National Friday League, Week Four

Two Updates Below

BYE WEEK! When the Vikes don't play on Sunday afternoons, you can allow yourself to be dragged away to other things. The Vikes play a lot of night games this season anyway, so it's not that weird. Still. BYE WEEK!

Intriguing Matchups
Week Four Schedule

Ravens-Steelers.

That Steeler defense is breathtaking. I know I sound like that doctor on Seinfeld that refers to both Elaine and the “some snuggly baby” as “breathtaking." Let's all work together to totally devalue the word "breathtaking." But really, the Steeler defense is awesome, and I think there are only a handful of offenses that will be capable of scoring multiple TDs on them this year.

Patriots-Dolphins.

Interesting matchup containing major fantasy starters (Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Brandon Marshall for sure, Ronnie Brown, Patriot Kicker probably, Aaron Hernandez, Patriot Kicker, Dolphin Defense maybe). Offenses that are anything but boring. Nice Monday night game.

Bears-Giants.

When the Vikes play Julius Peppers, the man terrifies me. He’s capable of total domination during a game. He deserves a lot of credit for the Bears’ win over the Packers Monday night, and he’s arguably the Bears’ best player. Well, every Bear is "arguably" the Bears' best player. You could have an argument, anyway. How about I just say Peppers is the Bears' best player.

Colts-Jaguars.

I have the feeling that this season, like last season, if Peyton Manning thought it was important to throw for 5,000 yards, he'd throw for 5,000 yards.

Seahawks-Rams.

When a division appears awful, I like to see one team at least get to nine wins to make the whole thing seem less of a joke. This year, it appears Seattle has the best shot to get to nine.

Irrational Viking Fan
If the Vikings win the Super Bowl, I think I’ll be able to let go of the sports-hate. It’s all I really want (I’d take a T-Wolves title, but that’s like saying I’d take the ability to fly). And if I get that, I truly think I could stop loathing the Green Bay Packers. I mean, I despise the Packers in a deep, entirely irrational way. I hate them like crazy. And I really believe that if the Vikings win the title, I’ll mellow out and stop. I don’t want to waste so much negative energy on sports-hate. Granted, it makes games more exciting to watch than sports indifference.

Sometimes I think about things.
Since the Minnesota Vikings last made the Super Bowl (the 1976 season), the only other NFC team not to make it to the Super Bowl was the Detroit Lions. Do you want to get sillier? Since as recently as the 1991 season, 14 out of 16 teams have won the NFC. Only the woeful Lions and our beloved Vikings haven’t. Think. On. That.

Packers-Bears Monday Thoughts
If the Vikings ever relocate, if I decide not to stop watching football, I’ll probably adopt the Bears as my team. Why not? What else do I have going on? I might as well root for the Packers’ rival. I only hate the Bears when they’re able to affect the Vikings (in games or in division races).

During the game, I kept referring to the goddam Packers. My wife says this makes me sound 10% crotchetier, that I add 30 years to my age just by saying goddam. This is your vision of the future, I say: watching the Packers play the Bears and cursing out the detestable Packers. No, she says, it’s like looking at the present.

The Packers’ propensity for penalties is not just about lack of discipline; I think it’s a result of their serious weaknesses. The offensive line struggles in pass protection—and they end up with a game featuring holding calls, false starts, etc. There are some real weak links in the secondary—and they end up with a game featuring a lot of pass interference calls. The Packers are a good team because they have a good defensive front seven and a great passing attack. But those weaknesses are on display when they play a competent opponent.

If I had to cheer for Jay Cutler on a regular basis, I’m fairly certain I would a) have a nervous breakdown and b) hate him. The Chicago offensive line is pretty terrible: Cutler rarely seems to even have a pocket, merely an area to scramble around. It’s pretty amazing seeing him have to begin scrambling about within two seconds of the snap, and he's pretty good at it. But as far as I can tell, Cutler is just as likely to throw footballs directly at opposing defenders when he has time in the pocket as he is when he’s on the run. And he’s extremely likely to throw footballs directly at opposing defenders.

In defense of Jim Mora acting like an asshole

"How should they feel" is a really stupid question.

If' somebody asked me, "How should Jim Mora feel about being asked to declare what internal emotions are right and proper for people experiencing something he didn't experience and isn't directly involved with?" I'd say "I don't know: irritated?"

(PFT, The Big Lead)

Basketball Box
I wish Larry David would buy a pro basketball team; I would just adopt that team as my favorite team. He’s exceedingly rich, right? If he buys a team, I’ll just say, “Whoop. This is now my favorite team. Everybody else can suck it: I’m rooting for Larry David’s team.” He and Jerry Seinfeld should team up and buy a team.

Fantasy Box: evolving your roster during the season
I think there is one critical question to ask concerning in-season roster moves: at what point do you consider this season’s stats as the primary criterion for evaluation, diminishing the significance of previous seasons’ performances and off-season expectations?

Even lousy players will have a few good games a year—and some lousy players will have their few good games early in the year. And sometimes good players have lousy games early in the year. You have to be able to sniff out individual situations: last season it took me one week to realize the Rams were going to stink and I didn’t want Steven Jackson (I traded him for Peyton Manning before week two). But you also need avoid overreacting to one or two bad games.

This week, I completed a massive ten player trade: essentially, I downgraded from Frank Gore to DeAngelo Williams (and Jonathan Stewart) in order to improve my #2 RB, #3 WR, and TE (all problems for me). If I evaluated the trade primarily on the performances of week one, two, and three, I just suffered a terribly downgrade. However, I know what DeAngelo Williams has done in the past, and I think his first three weeks aren’t indicative of the player he is or the year he’ll have. And I know what Gore has done in the past: he’s spectacular and will perform very well, but the terrible 49ers will struggle frequently and everything he does will feel really, really difficult. So I made the move.

