What would YOU have done?

Here's the story from AFL.com.au about the pre-season closer last week where Richmond chose to play 15 (rather than 18) players during the fourth quarter of an exhibition game after a slough of injuries had decimated his team and he had no bench to work with for the last quarter and a half or so:

RICHMOND has escaped sanction for fielding just 15 players in the final quarter of its NAB Challenge hit-out against Port Adelaide at Etihad Stadium last Thursday night.

Tigers coach Damien Hardwick asked the League during the game whether the match could be called off early as the club's injury toll mounted.

AFL football operations manager Mark Evans met with Tigers football boss Dan Richardson on Tuesday to discuss the situation and the club's obligation to fans and the broadcaster.

"I'm happy to leave it at that," Evans told RSN927 on Wednesday morning.

"In fact, I think the internal discussions have been very good and very well considered.

"We've all agreed the time-honoured way of parking a player in the goal square, if you wanted to, is a better outcome."

Evans said he understood why the Tigers made the inquiry to the League with round one fast approaching.

"I think there was a split decision to start removing players from the field. It was then pointed out that that's not we were looking for," Evans said.

"Dan Richardson and I had a discussion about this yesterday and he provided all the implications as to what they were dealing with at the time.

"I accept that was difficult for them, but equally they've accepted there were other ways of doing things."

The Tigers players dropped like nine-pins through the game with injuries to Shane Edwards (collarbone), Shaun Grigg (thumb), Reece Conca (hamstring) and Jacob Townsend (concussion) amplifying Hardwick's frustration.

Hardwick revealed post-match he had asked for the game to be cut short in the last 10 minutes.

That request was denied by the AFL, which then asked the Tigers to field a full team for the remainder of the game.

What would you have done? Let us know in the comments!

UPS AND DOWNS - flip flopping the schedule!

We'll go through the Weekend Wesults either later today or tomorrow, but so much else is happening that we really want to get this piece out today... because there are a TON of folks who are UP and even more who are DOWN all of a sudden...

UP - a belated UP-UP-UP to the THREE-PEAT champions of the Australian Football League, the HAWTHORN HAWKS! Coming into a Grand Final against a team that had spanked them by 31 points three weeks ago, coming in with an older roster that had to cross the country four times in three weeks while West Coast sat at home and won a pair of games before travelling to Melbourne to play in the fabled MCG, "the home of footy"...and once there, play like they were in awe of the situation, while the Hawks were in "been there, won that" mode, demolishing the Eagles in a game not unlike last year's demolition of the also high-flying Sydney Swans - a brief, half-period of hope, followed by one-and-a-half quarters of the most devastating footy you'll ever see, leaving the second half to basically be a procession to the throne for Hawthorn, unquestionably the outstanding franchise of the 21st century at this point. What's more, it was no fluke - imagining another team to outplay them next year is difficult, and probably a measure of self-destruction will be necessary for other clubs to fancy themselves as "flag favorites" at any point in 2016.

DOWN-DOWN-DOWN-DOWN to the coaches already jettisoned in the FBS, barely halfway through the season - Randy Edsell at Maryland, for whom the bell tolled last year but who survived to coach another season, only to start out 2-4 with routs from West Virginia, Ohio St and Michigan on his record. The three-TD loss to Bowling Green of the MAC was the worst of the lot, but as always, there's more to the story...With Steve Sarkisian of USC, the struggle is straightforward: alcohol abuse, combined with life stresses, pushed him well over the edge of professional behavior after a drunken appearance at a major booster event, another reported one at the Arizona St game, and the worst this Sunday when he arrived for practice completely plowed. He was immediately put on leave, and today was relieved of his duties by AD Pat Haden. His situation is different than Edsell's, especially if you believe that alcoholism is a disease, rather than purely a choice on a person's part. While the university personnel are saying all the right things - we support him in his quest to get healthy - and well they should, as we all should, it's hard for me not to look at these circumstances for a professional and say, Isn't there a line you realize you shouldn't cross long before you reach this point? Of course, he's not the first coach for whom addictions played a role in losing his "dream job" - some for their own abuses, some for abetting those of players; some for alcohol, some for drugs, some for violence, and some for sex. But somehow, somehow, there's got to be more than just sympathy for a coach who has the self-discipline to succeed in a profession that demands self-discipline more than almost any other, and yet can't find the self-discipline to curb his own addiction issues, or get help for them before they destroy him. There's got to be something more akin to responsibility for his actions, beyond the firing. Sarkisian's issues have destroyed his life - but probably only temporarily. He'll get another coaching job, and like Jim Tressel, Kelvin Sampson, and other previous disgracees, he'll resume his career. But the players, university personnel, boosters, and fans of USC football won't forget...Just added in the last few hours, two more coaches with reason to feel down - North Texas (former) head coach Dan McCarney, who was handed his pink slip today after UNT (already the creators of tier "V" in the FBS division this year for their ineptitude) not only lost as we predicted to FBS Big Sky Portland State (at home, on Homecoming of all days), but lost by the Baylor-esque score of 66-7 (actually, that's exactly the score Baylor had against Kansas Saturday. But that was BAYLOR, not a tier O, 3-2 FCS team!). It was the largest loss by an FBS (or "1-A") school to an FCS (or "1-AA") school in history. So, let's see, at least North Texas gets a break now to work a new coach in...what? They play Western Kentucky? The conference favorite? On THURSDAY? Great timing, UNT....AND last because the headliner always goes last, the Head Ball Coach himself, Steve Spurrier, retired from coaching today as South Carolina sits at 0-4 in the SEC East, 57th ranked in the country, tier J on the Following Football charts, and idiots calling for the head of the master when they aren't worthy to carry his jock strap. I feel on this one like I do on Adam Goodes being humiliated by Australian "fans" - yes, he should retire at the end of the year, and yes, if he had been an ass about it you could argue for removal then. But he single handedly made the SEC the most relevant conference in the country - he deserves a better send-off than this. I'm no Spurrier fan, but he had more football knowledge in his ball cap than I've had my entire existence.

