LOL, Amster, first map I've ever seen where Texas is the only blue state! Congrats to RGIII for making the Pro Bowl, one of only two rookies to do so, and the only one playing on offense or defense.
Justin Smith has a partially torn triceps. This is bad news for the 49ers, not clear if he can play in the postseason. If the defense continues to play the way they have so far without him—second half vs. Pats, the whole game vs. the Seahawks—they will struggle to win the WC game they will probably get, and I can’t see them getting any further, vs. teams like GB, Atlanta or Seattle.
He’s a Pro Bowler and I would expect the defense to be hurt a little by his loss, but not that much. The Pro Bowl squads were just named, and the 49ers lead the NFL with nine players, including six on defense, five starters. If half your defense is Pro Bowlers, you should still be very good with one of them missing. Maybe it’s just a matter of Smith’s replacement getting in synch.
If Smith can play at or near 100%, then the 49ers have the kind of defense that can keep them in games even when the offense struggles. And with Mario Manningham and Vernon Davis out, the offense can be expected to struggle. I think they can survive without Manningham--they didn't have him last year when they almost went to the SB--but they really need Davis, who apparently still has not been cleared to play following a concussion. Though his production has been way down this year, that's in good part because defenses focus on shutting him down, opening up other receivers. They should be able to beat Arizona without him, but they have to him for the postseason.
Without him, they are down to Michael Crabtree—who is playing much better this year than last year—and Randy Moss, who has only been seeing spot duty. The team reportedly will move up one of their reserves, Ricardo Lockette or Chad Hall, but not first round draft pick A.J. Jenkins. Lockette is big and fast, a former track star who had the fastest 40 yd dash of all the WRs at his combine. Might be a great target for Kaepernick going deep. But the big question is, will Moss see more action? With Davis out, I think he has to play a lot more. It was always the plan for him to play more in the postseason, but now he may be needed to play most of the game. Does he want to? Can he?
* * * * * * *
Steve Coll, a prize-winning reporter who wrote a book on Afghanistan (Ghost Wars) that I highly recommend for understanding the background to our involvement there,
weighs in on corruption and concussions in the NFL. Coll thinks the pay to injure scheme is very serious:
if pay-to-hurt is as endemic as [Saints interim HC Joe] Vitt reportedly suggested, it may eventually lead to game-fixing schemes by professional gamblers. At least a quarter of a billion dollars is wagered weekly on N.F.L. regular-season games. Big dollars, weak refereeing, and corrupted locker rooms are a recipe for organized crime.
Wrt concussions, Coll says there are now about four thousand lawsuits pending against the NFL. I’m pretty sure I read less than a year ago that it was two thousand, so there must be a serious band-wagon effect going on.
I did a rough calculation. Several hundred players are drafted each year. Assume about one hundred go on to have significant careers in the NFL, starting or having a lot of playing time for at least several years. If the average player dies in his early seventies, about fifty years after his pro career begins, that means very roughly there are about five thousand former and current NFL players alive. But current players, as well as recently retired ones say in their early 30s, would presumably not be suing the NFL.
So there are about four thousand former NFL players who might be of an age where medical problems begin to set in. If there are four thousand lawsuits, this means virtually everyone! Even allowing for serious errors in my assumptions—the number could be doubled or tripled if you include marginal players who saw very little action--the figure is obviously a very substantial proportion of former players.
The range of problems I am sure is very wide. At one end of the spectrum you have guys who can no longer take care of themselves, are homeless, etc.; at the other end you have guys who may have very minor problems, even some who are perhaps faking it just to get in on the gravy train. But there must be a large % in the middle who have a real case. I just don’t see how the NFL, as popular as it is, is going to survive this without enormous changes.
If Goodell and the owners don’t change the League’s rules fast enough to reduce concussions to a level comparable to that present in baseball and basketball—where concussions are very rare accidents—then the League will face a devastating reckoning. The tobacco and asbestos industries’ experiences show that, in the long run, if a commercial product causes widespread injuries among customers or workers, the manufacturer will pay—and government regulators may step in even before courtroom verdicts are fully calculated.
Coll himself seems to think the NFL will have to change to what practically amounts to touch football rules to survive:
But eliminating kickoffs and encouraging players to tackle lower, avoiding each other’s heads—measures Goodell has started to implement or has hinted that he might take up—are not going to get it done. As in rugby, N.F.L. tackling will have to evolve among players into an act of mutual, subtly agreed stoppage in play, when one player gets his arms adequately around another—not the act of all-out assault by one player against another that it is now.
Sounds like the “in the grasp” rule that was instituted a while back to protect QBs. Good luck with that. I'm sure Adrian Peterson will say to some LB, yeah, you got me wrapped up, so I will stop right here. Can’t wait to see the response of James Harrison to this proposal.
Edit: There have been a little more than 19,000 players drafted by the NFL since 1955, which I’m guessing is about the year at which 50% of players drafted would still be alive. About 2500 have been drafted since 2003, and I assume very few of these would be involved in current suits, either because they are still active or because they are at an age when they have not yet experienced symptoms. So a rough estimate is that there are about 17,000 former NFL players who might be old enough (> 30) to be retired and experiencing symptoms. Many of these I’m sure never actually played in the NFL, and many more played very little. But even using this number, almost 25% of them are currently suing the NFL. And that number is growing very fast. Less than two years ago, when I believe these lawsuits were initiated, the number was only 75.
Edit: My preseason predictions:
NFC:
Bears would win the North (wrong, but if Cutler hadn’t gone down for a couple of games, they might have; still can make the playoffs)
Atlanta would win the South, and the Saints would struggle to be second (right on both counts)
Eagles would go to the SB (what was I thinking? But after two or three games I was on the Falcon band-wagon)
Niners would win the West easily (pretty much right, all they have to do is beat Arizona)
AFC:
Ravens might not win the North (they have, but have struggled)
Chargers would win the West (never underestimate the power of Norv to get the leastest from the mostest)
Houston would go to the SB (No longer favorites for that, but I’m sticking to my prediction that they will get to the AFC title game)
Didn’t pick a winner in the East, because like everyone else I assumed it was obvious the Pats would take it. Year in, year out, is there a safer prediction in the NFL?
Didn’t predict much in the way of individual performances, except that Luck would not suck. His numbers don’t look good, but the consensus everywhere outside of Foxxy-Foxxy land is that he’s had a really good year. Has to be doing something right to get this team to the playoffs. At least one sportswriter thinks he was snubbed for the Pro Bowl, that he should have been taken over Schaub.
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