After three weeks, I’m still using pre-season perspective to mitigate analysis of in-season performances. After, say, six weeks, I don’t think I would anymore. We'll see whether in this case, the "Yeah, but last year" approach is better than this "Only this year" approach after three weeks.

Weekend

Have a good weekend, everybody. Except Packer and Bear fans.

Addendum (Baseball Box)

Are the Twins under the impression that when they got public money for their open air stadium, they were also granted rights to the public open air? Do they think that anything that can be viewed by people inside their corporate-named stadium should not be tainted by outsiders? The Twins aren't entitled to everything that can be seen from their #!&%ing building. You know, you wouldn't be able to see signs on the Target Center from inside the goddam Metrodome. Give up the sense of entitlement, and concentrate on not getting your ass kicked by the Yankees again.

(MPR, MinnPost).

Addendum 2

Bill Simmons today on Michael Vick and dogfighting, with some self-awareness:

"But dogfighting isn't much more abhorrent than some of the other ways we abuse animals. Ever watch what happens when a deer gets shot by a hunter but doesn't die right away? Ever watch a group of turkeys get slaughtered for Thanksgiving? Ever watch how a mink coat gets made? Ever research what happens to greyhounds once they stop racing? Hell, I plowed through a veal chop at dinner a few weeks ago. It was delicious. Does that mean I condone the creepy veal industry? Implicitly, yeah, it kinda does. Why didn't it bother me as I was putting salt on my chop and oooohing and ahhhhing about how tender the meat was? I don't know. I wish I knew. More of us are hypocrites about this stuff than we realize."

and

"Not everyone likes dogs or sees them as companions, guardians or family members. I have friends who regard dogs warily and act rattled around them. Certain religions believe dogs are unclean. (I once lived in a West Hollywood neighborhood heavy with Hasidic and Orthodox Jews, some of whom could barely conceal their disgust with the Dooze. A few even hissed at her. This drove my wife crazy, but hey, dogs mean different things to different people.)"

National Friday League (week 10)

This week featuring nudity

Vikings-Lions Preview
Do you want to know more about why the Vikings should crush the Lions out of Thunderdome?

According to Football Outsiders’ DVOA ratings, the Lions are the worst team in the league, with the 30th ranked offense, 30th ranked defense, and 29th ranked special teams.

According to Advanced NFL Stats’ Efficiency Rating, they aren’t that bad: they are #31 (Bryan Burke of Advanced NFL Stats also posts at the New York Times that the Vikes have a 92% probability of winning).

Don’t like metrics and prefer simpler numbers? The 2009 Lions are 1-7, rank 26th in points scored, 31st in points allowed, and 29th in point differential. They rank 25th in offensive yards, and 26th in defensive yards allowed. They appear to me equally bad at stopping the run or stopping the pass (#28 in net yards per pass attempt allowed, #28 in rush yards per attempt allowed).

If you want to get more specific, the Lions also starting a rookie quarterback that has thrown interceptions on 5.6% of his pass attempts and been sacked on 6.1% of his dropbacks. Roughly speaking, the Lions should expect disaster once every 9-10 times Stafford drops back. If they try play it safe and run, they can hand it to Kevin Smith, their leader in rushing yards that averages 3.3 yards per attempt.

I really went into this trying to justify why I wasn’t going to write up a preview of the Viking-Lion game. It seems that in doing so, I’ve written up a preview of the Viking-Lion game. I expect the offense, defense, and special teams to put on a Thunderdome show (I have a weird feeling that Bernard Berrian is going to have like a million yards on Sunday). But we’re Viking fans, so perhaps we shouldn’t be too confident: the Lions put the fear of the Olympian gods into us last year at the Metrodome.

Other Games of Interest
Week 10

When the season reaches its second half, any games featuring teams .500 or better are interesting. This week, each such game is also a wicked busy fantasy matchup.

Bengals-Steelers. a matchup between 6-2 division opponents.

Eagles-Chargers. an inter-conference game between 5-3 teams with loads of talent and a tendency to underachieve and/or blow close games.

Cowboys-Packers. when you think about it, "going for the jugular" is a surprisingly violent metaphor involving biting into a living neck and tearing until the victim bleeds out.

Patriots-Colts. Sure fantasy starters include Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, and Stephen Gostkowski. Possible fantasy starters include Joseph Addai, Laurence Maroney, the Patriot Defense, the Colt Defense, and whatever the name of the current Colt kicker is. Fringe starters might include Austin Collie or Ben Watson. That's really what I want out of a night game: loads of fantasy interest.

Tony Gonzalez


Always nice to find fellow travelers. See more on Tony Gonzalez at PETA here and here.

In other PETA/football news, PETA ranks the Metrodome #7 among NFL stadiums for offering vegetarian food options. I'm always able to eat heartily at the Dome. I eat the veggie burger rather as a formality: I figure it exists primarily for me.

Basketball: like football but for liberals. I don't know what that means but it feels sort of true.
I won tickets to most of the Wolves' games this season. This week I watched the Blazers run an alley-oop offense. Drive and dish: dunk. Throw the ball up: dunk. If you like to watch players dunk, watch teams play the Wolves.

I do find it relaxing at the Target Center: basketball is a great game to watch live, and the Wolves are so dreadful there's no emotional investment involved. I brought a book to read during timeouts (John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, which I teach for the first time this week), and frankly, it's as easy to concentrate in the Target Center as at a library.

Friday night: the Mavericks.

Free advertising on a little-read niche blog
Glee is freaking fantastic. You should watch it.