(And by the way, one further DOWN to those idiots in Australia I just mentioned, for preventing Goodes from participating in ANY of the retired star activities that his fellow (and all lesser) stars got to do this fall (spring there) because he didn't want any booing to distract from the celebration for the others. A hero to the last, Mr. Goodes. You deserved so much better than this.)

DOWN also to poor Joe Philbin, formerly of the Miami Dolphins, who was never going to keep his job there after the issues that took place under his watch, which from our standpoint didn't seem to be his fault. But you've got to have a fall guy, and we'll guarantee 1-3 one fourth of the way through an NFL season is hardly reason to fire your coach - especially when you weren't figuring to set the world on fire to begin with. But as so often happens, when the boss wants to make a change, and the GM has the wrong players on the roster, the only one you can get rid of quickly is the coach. Good luck, Miami - here's betting the next twelve games are no better.

After the touchdown, do you go for one, or two...or NONE?

I'm excerpting this section of Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback article verbatim (the whole thing is its usual exceptional self - definitely take the time to read it!) because it brings up a brilliant thought that had never occurred to me, and frankly, I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it first!

Imagine this scenario, painted for me by Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano:

The Colts score a touchdown to go up nine points with 45 seconds left in the game. Now Pagano has to decide whether to go for the point-after touchdown, basically a 33-yard field goal, or to go for two, from the 2-yard line.

Or, as Pagano suggested, neither.

“Because the defense can score on the PAT or two-point conversion now, why would I go for either one?” Pagano told me. “Why wouldn’t I just take a knee and not go for anything?”

Suppose, Pagano went on, he tried to kick the PAT to go up 10, and it’s blocked and returned for a defensive point. Or the Colts went for two, it was fumbled or picked, and returned for a two-point play by the defense. Then the Colts would be up by either eight or seven—and have to kick off to a team that now would have a chance to tie the game and force overtime.

              So imagine a team, late in a game, up by four or nine, lining up to go for two and  then the quarterback simply takes a knee to kill the play. I’m not saying it positively will happen. But I am saying it makes zero sense for a team up four or nine in the last minute or so to attempt either the one- or the two-point conversion. There’s nothing to gain. That’s Pagano’s opinion. Chip Kelly’s too.

            “We felt that way at Oregon, because the defense could score points,” the Eagles coach said.

“I think you’ll see a change in the mentality, with more thought being put into the fact that the defense can return it now, and what impact that has,” Mike Pettine of the Browns said. “We already have a chart made.”

On our training camp trip, The MMQB asked head coaches if they planned to treat the PAT any differently this year with the line of scrimmage moved from the 2 to the 15-yard line—and with defenses now being able to score either one or two points on a failed conversion try returned to the far end zone. We got no sense that there would be a mass change from the one- to two-point tries, and only a few echoed what Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy told me: In some games, depending on the defensive matchup, he could see the Packers going for two after every touchdown.

            But most coaches were like Kelly. “The percentage in kicking from the 2 versus kicking from the 15, I think, goes from about 99.6 percent to 95.5 percent,” said Kelly, referring to the percentage of extra-point success in 2014, versus the percentage of field goals made from the low 30-yard-yard area. “The league wanted to encourage coaches to think about going for two, and I said you needed to change where you went from two from. [Kelly proposed moving the two-point line of scrimmage from the 2 to the 1-yard line.] I said, ‘It’s been on the 2-yard line and people haven’t gone for two, so why moving it back and changing four percentage points do you think that’s going to make a coach go for two?’ I don’t see the system really moving people much to go for two.”

            Two other factors: Tom Coughlin of the Giants said part of the hesitancy in going for two is the risk of injury, and that would have been exacerbated if the league put the two-point line at the 1. “Do we need four, five extra full-speed plays every game by putting the ball at the 1 and enticing people to go?” Coughlin said. “I don’t think so. Who is going to play in December if these things are allowed to accumulate? You keep a pitch count. Well, you keep a snap count, too.”

            But there will be more two-point tries, particularly if the defense jumps offside on the one-point tries. That means teams will have a choice whether to take a five-yard penalty and put the PAT line of scrimmage at the 10-yard line, or go half the distance, from the 2 to the 1, and try a one-yard two-point play. “I can choose to say, I’m going for two now,” said Houston’s Bill O’Brien. Several coaches echoed that.

            The opposite of that scenario actually played out in Week 1. The Chargers scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter to go up five points on the Lions, 26-21. San Diego lined up to go for two but committed a delay of game and had to move back five yards. Coach Mike McCoy opted to try the 38-yard PAT (rather than a 7-yard two-point try), and Josh Lambo's kick was no good. It's a good example of the little strategic decisions that the longer PAT now forces coaches to make.

THURSDAY THOUGHTS: Responsibility and Integrity of the Game

What is the responsibility of a team to put out its best players for a regular season game, even when it's not otherwise in their best interest to do so?

It seems to happen in a game or two every year, regardless of sport. End of season, one team with something to play for, the other not so much - either because they've got their playoff spot locked up, or they're just biding their time having already been eliminated. (You see it in the NBA mid-year sometimes, when a coach will rest older stars after a tough stretch of games.) Does the second team have an obligation to put a competitive team out there in such a game - either "for the paying customers" or, more usually, "for the integrity of the game"?

As the last round of the AFL season approaches this weekend, there are a couple of games in which this very question arises. Fremantle, having already locked up home field advantage, has no statistical reason to play its stars, and every motivation to rest them for next week's critical opening playoff game. As many as ten of its best players may sit out Saturday's game against ninth place Port Adelaide; fortunately, this game ended up having no bearing on playoff positions, as Port cannot break into the top eight under any circumstances. It did change the betting line from a fairly even game in Adelaide to the current line of almost fifty points in Port's favor, though. Oddly, where it's going to have an impact is in the WAFL, where Fremantle's "minor league feeder team", the Peel Thunder, plays. Peel is in its opening playoff round this weekend...but needs to supply up to ten players to the Dockers to fill out their roster against Port, leaving it undermanned in a playoff game. Business is business, but that seems terribly unfair to the team you've partnered with!

