Athletes and Their Video Game Equivalents
Earlier this month, Jay Cutler said some very amusing and dad-ly things about his younger teammates.
Referring to them as "these kids with their phones," the Chicago Bears quarterback/frown savant admitted he just didn't get their infatuation with technology or why anyone would want to watch them play video games on the Internet.
This was interesting to me, not just because of Cutler's reliably overwhelmed dad-liness, but that after years of writing about sports and pop culture, it made me finally sit down and consider the depth of passion athletes have for their video games.
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They love gaming deeply, like an astronaut loves his only escape pod.
And while Cutler astutely noted that games and their consumption have changed since he last played Pong on his parents' toaster, the basic therapeutic benefits remain constant, no matter your age or pay grade.
The broke college cornerback who can't afford Grand Theft Auto and the millionaire shooting guard pick up the sticks for the same reason—to relax and think about anything but fan expectations and how damn sore they are all the time. Athletes need video games. Some just don't know it yet.
In this spirit, I dedicated some of my favorite game titles to the athletes who need and deserve them most. I just hope Cutty enjoys Nintendo.
Rob Gronkowski: Dance Dance Revolution
Console: Arcade (1998)
Genre: Dance/Exercise/Complete and Total Ecstasy
New high score? What does that mean? Did Gronk break it? Gronk broke it.
Given his rich history of pelvic stirring and sweating into the eyes of others, I'm fairly confident Rob Gronkowski is not unfamiliar with the arcade dancing game Dance Dance Revolution.
I'm just surprised we haven't heard more about it.
If I were to guess, I'd wager Gronk has broken at least five DDR platforms over the course of the 26-year-long EDM festival that is his life. And that is a conservative guess.
Madison Bumgarner: The Oregon Trail
Console: PC (1971)
Genre: Human Suffering Simulation
Madison Bumgarner does not choose the banker. He does not get dysentery or wait for conditions to improve.
When asked if he wants to ford the river or take a ferry, Bumgarner picks up his wagon and oxen, lashes them together with the snake that killed poor Sue Anne, and throws them to the other side with nasty dropping action.
Bear in mind: This is the man who practiced roping a statue of a bull in an Arizona strip mall because there were no live ones around to wrangle. If you could pour The Oregon Trail into stovepipe pants, it would form into Madison Bumgarner.
IK Enemkpali: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
Console: Nintendo (1987)
Genre: Sports (kind of)
If this whole cold-cocking-people-in-the-locker-room thing doesn't work out for IK Enemkpali (so far, so good, though!), the Buffalo Bills' newly rescued defensive end should consider a career in professional pugilism.
I mean, the dude broke sundered Geno Smith's jaw in two places with one punch. This is not an easy feat!
It's well-documented that New York Jets quarterbacks possess the hardest skulls known to human biology. Like the shins of a muay thai champion who's been kicking banana trees in the Malay Peninsula for 30 years, the facial and cranial bones of Jets quarterbacks harden over time to accommodate the torrential downpour of blunt force trauma they endure on a daily basis.
As a result, Jets quarterbacks do not have skulls. They have head-shaped diamonds forged in the crucible of repeated tackles for a loss.
Don. Geno Smith is only halfway through his rookie contract, and those mandibles of his have already survived heavy shelling without incident:
How is this man still alive?
Verdict: Because Geno is a Jets quarterback. He's like a Pachycephalosaurus with shoulder pads. And Enemkpali knocked him out the box with a single, king-hell blast.
So, clearly, Enemkpali is a ringer for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, a game where the titular boxer's in-game character only throws one-punch knockdowns and is absurdly unfair in all regards.
No one should punch anyone that hard, but Enemkpali did and received a slight, divisional promotion for his trouble. The American Dream at work!
Ronda Rousey: Assassin's Creed
Console: Xbox, PlayStation, PC
Genre: Stealth Action/Murder Time Trial
I briefly considered Steph "The Baby-Faced Assassin" Curry as sports' most viable representative for the Assassin's Creed franchise, but then I remembered it's just a nickname and Ronda Rousey literally destroys other people for a living in less time than it takes to reheat coffee.
So, Rousey won that one.
Jay Cutler: Duck Hunt
Console: Nintendo (1984)
Genre: Light Gun Shooter
Ah, yes...the man, the myth. The #DadTake that started it all.
Jay Cutler is a traditionalist and anti-nerd, but he loves him some Duck Hunt. I have no proof of this but believe it deeply.
Consider the mechanics.
Something moves, you blast a hot shell in its cardinal direction and complain dejectedly when you miss—or even worse, hit a duck with the wrong colors.
"Damn controller," you think. If only you had been born on a planet that wasn't populated by a bunch of moonfaced idiots who can't even calibrate a plastic pistol properly. You did your job. Someone else didn't do theirs, as usual.
You walk away bitter but thankful the Internet people didn't see it.
Kobe Bryant: The Last of Us
Console: PS3 and PS4 (2013, 2014)
Genre: Survival Horror
Instead of a rundown as to why Kobe Bryant and The Last of Us are perfect for each other, here's a synopsis of The Last of Buss—a sequel to Naughty Dog's magnum opus I'm working on:
"The year is 2015.
Half a decade has passed since everything went suddenly and resolutely to hell. The civilizations of man have fallen, roving bands of stretch 4s control most of the major cities and the interim government continues to bend what laws are left as they see fit.
You are Kobe, a grizzled mercenary who has spent what feels like a lifetime waving off screens and carrying piles of free-agent flotsam across the barren steppes of a post-Triangle wasteland.
Everyone you knew in your past life is dead or coaching the Knicks. All that's left is a girl named Jeanie—no kin to you, but a reminder of a time when you could go to sleep without wondering if every beep of your phone was the rookie subtweet that would finally put you in the ground.
Protecting the girl from Clippers (monstrous creatures with no regard for human life) and transporting her to safety is your mission. Jeanie will "help" you occasionally, pointing out spare parts and planks of wood in the rubble that could potentially be used as power forwards. But don't expect much.
Ultimately, it will fall upon Kobe's wit and ability to fashion useful tools out of yarn and rookies to ensure their survival. These tools will eventually disintegrate and blow away to the Eastern Conference.
"
Shudders, truly.
And that wraps it up for this edition of athletes who both need and deserve some quality time on the sticks.
Video games aren't just for the common, everyday nerd, guys. They're for all people with control issues and imaginations that can only be satiated by winging 8-bit ducks and digitally braving the great American wilderness.
Dan is on Twitter. He always chose the banker—the one percenter of the Oregon Trail.
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