This has been free advertising on a little-read niche blog. But if Ryan Murphy sends me a Lea Michele poster, I wouldn't turn it down.

Links
Percy Harvin (Pioneer Press).

The Vikings-Bears game on Nov. 29th is moved to 3:15 (Vikings.com). I welcome this news, as it allows me to both manage Sunday's return-home-from-Thanksgiving drive at a time with little traffic, while still getting to watch the entire game. I don't know if it does anything for you.

Peter King's midseason All-Pro Team includes Jared Allen, Kevin Williams, and Percy Harvin (Sports Illustrated).

Weekend
Have a good weekend everybody. Except Packer and Lion fans.

Peter Singer on Michael Vick

Daniel Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer talks to Peter Singer about Michael Vick, treatment of animals, apologies and redemption (via the NY Times).

On the Amorality of Games

A response to George Dohrmann regarding Michael Vick, after reading this and this column.

A “game” is a fairly amoral activity. A game operates according to its own internal rules, and it may even have its own internal values. However, “ethics” as they exist in the world outside the game have no bearing on the game itself.

My wife almost always beats me at Bananagrams; she’s very good at it. Now let’s imagine my wife’s favorite hobby is to walk down the street kicking strangers in the shins. It’s an immoral and illegal activity, but she does it anyway. In this hypothetical world where my wife is a monster, let’s say she still beats me at Bananagrams. Does her shin-kicking hobby have any relevance during the game? Of course not. Her only goal is to win the game. When she beats me, should I shout “Ah, you may have beat me at this game, but it’s tainted, because you go around kicking strangers in the shins!” I could, but that would be silly: I just got beat at a game with its own internal rules that have nothing at all to do with shin-kicking. She may be a bad person because of her predilection for shin-kicking, but that in no way would taint her dominance at Bananagrams. Perhaps my wife’s imaginary shin-kicking behavior would make me decide I don’t want to play this game with her anymore. I suppose I could allow external ethics into my decision-making about whom I’m willing to play a game with. But if she’s an outstanding Bananagrams player, then within the arbitrary rules of the game itself, she's going to win.

And I think the same thing about the Eagles signing Michael Vick. The Philadelphia Eagles football team has as its primary goal winning as many football games as it can, including the Super Bowl (this is slightly different from the primary goal of the Philadelphia Eagles organization, which has as its primary goal making money). To achieve that goal, the Eagles should do whatever they can to win games. One major part of winning games is to acquire the best players you possibly can. External ethics have little or nothing to do with winning football games.

Frankly, I’d be upset if my favorite team said “We think signing Player X would help us in our goal of winning the Super Bowl, but we’re not going to sign Player X because his off-the-field behavior over two years ago is just too appalling. He doesn’t deserve the opportunity to play football.” A football team’s job isn’t to be a moral arbiter; a football team’s job is to win football games. I don't cheer for a sports team for it to reinforce my values. I cheer for a sports team to see it win games, and if it isn't doing everything it can within the internal rules of the game and league to win games, I should be angry. It is not that as a “celebrity” Vick is being given “preferential treatment;” it is that as an athlete with special talents, Vick has an ability that a team wants to use, regardless of his off-the-field behavior of two years ago.

(Though I can admit there is a limit; I can imagine behaviors that, if players on a team engaged in them, I would find it impossible to root for that team. Perhaps as a vegetarian animal rights advocate, I'm just a little too cynical on this issue: because in our society countless animals are killed for all sorts of human pleasure and entertainment, I'm less appalled by this particular abuse of animals than some are. Perhaps my argument that players' morality shouldn't matter to a team or its fans is flawed; perhaps I'm really continuing to question whether the degree of outrage over Vick's dog fighting activities is disproportionate in a society where killing animals for the pleasure of eating them is taken for granted as morally acceptable. But that's just the sort of neurotic, self-doubting metawriter I am, willing to insert a paragraph long parenthetical that undermines the thrust of my argument with an entirely different line of thought. C'est la blog).

Let’s spin it around. If a team has an obligation not to sign a player because of his bad external ethics, does it have an obligation to sign a player because of his good external ethics? Let’s look at a player by the name of Jim-Bob Suckass. Jim-Bob Suckass is practically a saint. He gets up early in the morning to work at a soup kitchen. He leaves the soup kitchen and on his way to his job working for a non-profit environmental protection organization, he stops to donate blood. He donates 10% of his annual salary to cancer research, and uses his two weeks of vacation a year to visit developing nations for missionary work. But as a football player, Jim-Bob Suckass, well, sucks ass. He is terrible at every possible position; the team would actually be better off playing 10 against 11 than having Jim-Bob on the field. He’s no good at all. As the Eagles attempt to build their best roster possible to win football games, how much consideration should they give to Jim-Bob’s sterling behavior and pristine ethical existence? I would say absolutely zero.

Now, if you want to say that ethics external to a game are far more important than winning the game itself, I would agree with you. Of course how people behave toward their fellow creatures is far, far more important than whether they can succeed at an amoral game with its own internal rules. But a football team is neither a philosopher or, frankly, a moral agent. A football team is one competitor within a game, playing according to its defined rules, using its physical and mental abilities to beat an opponent.

I do not take cruelty to animals lightly. In fact, I am a vegetarian and a member of PETA; I even have a cruelty-free bug catcher because I wish to avoid killing even insects. I would say that my ethical values of pacifism and vegetarianism play a strong daily role in my life and behavior (perhaps Mr. Dohrmann is a fellow animal rights activist? He writes that he owns dogs, but all that tells me is that he has an emotional attachment to dogs in particular, not that he believes it is wrong for human beings to kill animals for our own pleasure). But when I watch a football game, I’m not overly concerned about whether the players on the field share my ethical values. It doesn’t even matter terribly to me whether the players on the field are good people or not. I’m watching a spectacle to see great athletes compete hard in a game. I’m rooting for my favorite team to outperform an opponent on the field to win the game.