The more punitive scenario this week happens in Melbourne, where Friday's Richmond/North Melbourne match has been sullied (my words) by North's decision to rest up to ten of ITS players this weekend in anticipation of playing the Tigers again next week in an elimination final. By essentially conceding this game (and foregoing, by the way, the potential possibility of moving up as high as sixth if Western were to lose big, and therefore earning a home game themselves!), North has also prevented the Adelaide Crows from the possibility of passing Richmond and thus earning themselves a home game next week, a fact which has the Crows management understandably incensed. The Kangaroos' defense hinges on the fact that they've had two short weeks of preparation in a row (Sunday to Saturday, Saturday to Friday) and the players have been impacted by that: a defensible argument, admittedly. Broadcaster and retired superstar Wayne Carey sported a frightening thought on afl.com.au's "Pick A Winner" broadcast Thursday:

"The Kangaroos now can put in 8-10 players that are not going to play finals footy. They can go out and maim Richmond players," Carey said on AFL.com.au's Pick A Winner.

"They can go hard, they can be told by Brad Scott 'Go out there, hit this side as hard as you can, because it looks like we'll be playing them again next week'.

"I think the AFL really opened up a can of worms here and watch this space."

Carey said the Roos resting players was "a completely different situation" to minor premiers Fremantle sparing up to 11 regular players a final round trip to face Port Adelaide, because the Dockers-Power clash won't affect finals positions.

"Whereas I think this does manipulate where the Kangaroos and obviously the Tigers and Adelaide (finish), so it does have some bearing on the finals," Carey said.

"This rule has to change, because now the one game that had something riding on it all of a sudden has been manipulated by resting players."

(By the way, Carey was a North Melbourne player himself, so this isn't about bias...)

Another situation that happens along these lines is whether or not bottom of the ladder teams need to play their top line players at the end of the season when competing against sides that have "something to play for" or, as is generally accepted, run some youngsters through the mill after their own elimination from contention to see what the potential is for next year and beyond. Very few people question that use of a roster, and in fact if your first team isn't getting the job done, it's often the case that injecting that fresh blood into the lineup will improve the performance of the team anyway!

But what if you're in a system (like virtually every major professional sport is) where your draft order is determined by the reverse order of finish? Doesn't it behoove teams like Brisbane, Carlton, and Gold Coast in the AFL to lose as many games as they can to secure the highest draft position they can? In America, it's the NBA which has suffered under the strongest perception of this tanking prospect (I can think of 76 situations off the top of my head...). and it's what drove the league into the lottery system thirty years ago - a solution which hasn't solved the problem. To their credit, it's hard to make an argument that any of the three AFL teams named has overtly tanked this last month or so - they're just not very good, to be honest. But how do you draw the line?

It brings to mind the high school basketball tournament where both teams tried to lose a game at the same time to avoid playing the top seeded team...and if you click on the link, you'll see just how comical it got. Justifiably, both teams were suspended and removed from the tournament.

But it goes back to sportsmanship, and how you choose to answer the question, "What do we as a team owe the sport, owe the league, and owe our own integrity?"

It seems everyone has a different answer. Many people feel completely justified in the Al Davis / Oakland Raiders approach, "Just Win, Baby!"...which, ironically, doesn't always include the need to try to win; as long as you're doing what's in YOUR best interest, that's all that matters.

I disagree.

There's a risk any time you take the field, yes, but you cannot "turn it on and off" like a switch - ask the Manning Colts in those years when they ran up those 13-1 records and coasted the last couple of games...and proceeded to lose game one of the playoffs to a team who was still in competition mode. If you have legitimately injured players, by all means, rest them. But NEVER tell your players to give less than their best on the field - that's when injuries occur. If you're charging full price for your tickets, your fans deserve a full price game. (Which brings up the travesty of charging full price for pre-season tickets, but that's a subject you can already tell which side of the fence we'll fall on...)

In the end, morals and good sportsmanship MUST win out. If other teams are depending on you to play a fair and competitive game, you need to do so - despite legislative opinion to the contrary, pro sports leagues are ONE entity, working out of a dozen or three franchises, and anything one does that hurts the entirety of the league is a mistake. If that needs to be "legislated" by a commissioner or governing body, you shouldn't be running a sports team: you haven't learned the basics of "sports-man-ship" yet.

Bonus AFL coverage on a Friday morning...

Several points of interest as the penultimate round of the home-and-away season begins:

1. With Geelong's stunning upset at the hands of the excoriated Magpies (and we were the excoriartors on Tuesday) in Friday Night Footy (time difference! If you wanna listen to the future, tune into Australian radio!), the eight teams for finals are set in stone, seventeen games from the end of the season! There's still a bunch of position jockeying to be done (places 5-8 - Richmond, Western, Adelaide and the Kangaroos - all have seven losses), but Geelong's spectacular championship run over the last eight years is over. Eight years, eight post-seasons, three titles, 70+% winning percentage (season and finals), and a host of players in their thirties now who have given their footy lives to my wife's beloved Cats and are now on their way out...either now or soon enough. Some tough decisions will have to be made, and it leads into a conversation about how a team handles this scenario, one many if not most great teams have to deal with: how to handle the transition period. More on this topic in a blog post in the near future, I'm sure.

2. Fremantle's wunderkind Nat Fyfe had such a spectacular first half of the season that not only was he the Brownlow Medal favorite for MVP, one betting house actually paid off bets on Fyfe by round eight and closed the betting on him! But between his own niggling injury problems, his brushes with being disqualified for the award through suspensions (a head hit two weeks ago that by all rights should have ended his quest somehow escaped punishment from the Match Review Panel), and Fremantle's struggles as a team over the last few weeks, the Brownlow is no longer a certainty by any means. On our Player Of The Year tally, after ten rounds, Fyfe had 208 points when no other player had yet past 100 - but now, he's been stuck on 221 for five or six rounds, while Dan Hannebury (Sydney) leads the charge up the hill towards him at 168. It's only theoretically feasible for Hannebury to catch him at this point, but with Fyfe out of the last two games with an undisclosed medical issue (I think it's charlielossphobia - "the fear of copping a penalty that would ruin my chances of winning the Charlie Brownlow medal"), the chances are at least there. Interestingly, since Fyfe has missed four (and probably five next week) games this season, it's the second year in a row that the medal favorite will have missed so much time: Gary Ablett Jr. went out with the shoulder injury in round fifteen (and with him, Gold Coast's finals chances), and still came in second to surprise winner Matt Priddis of West Coast. Suddenly, the awards voting will be interesting!

