayActionPost

The NFL People's Democratic Republic (Plc)

RedEmigre — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:53:58 -0400

Every year at about this time I end up in conversations with mildly confused people who are fans of the NFL but not familiar with its business model.

As coverage and discussion of the upcoming NFL Draft ramps up, onlookers notice that it appears to be a pretty left wing idea (like revenue sharing and the salary cap), and they wonder how such a socialist enterprise can be the most popular sport in the Land of the Free. Look a little further, however, and this apparent socialism is only skin deep.

Fans of other sports are used to teams being separate and competing interests, focused completely on their own (short term) needs.

In most sports, cooperation between franchises is rare—the formation of the Premier League in English soccer being the exception that proves the rule. The NFL works differently, with all 32 owners working together and accepting individual sacrifices like revenue sharing—but why?

Lenin - not a fan

It’s all about perspective—the owners (and the league Commissioner as their advocate) accepted long ago that their true competitors aren’t each other, but rather other sports and different forms of entertainment.

Pat Bowlen and Robert Kraft might be competitors for a week when the Broncos play the Patriots, but the real threat to their teams and profits would be casual NFL fans deciding the league was getting a bit dull and putting their money into watching tennis.

The franchises therefore don’t behave like competing companies who’ll claw each others’ eyes every chance they get, but more like rival sales teams working in the same office—who all get paid out of the same company bonus pool.

This is a pretty farsighted bit of thinking, but that’s how they all ended up being squillionaires in the first place.

The owners believe that making the NFL a larger and more profitable place to be is the best way to grow their own piece of the pie. Each of the league’s supposedly collectivist elements therefore actually serves a highly capitalist purpose, which is to help protect and grow the overall company—NFL Inc.

The Draft

Roll up to see some old guys read out names

On the surface, the NFL Draft is a model of egalitarianism.

Young players looking to enter the league from the college system have to go through the draft, and the 32 teams start off with the same number of choices, taking turns to pick in order from the worst team to the best.

The idea behind this is that if you’re the league’s worst team one year—this year it’s the Detroit Lions—then you’re able to pick the best player in each round and get better quickly, while the year’s best team—Pittsburgh—are handicapped and can’t sit on their laurels.

In reality, of course, the Draft is a capitalist masterstroke.

By creating a high profile media circus out of an activity which is common to all sports—selecting rookies—the league manages to create drama in an otherwise mundane offseason, keeping fans’ interest away from other temptations like college basketball or writing poetry.

Needless to say the broadcast rights and advertising around the draft generate revenue, but draft picks are also a sort of currency within the NFL’s internal marketplace, traded between teams in exchange for other picks, players or even coaches—hardly a victory for the proletariat.

Revenue sharing

You give us your money, we give it to other people

Perhaps the league’s most startling bit of pseudo-socialism is the mechanism by which all of its 32 teams share their profits, including gate receipts at games, merchandise income and—crucially—the megabucks from the league’s various television deals.

These deals are amongst the richest in the world - from 2008-2013 NFL broadcast rights will raise around $24 billion—and every team receives an identical slice.

This seems like socialism run amuck, until you once again take a look from the perspective of NFL vs NBA/NHL/Olympics rather than Buccaneers vs Eagles—the league’s priority here is not who wins, but providing top quality entertainment for fans every time they watch an NFL game.

Making lucrative franchises like Dallas share some of their profits with threadbare outfits like Jacksonville ensures that all teams can afford to put out a quality product, and fans don’t have to suffer a hit and miss league.

The salary cap

The salary cap is a huge, complex and highly engineered beast, but it comes down to a very simple idea: compared to those of its competitors, NFL games are extremely unpredictable—this is exciting to watch, it’s attractive to spectators, and therefore it’s profitable for owners.

Pro football is the most watched sport in the US because it has surprising moments, games and seasons—on any given Sunday, anything can happen. The owners want to keep this level of unpredictability in the game, and believe that the best way to do so is by having “parity”—e.g. not too big a spread between the performance of the best and worst teams.

The Draft has helped drive this, but it’s achieved mostly by the imposition of a salary cap to restrict what each team can spend on players each year.

Football is first and foremost a team game, and having a few superstars surrounded by nobodies rarely leads to success, so the cap forces franchises to seek out value for money if they want to be successful (Not that everyone understands this).

This means there aren’t any Manchester United or Chelsea types in the NFL, who have bought trophies by signing a bunch of high priced megastars.

Hands up for home team discounts

The salary cap has an additional benefit, because it naturally breaks down good teams.

As a franchise is successful and its players become stars, the team finds it difficult if not impossible to keep them all as their costs rise.

One or two can persuade players that being on a winning side is more important than being paid market value—which is why Tom Brady is among the most underpaid players in sports—but for most, success on the field is followed by an exodus of players for more rewarding pastures, and a period of rebuilding.

Bluntly put, this works. 14 different teams have made it to the Super Bowl since the year 2000, with only four able to appear more than once.

Teams that are hopeless one year can be top tier the next—the Miami Dolphins only won one game in 2007, but won their division and entered the playoffs in 2008.

Red menace

The NFL’s success has not just happened. The owners have worked together to build a league and a strategy that take precedence over individual teams, and taken some extraordinary measures to ensure its future.

As the league seeks to expand into new markets overseas, it will need every ounce of that business sense to take on some pretty impressive competitors—like soccer—while not diluting the high quality product that has enabled it to succeed so far.

The owners, and their counterparts in the players’ union, also have to find a way to overcome the looming threat of a year without an underpinning Collective Bargaining Agreement—the legal basis which makes the salary cap work.

If the league’s delicate financial balance gets disturbed both players and management may regret messing with a successful formula.

The NFL is riding high in both ratings and cash, and the bond markets can’t get enough of its future financial prospects, proving that the one-for-all approach is not only building a bigger future pie, but providing the sort of stable and dependable revenue the markets love.

Football is reaping big benefits from the league’s big picture approach—it may look like socialism, but it smells like a winning capitalist strategy.

Originally posted at Play Action Post