The desire for a human being’s redemption may be secondary, but it does not mean it is insincere. Certainly the Eagles care more about whether Michael Vick can help them on the football field than whether he redeems himself (as I’ve suggested throughout this post, they should). But that doesn’t mean the chance of redemption isn’t real, or that any desire to see Vick make his life positive is phony (alas, perhaps my religious and literary sensibilities draw me too strongly to the hope of an individual’s redemptive transformation. I’d recommend Dostoevsky and Hugo on the subject). While the Eagles signed Vick to win football games, I don’t suspect them of being insincere in hoping for the best for Vick personally. But Dohrmann, who writes of Vick “I wish him all the best in life”? After everything else in Dohrmann’s columns, that certainly sounds insincere to me.

National February League

I took notes during the game.  When I saw something that struck me, I wrote it down.  The letters "S. Holmes" appear in a circle six times.  He's an extremely good player, and perhaps his best catch got negated by the holding call in the end zone.  I'm also happy he won Super Bowl MVP, because I have a football card of every Super Bowl MVP, and alas, I don't have a James Harrison card.

Kurt Warner has three playoff losses.  In each of them, he led a team to a pretty impressive late comeback, but the team still failed to win.  And I suppose that's the problem about crediting these comebacks and team wins to quarterbacks.  In the 2000 playoffs, the Rams were down 31-7 to the Saints, got back within three, but then the Ram punt returner fumbled away a last chance.  In the 2001 Super Bowl, the Rams were down 17-3, tied the game with under two minutes left, but then the Pats ignored John Madden's advice (who is gutless on coaching decisions--of course he fully supported Mike Tomlin's bad decision to kick a field goal on 4th and goal at the one on the opening drive) and drove for a win.  And tonight, the Cardinals were down 20-7, and Warner/Fitzgerald led a comeback, before Roethlisberger/Holmes came back.

John Madden certainly fetishized Larry Fitzgerald's big, strong hands.  How many times did he refer to Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin as big and strong, and their hands specifically?  I mean, actually with the words "big" and "strong" and "hands"?  Really, "fetishized" isn't too strong a word, is it?

Pittsburgh's victory also gives further challenge to CHFF's suggestion that realignment has caused a mess of the playoff, leading to historically anomalous champions.  If we look at the last four Super Bowl winners, we see a team in the midst of making the playoffs in six of eight years and winning two Super Bowls, a team in the midst of winning 12+ games in six consecutive seasons, a team in the midst of making the playoffs four consecutive years, and a team in the midst of making the playoffs in six of eight years and winning two Super Bowls.  The Super Bowls this decade have been won by perpetual contenders.

In Don DeLillo's White Noise, there is a barn that is the most photographed barn in America.  This reputation leads more and more people to go take photographs of the barn, creating a self-perpetuating institution.  Ladies and gentleman, Super Bowl commercials.

Larry Fitzgerald's playoff run: 6-101-1, 8-166-1, 9-152-3,  7-127-2.  When he was running for that last blazing touchdown, I thought I was seeing Jerry Rice.

An extremely high percentage of Super Bowl commercials featured animals of some sort.  I have theories on the appeal of seeing happy, funny animals in the context of consumerism and consumption.  Mostly I think they provide comfort: by seeing animals as either happy and contented creatures, or as comical and silly figures, people can feel mildly comforted about consuming them.  My wife suggests perhaps training the animals is timely and expensive, and that Super Bowl ads have bigger budgets that can afford to make the splash.  But a lot of animals were CGI, and animals appear in a lot of commercial contexts away from the Super Bowl, too.  Suicide Food examines advertising featuring animals that want to be eaten, or that are eating their own food product, and suggests there is thematic comfort in such images.  I think perhaps the animals don't need to be suicidal to provide that comfort--happy animals mean we don't have to feel bad for exploiting them (they're happy, after all), and funny animals suggest they're hardly worth any dignity anyway (they're just ridiculous and silly, after all).

Are we all recovered from Bruce Springsteen's crotch hitting us in the face?

Earlier I suggested the rest of the season is more fun than Super Bowl Sunday.  But there is something intensely dramatic about the final minutes of a close Super Bowl game.  We often see plays in the final minutes determining the outcome of a game.  But in this case, we're seeing the plays in the final minutes determining the world champion.  Historical legacies are being formed directly in front of us.  It's thrilling.

Here are the future Hall of Famers I think we saw playing in the Super Bowl: Larry Fitzgerald (early, but he's a stud and his playoff dominance enhances his reputation), Ben Roethlisberger (a QB with two championships, he can basically be solid for the rest of his career to build a HOF resume, and he plays on a great defensive team that is regularly contending), Troy Polamalu (a superb player anyway, but being a great player for two championship teams helps his case), and Kurt Warner (I'm sold).  Other possibilities are Anquan Boldin (he's got historical great receptions per game), Edgerrin James (outside shot, I don't think he'll make it), James Harrison or James Farrior (very good linebackers), or a very young player like Santonio Holmes.  I would also guess we haven't seen the last of Mike Tomlin, who joins Tony Dungy and Brian Billick as former Viking coordinators that won championships as head coaches of other franchises in the 00s.