3. Carlton hired a new coach this week: a man named Brendan Bolton, a great assistant at Hawthorn for many years, a proven winner who should bring a strong organizational model to a club in disarray, if he's allowed to (and they're saying all the right things). Bolton will join the Blues immediately, even though Carlton has nothing left to play for and Hawthorn is in the thick of the hunt for a historic three-peat. Wouldn't he be better served staying with the team who needs (and was PAYING for) his services NOW, rather than the one who'll be in the same place in a month? Again, here's a subject we'll be addressing in the near future, in all sports.

4. Finally, a great story: Daniel Menzel, a 24-year old Geelong player who's suffered through FOUR knee reconstructions since he last played in the big leagues four years ago, was the Cats highlight in the Friday night game, scoring four goals, taking some incredible marks (high flying catches), and generally showing why the team was so patient with him. How wonderful to see THAT kind of hard work pay off like that!

The stabbing death of Coach Phil Walsh

At 2 a.m. Friday, Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh, 55, was stabbed to death by his 26-year old son, Cy Jacob Walsh, in a domestic dispute that also injured Mrs. Walsh with non-threatening injuries.

The entire footy world has united in grief over the loss of AFL lifer Walsh, who also spent time coaching in Port Adelaide and West Coast, as well as playing in Brisbane, Collingwood, and Richmond.

His Crows team were scheduled to play Geelong this weekend at home in the Adelaide Oval; the game was cancelled but the remainder of the weekend's slate of games will go on as scheduled. Friday night, in a classic matchup between heavyweights Hawthorn and Collingwood (which the premiers won 101-91 in a tight competitive game), the two teams came together after the game in an unscheduled moment of prayer which saw the two teams interspersed between each other - Hawthorn, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Collingwood,... - in a beautiful moment of salute.

Of course, tributes from players and the entire AFL community have poured out on Twitter and Instagram, but the best words came from detective commissioner Des Bray, investigating the murder: 

"For any family, regardless of who it is, is one of the worst things that you could imagine that could happen to you," he said.
"The only thing that is different with this is that he has a high profile. The pain and suffering of the family is no different."

The longest career in coaching is over!

Mick Malthouse, three time premiership coach at West Coast (1992, 1994) and Collingwood (2010), has finally had his time at Carlton come to an unceremonious ending, fired today after bringing the issue to a head himself the previous morning.

Malthouse coached 718 games in the AFL, passing "Jock" McHale earlier this season. But with Carlton mired at the bottom of the ladder with minimal talent, and the hopelessness and in-fighting between coach and board and media reducing the players to a shell of their former selves (effort was marginal the last few weeks, with tackle counts unbelievably in the 30s the last two games), a change had to be made. Originally, it was "we'll evaluate at the end of the season", but as things got worse it became, "well, we'll look at it during the bye week in Round 11", to which Malthouse angrily asked, "What are you going to learn about me in the next two weeks you don't already know?" Essentially, once Malthouse understood the writing was on the wall, he engineered his own early firing so as to let everyone "get on with it" (in my opinion). 

Now, the situation is more clear cut, if still dire for the Carlton Blues...
- The press conference and firing by the Carlton board.
- Mick Malthouse's statement - my coaching career is over.
- Where do they go from here? Who do they get to coach? (The back-line coach takes over interim duties immediately, btw.)
- How did it get THIS bad in the first place?

Essendon Footy players CLEARED of all doping charges

The 34 players involved in the AFL doping scandal at the Essendon Bombers footy club in 2012 have all been cleared of wrongdoing by the Australian Sports Anti-Drug Agency (ASADA), and are free of any sanctions, suspensions, or other penalties that would have been handed down had the tribunal found otherwise. 

That group includes a massive number from Essendon itself, so many that the Dons have been preparing retired players and minor leaguers in case their roster was decimated by a guilty verdict today. It also includes stars Angus Monfries from Port Adelaide and Stewart Crameri of the Western Bulldogs, both of whom had moved on from the club since 2012.

Here are a slough of articles from AFL.com.au that hit the topic from all angles:

Thirty-four present and former Essendon players cleared of all wrong-doing.
Here's a blow-by-blow of the day's events coming out of the courtroom, plus the reactions around the sport...
The actual statement from the ASADA tribunal...
A very important detail, in my opinion: the repenting of Essendon head coach James Hird, who in any reckoning of this sorrowful tale is guilty of no less than atrocious judgment, if not far worse.
The reaction of the players involved, like superstar and Brownlow medal winner Jobe Watson, whose comments include, "I'd forgotten what it was like to play and not have this dark cloud over my head."
Where the Essendon club goes from here...specifically, into round one on Sunday against the powerhouse Sydney Swans.
The statement of Essendon chairman Paul Little, hoping for an end to the nightmare.
And the final word on the subject (from our perspective), from AFL president/CEO Gillan McLaughlin, hoping that there won't be any appeals and that the league and its personnel can get on with the business of playing footy again.

From my perspective, here's what it means: The tribunals got this right. This was not (from all reports) a player-driven cheating scandal, like the Americans Lance Armstrong or Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez. The players involved were given supplements, not unlike the league-approved vitamins and medicines they are often given for strength and pain-relief and the like. This was a club-driven program, with the people who ran the show in the wrong: trainer, coach, and so forth. The penalty for the head medico is still coming sometime in April, but the coach served a one-year ban (I'm not sure it shouldn't have been longer), the club was banished from the playoffs (one week before they started - an unprecedented hammer!) and paid a $2M fine, and the penalties for the others involved from the administrative end seem, from this distance, to have been punitive enough. The players were victims, and the tribunal saw that.