I can't help but wonder if we'll ever actually see the Vikings win this game--given that I've never even seen the Vikings in this game, I'm reaching deeper and deeper into the despair.  I wonder what it would be like to have been born around Pittsburgh, where I'd just be used to cheering for an historically great franchise with Super Bowl wins.  My wife notes that Minneapolis-St. Paul is a cultured metropolis, renowned for its theater space and high readership.  But it's ass-freezing cold three months a year and our sports teams never win championships (just the Twins, the only two titles since the Lakers moved--none of our pro teams have even reached the championship round since '91).  Minnesotans, just think how much geography determines your entire outlook on sports.  We long for that elusive dream of a Viking championship; some people are born in places where they get to root for teams that regularly win championships.  And that's all luck, random hazard.

Commercial Life

My household is in love with DVR.  Pausing and rewinding television is now such an accepted part of our lives, we're confused and disrupted during the other parts of our life when we can't pause and rewind.

DVR has been wonderful for football season: reasonable family distractions from games aren't a problem at all.  But the Super Bowl will offer a new situation: we know we'll have to pause at points, but we want to watch the commercials, so when will we catch up?  We may see the conclusion of the Super Bowl late (though I think the Steelers will win by two or more touchdowns, so I don't expect to be waiting on fourth quarter drama).  I want to fast-forward through the half-time show, since I care about Bruce Springteen not at all.

For your amusement, go here to see and learn about the PETA commercial that was rejected from the Super Bowl.  And on the subject of vegetarians and Super Bowl half-time musical performers, go here to see Stephen Colbert's hilarious interview with Paul McCartney.

Let Michael Vick move on

PETA's continuing publicity grabs surrounding Michael Vick and dog-fighting embarrass me. If you care, you can read why here.

Overkill

Sports Illustrated's recent issue proclaims 2008 "Best Sports Year Ever."  Surely, then, the cover would feature one of 2008's exciting sports stories: highlights of the Olympics (Michael Phelps?  The U.S.A. Basketball team?), or maybe the Giants' Super Bowl upset of the Patriots, or maybe even a Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals.

Nope.

The cover photo and feature was about what's happened to Michael Vick's dogs.

The Michael Vick dog-fighting story was primarily a 2007 story, yet a December 2008 SI cover proclaiming 2008 the "Best Sports Year Ever" features Michael Vick's dogs.

I'm left with two reactions.  First, that sports coverage overkills the negative.  The SI story is supposed to be a positive story about how the dogs are doing well now, but it is another chance to talk about a very negative story (and how does it justify a cover?).

Second, the excessive coverage of the Michael Vick dogfighting story continues to appear to me as scapegoating.  I'm a freaking member of PETA, so I don't think I'm making light of dogfighting when I say this.  But in a society that mostly doesn't care how animals are treated, that continues to eat historically high amounts of meat, that calls killing animals by hunting "sport," the lengthy coverage of a very visible, public, and egregious mistreatment of animals seems to me a psychological distraction.

National Fun League, week 13

Let's crank it early, suckers!

Vikings-Bears Preview

THUNDERDOME! THUNDERDOME! THUNDERDOME!

MVP (QB or RB on a Playoff Team Award)
Peyton Manning
His case is getting stronger. Manning has probably had five seasons better than his 2008 season, but the context might make him MVP again. He keeps leading the Colts to close wins.

Clinton Portis

Portis is once again the league's leading rusher. The Zorns keep winning close games, and I don't actually think they're good. If they make the playoffs behind Portis, he's a legitimate, deserving MVP.

Kurt Warner

Warner is likely to throw for around 4,900 yards and 30 TDs for a team that wins 9-11 games. According to Football Outsiders' statistics, Warner is the #1 QB in the league (both DYAR and DVOA, through week 11). The question is: what do we hold against him? He plays in a terrible division (six of the Cards' games should be not only wins, but statistical jamborees), and he has incredible WRs to throw to (Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald are superb with any QB).

Eli Manning
The quarterback on a 10-1 team that has thrown 18 TDs is at least worth mentioning.

Adrian Peterson
It will take a strong finish, but if Kevin and Pat Williams get suspended, it will take a bunch of monster games from AP to drag this Viking team into the playoffs.

Brett Favre
The 2007 Jets were 4-12, but they added a lot more players than just Favre. Still, Favre is the QB completing 70.6% of his passes and throwing 20 TDs for an 8-3 division leader.

Tony Romo
If the Cowboys win out, watch out. The Cowboy offense was horrible without Romo not so much because Romo is great, but because the Cowboy backup QBs were reprehensibly bad. Still, Romo puts up great numbers, and if he ends up 11-2 as a starter, he could get votes if the rest of the field weakens.

Matt Ryan/Michael Turner

Not only were the 2007 Falcons 4-12, but they ranked 29th in points scored. Now they are 7-4, and Ryan and Turner are the biggest additions.

Drew Brees

The Saints are in 4th place in their own division; Brees is having a fantastic statistical season, but the Saints will have to win more games for him to win.

Week 13 Schedule

WHY THE FUCK DO THE LIONS NEED A GAME EVERY THANKSGIVING?

Please, NFL, take the Thanksgiving game away from Detroit. We look forward to football on Thanksgiving: why must we always watch the stupid Detroit Lions? Tradition? The Appeal to Antiquity is a logical fallacy: just because something has been done for a long time does not mean that either a.) it is good that it has been done or b.) that it should continue to be done.

If the Detroit Lions are going to be perpetually awful, why do they deserve to take up what could be an enjoyable football game? It's ridiculous. Take that home Thanksgiving game away from the stupid Lions. They suck.

If you really want to show the Lions on Sunday, if you think it that bloody important, why don't you put that game on your precious NFL Network?

Moving on, Sunday features three big division matchups: Saints @ Bucs, Giants @ Zorns, and Bears @ Vikings. All are important and should be good.

Randy Moss
As Bill Bellamy says in How To Be a Player, "I miss him." But not as much: when I see Randy Moss making plays, I think "elite WR that I enjoy," not "former Viking." Will I ever see Kevin Garnett as anything but a former Timberwolf? Doubtful.

Donovan McNabb: Benched
Watching David Garrard this past Sunday, I thought, "He's not that good, but if he were the Viking QB, we'd be 9-2 right now." So however Donovan McNabb may have struggled at times this season, he would be a 5X upgrade for the Vikings at quarterback. And given that a.) QB is the most difficult position to fill for a team, b.) it is the most important position on a team, and c.) it is the Vikings' biggest weakness, the Vikings have to think about pursuing McNabb this offseason. If not McNabb, whom? If Brad Childress would have any role in bringing McNabb to the Vikings, then that would be a good reason to keep Childress around (but I don't know if Childress would have that impact). It's not easy to get a good veteran quarterback in the offseason (though maybe that's old conventional wisdom, since QBs like Drew Brees, Chad Pennington, and Jeff Garcia were simply signed by their teams). But it's generally a terribly difficult position to fill.

PV: Growing Up

I hate missing Viking games; I'm constantly wary of events that will try to pull me away from one of the 16 transcendent experiences of the year. Last year I skipped a big family Christmas event to go to the Minnesota-Washington game (and I only regret it because the Vikings lost). But this year, that same Christmas event is set for the day of the Viking-Falcon game. This year I'm choosing family over football. It seems like the reasonable, adult thing to do.

Of course, that commercial with the Jet fan who made his wife agree never to make him miss a Jet game for any reason sort of inspires me. But then, do I want to be that guy? It's been fun, but there are more important things than the Vikings.

[Gritting teeth]

OK, you deserve a real Vikings-Bears preview

When I think about these two teams playing each other, I think THUNDERDOME! THUNDERDOME! THUNDERDOME! THUNDERDOME!

What else matters? Nothing. Nothing matters about a Vikings-Bears game but THUNDERDOME! THUNDERDOME! THUNDERDOME! The winner is sole leader of the NFC North! THUNDERDOME!

I'm only being a little bit silly (OK, I'm being a lot bit silly). I really expect the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome to win this game for the Vikings. No matter what happens or how, the Vikings and Bears share a matching record, and that's where Thunderdome must give the edge to the Vikes. Oh, beloved Dome.

We should probably be thrilled right now. The Vikings play a home game on Sunday, and if they win it, they are in sole possession of first place in the NFC North.

The Packer Defense

Bill Barnwell of Football Outsiders (on ESPN) writes about defensive touchdowns:

"There is a very weak correlation of 0.09 between a team's defensive touchdowns in the first 10 games and in the final six. In other words, just because the Packers have shown a proclivity for taking returns to the house doesn't mean they're going to continue to do so."

Barnwell goes on to point out that "The issue that should really worry Packer fans is what that means for next year's performance."

Pat Reusse and the Vikings' long-term prospects
In a recent column, Pat Reusse points out that the Vikings have built their lineup more by acquiring expensive veterans than through the draft. He compares the Vikes to the Packers, noting that

"The Vikings' 53-player roster includes 13 selections from the 2006 through 2008 drafts. The Packers, the future competition in this division, have 23 such players on their roster."

His conclusion:

"What we have here in this border rivalry is one team built on splash and the other being built for the long-term, and Zygi has the former."

But look at the Viking roster at some of the veterans the Vikes have acquired outside the draft the last few years. Jared Allen is 26. Bernard Berrian is 27. Madieu Williams is 27. Steve Hutchinson is 31. Ben Leber is 29. Visanthe Shiancoe is 28. Those players should be starters for the team at least another three years (Allen, Berrian, and Williams significantly longer). How far beyond three years can you actually plan? Or put another way, how many starters on a typical NFL roster do you expect to still be starting for that team in four years? If you've got a nucleus of good players that you can keep together, and you draft well, you can compete.

When you further consider that Kevin Williams, the Vikes' best defensive player, and Adrian Peterson, the Vikes' best offensive player, are 28 and 23 years old, there's no reason to think the Vikings don't have a long-term nucleus to compete. Certainly, they'll have to continually supplement that nucleus through the draft and free agency as time goes by. All teams do.

But the Packers do have one thing that positions them to better compete long-term than the Vikings: a quarterback. Aaron Rodgers is, at the very least, a decent young QB. If the Vikings do want to compete long-term, then they're going to have to find a good QB. They're not going to be perennial NFC North contenders when they keep filling the roster with the likes of Brad Johnson, Tarvaris Jackson, Kelly Holcomb, Brooks Bollinger, or Gus Frerotte.

In which animal rights advocate PV reopens the door on talking about Michael Vick, possibly offending readers, thus warning them with an excessively long subtitle so they can skip this section if they want.
Now, I'm no big-city lawyer (gasp!), but it's odd to me that, in essence, a person can face charges in federal court for conspiracy to commit a crime, and then face charges in state court for the crime itself. But I don't want to focus on the nuances of the law; November offers us a few comparisons, so I want to look at a broader point.

According to the Santa Barbara Independent, "Every year 50 million turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving dinners across the nation." Americans will celebrate family and thankfulness by eating dead birds. But Michael Vick is a criminal.

November is deer hunting hunting season in Minnesota. According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, "Each year, approximately 500,000 hunters harvest roughly 200,000 deer." These deer are killed for "sport" (it is only relevant that the hunters also eat the deer if you think Michael Vick should have eaten the dogs that were killed). But Michael Vick is a criminal.