And now, it's time to move on - for Essendon, and for footy.

The elephant in the room Down Under.

Looming over the heads of everyone at the Essendon Bombers footy club of the AFL is the ongoing investigation by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) of the misuse of "supplements" (i.e., steroids and similar drugs) during the 2012 season. 

In 2013, the team was banned from the playoffs the week before the playoffs started (Carlton was the most surprised finalist in the history of sports, having been out of the playoff chase for weeks before that ruling!). In 2014, the coach and "alleged mastermind", James Hird, served a one-year suspension from footy for his role, and was replaced very capably by fellow club legend "Bomber" Thompson (can't go wrong when your nickname is the team's mascot!). Following the season, there was a frankly-ludicrous little dance where everyone involved picked sides over whether to bring Hird back as promised or cut ties with a 'criminal' and keep Thompson as coach; neither man dignified himself in the process, and eventually Bomber walked away.

Hird, however, kept suing ASADA, even after the Australian court system had verified the legality of every step they'd taken along the way, including serving notices to 34 current and (some now) former Essendon players who may have competed illegally, possibly without their knowledge - and there's the rub. As they used to say about President Nixon here in the US, what did you know and when did you know it? If they literally did NOT know anything illicit was happening, ASADA's promised not to be harsh on them...conversely, knowing accomplices face the kind of penalties drug users in the Olympics typically get, meaning the likely end of their athletic careers.

Here's a piece on the current leg of this controversy, specifically whether those players on the current Essendon roster who are under an active investigation by ASADA should or would be allowed to play in the pre-season games, starting for the Bombers on March 7th in Morwell, Australia, against St. Kilda. (Interestingly, the AFL scheduled Essendon to be the last team to start playing this fall, knowing this issue needed time.) The effect on Essendon this year is hard to predict - even with all the chaos surrounding them in 2014, they still finished in 7th, the same position they finished the previous year when their finals spot was taken away.

Stewart Crameri, a star player for Western who was with Essendon in 2012, also has a ban on him that's affecting how the Bulldogs are preparing for the season.

Upon further review, I disagree with the world.

Ian O'Connor's piece this morning in ESPN sums up the consensus opinion of the sports world on the play call heard 'round the world, that Pete Carroll had the intelligence of a vegetable to call a pass play on the one yard line with thirty seconds to go in the Super Bowl when he had Beast Mode Marshawn Lynch available in the backfield. However, I argue that it was a perfectly acceptable call, and had it worked (or even just fallen incomplete) even a brilliant call under the circumstances. Bill Barnwell articulates this position in Grantland this morning, and as usual does so in more and clearer detail than I could:

Breaking Down “The Decision”

You can understand why Carroll might be afraid of getting burned in what seemed like a hopeless situation for the opposition, because you only have to go back to Seattle’s last playoff loss to remember how quickly things can swing. That was during the 2012 playoffs, when the Seahawks came back from a 27-7 deficit in the fourth quarter to take a 28-27 lead with 34 seconds to go. In that game, the Seahawks handed the ball to Lynch on first-and-goal from the 2-yard line, and he immediately scored.

Despite the stunning comeback, Atlanta got the ball back with two timeouts, completed a pair of passes, and got a 49-yard field goal from Matt Bryant to win the game. The Packers, furthermore, responded to another huge Seattle comeback by taking over with 1:19 left and driving for a game-tying field goal in the NFC Championship Game. I’m not arguing that Carroll and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell should have been so time-conscious as to basically waste second down on a pass play. But I can understand why they would be overly sensitive about leaving too much time on the clock.

If you’re thinking about the game coming down to those three plays, you can also piece together a case that second down is the best time to throw the ball. As Wilson took that fateful second-down snap, there were 26 seconds left and Seattle had one timeout. Let’s pretend for a moment that the Seahawks decide to run the ball on second down. If they don’t get it, they have to call timeout, probably with about 22 seconds left. That means they’re stuck passing on third down with virtually no chance of running the ball, because it would be too difficult to line up after a failed run.

On the other hand, by throwing on second down, you could get two cracks at running the football while providing some semblance of doubt for the Patriots. If Wilson’s pass on second down is incomplete (and he avoids a sack, which seems likely given his ability to scramble), the clock stops with something like 20 seconds to go. That means you can run the ball on third down, use your final timeout, and then run the ball again on fourth down. All three plays come with the possibility of either throwing or running, which prevents the Patriots from selling out against one particular type of play.

You might argue that the logic there doesn’t include the danger of throwing the football and the downside of an interception, and that’s true, but there are negative possibilities in every play call. In fact, this season it was more dangerous to run the football from the 1-yard line than it was to throw it. Before Sunday, NFL teams had thrown the ball 108 times on the opposing team’s 1-yard line this season. Those passes had produced 66 touchdowns (a success rate of 61.1 percent, down to 59.5 percent when you throw in three sacks) and zero interceptions. The 223 running plays had generated 129 touchdowns (a 57.8 percent success rate) and two turnovers on fumbles.

Carroll claimed after the game that the Patriots were in their goal-line package and that the Seahawks, who came out with three wide receivers, were right to throw the ball and basically waste a play against a mismatch of personnel. I’m not sure I see that, and Belichick confirmed as much after the game. The Patriots did line up with a combination of eight defensive linemen and linebackers in the box, seven of whom were on the line of scrimmage at the snap, but they also played three cornerbacks — Malcolm Butler, Darrelle Revis, and Brandon Browner — against Seattle’s three wideouts.

Rookie cornerback Butler did a great job of breaking on the slant for what will surely be the biggest interception of his life. As you can see from Sheil Kapadia’s tweet below, Butler had a lot of work to do to break up the pass once the ball was in the air, let alone actually make the interception:

Sheil Kapadia‏@SheilKapadia

The thing about the INT is Seattle got what it wanted with play-call. Unbelievable break on the ball by Butler.