The U.S. Navy conducts exercises with sonar "that can disrupt or injure marine mammals nearby." The Supreme Court affirmed that they should continue to do this without any real precautions; said Chief Justice John Roberst, "“We do not discount the importance of plaintiffs’ ecological, scientific, and recreational interests in marine mammals [...] Those interests, however, are plainly outweighed by the Navy’s need to conduct realistic training exercises to ensure that it is able to neutralize the threat posed by enemy submarines” (Christian Science Monitor). Training for killing is more important than endangered sea animals. But Michael Vick is a criminal.

Maybe you see a significant difference between making dogs fight to the death and killing turkeys for food, hunting deer, or training for military engagements despite the effect on sea animals. And that's fair: most people do see big differences, and even I recognize those differences. But my point is American society has a mostly terrible relationship to animals. We dismiss the lives of animals for all sorts of reasons. We prioritize other needs and wants over the lives of animals. Millions of animals are slaughtered for food. Millions of animals are used in scientific research. Animals are used for human entertainment, as in the case of circuses or rodeos.

But we can be more specific than that. Killing animals for sport is sometimes criminal (as in the case of dog fighting). But killing animals for sport is sometimes legal, popular, accepted, even celebrated (as in the case of deer hunting). The differences in attitude about these activities is largely cultural (subjective love of dogs over other types of animals, hunting as a traditional activity); both involve killing animals for enjoyment, most people just see them differently. But while culture can make us moralize, we also have to remember culture is often irrational and always transient.

Link (singular)
The Viking passing game (Star Tribune).

Enjoy Thanksgiving, people.

Linky Blizzard

The Starting Five asks if Brett Favre is really better than Warren Moon. For the record, I don't think Moon is nearly as good as Favre (and I certainly like Moon better--he had a good couple of years for my beloved Purple). But the point is valid: because of racism, Moon's first six years of pro football were spent in the CFL. If it weren't for this racism, what NFL records would Moon hold? How differently would we regard him? In recent years, Favre has been praised for overcoming the sorts of things that people commonly struggle to overcome, such as death and illness in the family. That sort of universal suffering should not be diminished, but there's something odd about so much praise on one person for dealing with it. But who really overcame more in his career? Moon had to go excel in Canada before he had a chance to be an NFL starting quarterback because of racism--now he's a Hall of Famer.

Via PFT, Kent Somers questions Larry Fitzgerald's commitment to winning--because he'd rather not give up the money that he has earned by his performance and that his team has agreed to pay him in a contract they gave him. If The Arizona Republic has to fire some reporters, I'll question Somers' commitment to working for a good newspaper if he doesn't restructure his contract to take less money. OK, there is some selfishness involved when an employee puts himself above his fellow employees (I once heard a story of a high school teacher that, during contract negotiations, preferred younger teachers be fired than see his wages frozen at all). But the Cardinals gave Fitzgerald a huge contract based on incentives that he met. If he hadn't met those incentives, he wouldn't be entitled to the money, and if he was really bad, he might be cut.

MJD writes about Warren Sapp's retirement. In the mid and late 90s, Sapp was a dominant defensive tackle, a player I really feared.

53 Deep discusses the Vikings' team needs for the draft. I'm now all about defensive line depth in the draft, and I also think the team should trade for some reasonable backup quarterback (Sage Rosenfels? J.P. Losman? Somebody reasonable).

When I saw the Yahoo headline and blurb about a golfer charged for killing a hawk with a golf shot, I thought it was remarkably stupid. They're really going to charge a golfer for hitting a bird with a shot? I assumed that it was an accident. No, he purposely and repeatedly tried to hit the bird with golf ball because it was noisy. A stupid quote, though, from a Humane Society executive: "Americans have no tolerance for cruelty to animals." Well, no, except for all the animal cruelty that people don't call animal cruelty and thus still participate in. The golfer should have just waited until hunting season, used a gun, and killed a different type of bird. Our laws and morals about treatment of animals are a mess of inconsistency.

Addendum
At Epic Carnival, wwtb? explains why Brett Favre's career interception record will never be broken.

Addendum #2
At Fanhouse, TAN has some interesting insights about Favre and changing media treatment of players. But here's a rule: whenever a Fanhouse post touches on race at all, absolutely do not read the comments section. You'll just get sick.

Tony Gonzalez's Diet

There's an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal about vegan and vegetarian diets for athletes. The article doesn't suggest anything conclusive, though:

"There's no evidence a vegan diet can improve an athlete's performance, says David Nieman, a professor of health and exercise at Appalachian State University. His 1988 study of vegetarian runners found they ran as well as their meat-eating rivals but no better. Although the vegetarian athletes in his study also ate eggs and dairy foods, he says, 'there is scientific evidence that veganism, when done right, won't hurt performance.' But, he adds, there is only anecdotal evidence that it can help."

The article focuses primarily on the health impact, though notes that mixed martial arts fighter (or should it be mixed martial artist?) Mac Danzig became a vegan for animal rights reasons.

Rodeo: on Michael Vick and Dog Fighting

Last night in my comp class, we discussed ideas/concepts that our society doesn't deem worthy of debate: we simply say they are wrong. I asked the class to come up with examples, which included many of the expected examples (e.g., child abuse). We then discuss each example further to explore whether, why, or how our society deems it beyond debate.

A student mentioned dog fighting. In discussion, I noted that while most of us agree that animal cruelty is always wrong, we certainly aren't in agreement on what constitutes animal cruelty. Another student brought up rodeos, which brought some defensiveness from other students.

But it's true, I noted: there are people (myself included) who believe rodeos are wrong, and are a form of animal cruelty. I made a flip statement that, on reflection, is perhaps not so flip: "One person's rodeo is another person's dogfight." Indeed, while there are differences between a rodeo and a dogfight (as far as I know, the animals in a rodeo are not required to participate in activities that lead to their imminent deaths), a rodeo and dogfight do fit in the same schema:

Animals are made to suffer in a contest for the sake of human entertainment.