The space you see in the screenshot makes Ricardo Lockette seem more open than he actually is — Butler has already identified on the route and he’s going to drive on the football — but it’s not as if Wilson made a dangerous throw into traffic. If the Seahawks really wanted to waste a play, as Carroll was suggesting, Wilson could have thrown this into the ground or thrown it through the back of the end zone. He didn’t because they got the exact look they were hoping for.

In terms of execution, I’d assign more blame to Lockette, who got beaten to the spot and knocked to the ground by Butler, a player Lockette outweighs by 20 pounds. As galvanizing as it’s been over the past 12 months for the Seattle wide receivers to contrast their no-name status with their success, this was a game when the team’s need to upgrade at receiver was clear.

So, that's where I think Carroll was justified in his play calling. Barnwell goes on to argue, however, that given the porous Patriot run defense and Lynch's unstoppability at the time, it was still a "subpar decision". I'm not so sure I agree.

I don't want to say that folks thought Marshawn Lynch should've run the ball at the end, but...

...here's the Twitter reaction from throughout the league...

Enough of this flat ball crap - what about the GAME?

We've spent the VAST amount of our blogging time here at FF dealing with and laughing at the "DeFlateGate" controversy - and mind you, while it's hardly the reason the Patriots won against the Colts, I have little doubt that they indeed cheated and need some form of punishment for it - and very little talking about the Super Bowl game itself. 

Which is a true shame, because it's got the potential to be a FANTASTIC and FASCINATING game! On a large scale, it's amazing to consider that if the Seattle Seahawks win, they're the first repeat champion in ten years, beat (perhaps dominated?) Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in consecutive SBs, and lay claim to being one of the great teams and certainly one of the GREAT defenses in NFL history. Conversely, if the New England Patriots win, they've got four titles in the Belechick/Brady era, six appearances in fourteen years, twelve division titles, and lay claim to their Mount Rushmore (or Passmore?) position with Walsh/Montana, Noll/Bradshaw, and Lombardi/Starr. 

On a small scale, the game itself could be an amazing chess match between New England's multiple formation offense and Brady's brains and short gain drives against Seattle's fast moving defense that dares you to do exactly what the Patriots want to do...and between New England's consistent defense and the run-option, read-what-they-give-you offense of Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch.

I don't see a blowout either way, although if one team gets rolling nothing's impossible. Neither coach is going to let this get out of hand - we're not talking about Mike McCarthy of the Packers here. Belechick and Carroll are both EXTREMELY hands on coaches, both willing to risk whatever needs to be risked if the situation calls for it - if they have 4th and 1 on the goal line, they're going for the throat; that's what I'm saying! Seattle came back on an overly conservative coach; that's NOT going to happen against NE. New England confused a pair of young teams; that's NOT going to happen against SEA.

Our meaningless predictions: Katy Perry's halftime will be fun and upbeat and forgotten by next week. The National Anthem and America The Beautiful (my personal preference for a replacement for the unsingable Star Spangled Banner!) will go off without a hitch and ignored after the fact, I pray. The commercials will be great except for maybe two, and we'll talk about them for a week, and move on. The ball inflation will be checked within an inch (or a PSI) of its life, and be no factor whatsoever (but every time Brady muffs a pass, it'll come up). The nachos will be gone before kickoff. Goodell will listen to his handlers and make as short an appearance at the trophy presentation as appropriate, and the winning owner will declare his team to be one of the greats of all time.

The meaningful predictions: ESPN's many, many football writers provide their opinions here.  Bill Simmons makes his (predictable) prediction here after an above-average column, even for him, here. His partner in type, Bill Barnwell, does his usual masterful job dealing with the nitty-gritty in this article. Here's the similar mass prediction article from Sports Illustrated. And you can undoubtedly find more wherever you care to look, including within your own family...

As for Following Football's crack prediction? Our record this year has been stellar, outpacing Vegas and every major venue during college bowl season, and while our record against the NFL spread was barely above guesswork, we did get the correct winners over 75% of the time this season with our tiered rankings, and it was curiously accurate in matching the point spread with a minimal amount of calculating involved.

Our tiers have Seattle above the Patriots to start with, and both computer rankings we follow closest (Elo and Sagarin) also rank Seattle first, New England second. Finally, while we wouldn't normally count controversy against a team in this situation (it's usually negated by the "us against the world" emotional factor), remember that Belechick's game planning really is a major portion of their success - he does an amazing job of taking away what he's most concerned about and focusing your attention on a game plan you weren't prepared to take on. Whatever else this distraction (and others) has done to the Patriots, it's minimized the time the coach could game plan for the multi-faceted Seahawks, and that's to Seattle's advantage:

We're taking Seattle by four.

Speaking of Easterbrook, consider this advice:

This is analysis of a UC Berkeley report on WHEN you should kick and when you should go for it on fourth down...more in formation after the article:

Hey, NFL coaches! Want to win one more game this season than you otherwise would? Below I'll tell you how. In fact, I will reveal a simple formula that will increase the odds of victory for most football teams.

And I won't just be whistlin' Dixie. The formula was tested over the offseason in thousands of computer simulations by the sports-analysis firm Accuscore -- the same Accuscore that, during the 2006 NFL season, compiled a better game-predictions record than anyone in the ESPN television, radio and Internet empire. Accuscore and I spent some time over the winter devising and testing various assumptions about football tactics, arriving at one formula that almost always improves the chance of winning. Ideally we'd like to sell the formula to NFL franchises for huge amounts of money, then spend the rest of our lives riding around in limousines. But what the heck, in a moment I'll simply give it away.

First, some history. Year in, year out, Tuesday Morning Quarterback rails against excessive punting. I document "preposterous punts" -- punts on fourth-and-short in opposition territory or on fourth-and-1 when trailing in the second half. My archive of preposterous punts now numbers into the hundreds, and shows teams that punt on short-yardage situations in opposition territory, or when trailing in the second half, almost always go on to lose.

Elaborately, I've argued that if NFL, college or high school teams went for it on most fourth-and-short downs, the additional scoring from sustained drives would more than offset the field position surrendered by occasional failed tries. I've quoted Don Shula as privately telling a powerful insider (me) that not punting would revolutionize football. I've shown that since the average offensive play gains almost five yards, going for it on fourth-and-3 or less mathematically favors the offense: and that this would hold even if nobody ever punted on fourth-and-3 or less.

Last fall, I worked through the probabilistic pluses and minuses of rarely punting, concluding, "Probabilities suggest a team that rarely punts will increase its scoring" but not increase opponents' scoring. Last fall's anti-punt column also highlighted an academic paper by economist David Romer of the University of California at Berkeley, who contends NFL teams should go for it even on most fourth-and-longs. Finally, I've railed against the two reasons coaches order punts on fourth-and-short. First, "because that's what we always do." Second, because if coaches order fourth-down tries that fail, they will be blamed, whereas if coaches order punts, the players will be blamed for the loss.

Because coaches are afraid of being blamed, my anti-punt theory has never received a systematic trial. In my own coaching of middle-school, county-league flag football, I haven't sent the punt unit on the field in two years, and have posted two undefeated seasons. But since punting happens less in flag than in tackle anyway, this might not tell us much. Until such time as some college or pro coach decides to believe what he reads in TMQ, there won't be a real-world confirmation of anti-punt thinking.

So, I asked the computer whiz-kids at Accuscore, whose software simulates entire NFL games, if they could take actual games from the 2006 season and rerun them with everything the same except one team eschewing the punt. We chose three types of games: great games between top teams (for instance, New England at San Diego in last season's playoffs), good games between good teams (for instance, Denver at St. Louis in the regular season) and average games involving average teams (for instance, we tested the home-and-home series between the 49ers and Cardinals). We defined two sets of punt-shunning rules: the hyperaggressive pedal-to-the-metal tactics advocated by Romer and a somewhat more conservative set of anti-punt rules designed by TMQ. We assigned the anti-punt tactics to the home team but not the visitor, then to the visitor but not the home team in the same pairing. Accuscore simulated about 10,000 sets of games, to wash out the effects of chance.

Bottom line: avoiding punts added an average of one point to a team's per-game scoring, without adding any points to its opponents' average scoring. Teams avoiding punting became 5 percent more likely to win -- statistically significant owing to the thousands of tries. Doesn't sound like much? One more point scored per game represents the difference between the Bengals and the Patriots of the 2006 season. Last season, one additional victory would have put the Packers, Panthers or Rams into the playoffs. A 5 percent improvement in victory likelihood translates into one additional victory per 20 games, or just shy of one extra win per NFL season. I think any NFL owner would gladly pay millions of dollars for one additional win per season.

Accuscore tested the hyperaggressive approach advocated by Romer in this paper, and also tested TMQ's somewhat more conservative tactics. The Romer rules, derived from his statistical study of an entire NFL season, are as follows. Go for it on fourth-and-4 or less from anywhere on field, even deep in your own territory; go on fourth-and-7 or less inside the opponent's 45; go on fourth-and-10 or less inside the opponent's 33 (except that inside the opponent's 33, attempt a field goal in the fourth quarter if a field goal causes a tie or gives you the lead). My own rules I'll describe in a moment.

Accuscore found when high-quality teams -- especially last season's Chargers, Colts or Patriots -- employed either Romer's very aggressive anti-punt tactics or my somewhat less aggressive anti-punt rules, their chances of winning improved by about the same amount. That both sets of rules worked for quality teams suggests good teams are more likely to be able to convert first downs -- and thus the better the team, the more that team might profit by rarely punting.

There was one exception: rarely punting slightly reduced the odds of victory for the 2006 Baltimore Ravens, which had a weak offense but the league's best defense. For the mid-quality teams, such as last year's Broncos and Chiefs, and for average teams such as last year's Niners and Titans, Accuscore found the hyperaggressive Romer strategy was volatile: making victory a lot more likely about two-thirds of the time, but decreasing the odds of victory the other one-third of the time. For the same group, TMQ's rules added somewhat to the odds of victory while almost never backfiring.

AP Photo

Stop me before I punt again!

The Conclusion: unless you are the Baltimore Ravens or Baltimore-Ravens-like, use the Tuesday Morning Quarterback Sure-Fire, Never-Fails, All-Weather, Computer-Tested, Victory-Enhancing, Call-Me-in-My-Limo Guidelines. Here they are, and sorry there was no way to simplify:

• Inside your own 20, punt.
• From your 21 to 35, go for it on fourth-and-2 or less.
• From your 36 to midfield, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 49 to opposition 30, go for it on fourth-and-4 or less.
• From the opposition 29 to opposition 3, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 2 or 1, go for it.
• Exception: inside the opponent's 25, attempt a field goal if it's the fourth quarter and a field goal causes a tie or gives you the lead.

A few notes on my sure-fire formula: By only disdaining the punt in situations in which the odds of success are pretty good, my anti-punt strategy takes into account player and crowd psychology. Because fourth-and-short attempts will usually succeed, players will remain upbeat, while the defense will understand that though it occasionally will be sent out with bad field position after a blown try, overall, the team will benefit from rarely punting. Romer's more aggressive strategy creates too much chance of a lustily booing home crowd, or players who think their coach is a fool after, say, a missed fourth-and-3 attempt from your own 10-yard line: and psychology is a big factor in football.

My strategy also values field goals more highly than does Romer's: field goals are nothing to sneeze at, so it makes sense to attempt them on fourth-and-long. Finally, my rules violate my own immutable law of field-goal decisions, namely, Kick Early, Go For It Late. I couldn't think of a way to incorporate Kick Early, Go For It Late into the decision-making tree without causing Accuscore's job to become excessively complex. At any rate, the simulations showed that unless you're in the fourth-quarter exception, statistically you're better off going for the touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 2 or the 1 -- disproving the Kick Early, Go For It Late law, which can no longer be viewed as immutable. (I've sent the football gods a memo on this.)

By the way, this "revolutionary" study? It's approaching TEN YEARS OLD...

From Jim Steeg, via Peter King, about coach Don Shula

“Back in the seventies, the Dolphins were going to play the Raiders in Oakland. They practiced at the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday, and in the locker room Larry Csonka found laying there the Raiders’ game plan for the next day’s game. He gave it to [Dolphins offensive line coach] Monte Clark to give to Don Shula, which Monte did.

“The next day the Dolphins got beat by the Raiders. Csonka went to Monte and asked, ‘How did we lose? We had their game plan.’

“Monte’s response: ‘I gave it to Don and he threw it in the trash. He said, ‘We do not cheat!' "

OK, here's my DeFlateGateTake, and it's hard on Tom Brady...

The NFL has conducted more than forty interviews on this matter... yet of all people not to interview, apparently they've yet to talk to suspect number one, the quarterback of the team involved, Tom Brady...who came off sounding like an idiot yesterday, in particular for a combination of two quotes:

He said he prefers the football to be inflated at 12.5 pounds per square inch, which is the lowest end of the league requirement. "To me, that's a perfect grip for the football," he said. "When I pick those footballs out, at that point, to me, they're perfect," he said. "I don't want anyone touching the balls after that. I don't want anyone rubbing them, putting any air in them, taking any air out. To me, those balls are perfect, and that's what I expect when I show up on the field."That implies very strongly that he can tell the difference between 12.5 and 13.5 psi, which is the maximum legal range for an NFL game football. 

(Remember, this man has been an NFL starting quarterback for fourteen years.)

Now, consider this quote: Brady said he didn't notice a difference between the footballs from the first half to the second half on Sunday. "I'm not squeezing them, that's not part of my process," Brady said. "I grab it. I feel the lace, the leather. I feel the tack on the ball. That's really what you go for." 

Now, the league has said that all twelve New England footballs were under-pressurized, and at least eleven of the twelve were at least two psi under the legal pressure.

TWO psi. When Brady has a strong preference within a single psi range.

On Colin Cowherd's show this morning, Sal Paolintonio (who's covered the Pats for years and years, certainly all of Brady's tenure there) pointed out two things he's known for a long time: Brady very much prefers softer footballs, and has said so in multiple interviews over the years, not just this week. But he prefers them so much that he was the driving force behind a rule instituted a few years ago that the VISITING team should get to choose THEIR footballs, and not just have the home team handle all 24.

This is a subject that MATTERS to Tom Brady.

One more point, and you've heard it everywhere if you've listened to any talking heads this week... Mark Brunell, a former starting QB in the league said it best: "I did not believe what Tom had to say. Those balls were deflated. Somebody had to do it. I don't believe there's an equipment manager in the NFL that would, on his own initiative, deflate a ball without the starting QB's approval ... That football is our livelihood. If you don't feel good about throwing that ball? Your success on the football field can suffer from that."

Did I believe Bill Belechick? I hate to say it, but yes, to a point. He went out on a limb at his press conference in a couple of ways: he didn't need to hold the conference at ALL, nor did he need to say more than he ever says, which loosely translates to "On to Arizona. Next question." He was eloquent, elaborated on a great deal of the behind the scenes stuff that he really didn't need to say (he scuffs up practice balls to give the team trouble in practice to deal with? Wow.) - AND he took a relationship with the quarterback that made him the "genius" that he is today, and essentially threw it and him under the bus. To me, that sounds completely like something Belechick would do. He's cut every player who can no longer do his team good - and if that's what this scandal has come to, then Brady's next. No one realistically thought that when Brady hit the aging back-up stage, Belechick would keep him on the roster for "old-times' sake", did they? He doesn't do that for his own grandmother, and he's proven that time and time again. He does whatever it takes to win: legal (roster cuts, clever formations and plays), shady (remember the snow shoveler who found the lines and cleared the turf for the game winning kick years ago?), and outright illegal (Spygate, may it rest in peace).

Check the motivations. Bill Belechick did exactly what he does. I believe every word...EXCEPT that he doesn't know what's going on with the balls before a game. Bull. He knows where every media member is in his stadium at all times, and he doesn't know the procedures for the most important piece of equipment they use? I don't doubt he has "plausible deniability", but don't tell me you didn't know what the process was, Billy boy. But I don't think he's the primary offender here. He probably gave Brady carte blanche to do whatever he thought he needed to do, and Brady went too far. 

And if I'm wrong, I'll never be able to prove it, because Mr. Runway Model slit his own throat in his own press conference the next morning.

SO, what's the appropriate punishment? I don't know. It's not like the commissioner has given us any reasonable set of precedents to gauge our choices by. But the court of public opinion will decide the only important punishment for these two men - the same way they have for Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Roger Clemens, Lance Armstrong, and any other athlete they determine is a serious and unrepentant offender. If they're convinced, this blows over after the game. If they're not, and this is the last straw for Patriot haters... 

Pat Forde evaluates the current college coaching carousel - capiche?

Actually, that's all I need to say...

Kneel downs win football games!

An old post from our friends at Football Outsiders, but a great one. With Mike McCarthy claiming that the reason he ran the ball so much in the last five minutes yesterday was that he wanted to get "20 rushing attempts in the second half. I felt that would be a very important target to hit for our offense”  (Courtesy Bill Barnwell of Grantland), it's time to extrapolate his commonly-held misconception that running a lot in the second half causes victories. It's the other way around, dingbats! You run the ball because you're in the lead and you're trying to kill the clock!

So, the obvious conclusion we draw from this "logic" - what else happens when you're leading in the second half? Particularly the very LATE second half? Kneel downs. This post shows* how teams that have at least TWO kneel down plays in the second half win 90% of the games! With that kind of logic, why wouldn't you start kneeling as soon as you get the ball? "Kneel, kneel, kneel, PUNT! Kneel, kneel, kneel, PUNT!"Ah yes...I can hear the cheerleaders now... 

Here's my favorite paragraph of the article:
In games in which the quarterback did not kneel at all, teams average 18.4 points per game. When the quarterback knelt once in a game, teams averaged 20.2 points. In games with two kneels, teams averaged 22.1 points per game. By simple linear regression (a method that relates one variable to another and allows statisticians to extrapolate predictions), it follows that if a team calls 40 quarterback kneels in a game, they will score 92.4 points per game. (Our emphasis.)