This statement of course includes dogfights, and it includes rodeos too. Rodeos involve animals suffering for the sake of human entertainment. And yet rodeos are an acceptable and legal activity that many people openly participate in and enjoy.

And so we come to a summation on the Michael Vick dog fighting story, perhaps our last comment on the issue. I believe dog fighting is wrong, and that participation in dog fighting is unethical; dog fighting involves torturing animals for the sake of human entertainment. I've never defended Michael Vick's actions. But I haven't been able to freely join in the outrage over dog fighting, either; in a society that accepts and condones so many forms of animal cruelty, I've been slightly vexed by the outrage over one particular form. As an animal rights advocate, I'm both firmly opposed to dog fighting, and vexed over the public reaction to dog fighting.

Terrell Owens is right

Terrell Owens is the latest person to compare dog fighting to deer hunting (Fanhouse). Naturally, such comparisons upset people. Let me contribute:

Deer hunting and dog fighting are not that different.

Please, don't tell me about the difference between killing animals for food and killing animals for entertainment. T.O. is talking specifically about "sport" hunters that hang dead animal heads on their walls; clearly there is something going on in hunting besides acquiring food for sustenance. Besides, would you no longer find Michael Vick's actions immoral if it was discovered he ate the dead dogs after fights/killings?

And don't tell me about the difference between dogs and deer. There is an emotional difference between dogs and deer, not a rational or moral one. Can you give me a sound, logical argument for why dogs and deer should be treated as morally different entities, logical arguments that don't rely on tradition and sentiment? There are moral realities beyond emotional reactions.

I suppose we could examine the psychological appeals of dog fighting and deer hunting: the connection to death and killing, the escape from the civilized world, the rawness of nature and beast. There might be some of the same deep-rooted urges driving people to both activities. They might be some of the same urges that also drive people to war (see William Broyles Jr.'s "Why Men Love War," where he says "one of the most troubling reasons men love war is the love of destruction, the thrill of killing." But don't rely on this quote: go read the entire article).

Don't react because social convention (or personal defensiveness) tells you that dog fighting is fundamentally different from deer hunting, in such a way that one activity is immoral and the other is moral, in such a way that one activity should be illegal and the other legal. Tell me why these activities are fundamentally different.

Michael Vick: lessons in ethics and religion

I keep saying I'm done talking about Vick, and I keep coming back with more to say. Sorry--sometimes I feel compelled.

Like many stories that emerge from the world of sports, the Michael Vick dog fighting story gives us a chance to explore a bit of moral philosophy. These are meager attempts at such exploration.

Where do we get our morality?

I've come to understand the great and probably disproportional outrage against Michael Vick for dog fighting.

For most people, their sense of morality is tied to their stomachs. They react viscerally, and judge the degree of sin/crime according to this visceral reaction.

Part of this is novelty. There are a lot of bad behaviors out there. Driving while drunk is irresponsible and life-threatening, but we're essentially immune to hearing about it. It happens all the time; when a celebrity is caught driving drunk, there is usually moderate condemnation, but acceptance that it has merely happened again. So, too, domestic violence is a very bad thing. But we've heard many allegations involving athletes and domestic violence, and many of these allegations do not lead to criminal prosecution. So we hear about it, we may judge the athlete, but essentially, we're used to it and we move on. I've compared dog fighting to other forms of animal cruelty that are accepted in our society, but the thing is, those are the forms of animal cruelty that are accepted in society. They no longer give people a visceral reaction.

And part of it is the nature of the brutality. People are hearing stories about rape stands, dogs being forced to fight each other to the death, dogs being drowned, hanged, and electrocuted. We get very concrete images--images that lead to physical revulsion for many.

I've shared this story before: I ask my students if they would eat hamburgers if they knew the meat was made out of a dog. Many respond with looks of disgust and revulsion. Rationally, they should not be appalled: there's really not a rational moral difference between a dog and a cow. Emotionally, of course, there is a big difference for most people.

Our morality should not be tied to our stomachs. We should have a sense of right and wrong (and a sense of degree of wrong) that is not connected to how we react viscerally. A lot of very deep evils in our world and society don't come with these concrete images, and they don't involve a form of violence that forces physical disgust on us. Our morality should be tied to something different.

Oh, I believe dog fighting is wrong. I just don't have physical revulsion to stories of dog fighting. These two statements are not mutually exclusive.

"Until seventy times seven"

Allow me to go in another direction here and explore part of this story from the perspective of Christianity. I'm not doing so to proselytize, but simply to explore the issue from another perspective, perhaps a useful perspective.

Michael Vick has apologized for his actions, asking for forgiveness (Fanhouse).

We're cynical about public apologies in our society. We suspect many celebrity apologies to be insincere and self-serving, more for publicity than sincere repentance.

But from a Christian perspective, is this the correct reaction?

I'll say first of all that I am not in a position to forgive Michael Vick. He did not wrong me, and his apology is not directed at me. But to any extent that I am in a position to accept Vick's apology, I must do so. To any extent I can offer forgiveness, I must do so.

In the book of Matthew, you'll find this passage:

"Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven."

Jesus follows with a parable illustrating why people are required to forgive one another: a king forgives a servant a massive debt, yet that servant refuses to forgive somebody else for a very small debt. We're not supposed to be like the servant, forgiven for our sins but unforgiving of others' sins.

The point is, if an individual wrongs us and asks for forgiveness, a Christian must forgive him/her. If the individual wrongs us again, a Christian must forgive him/her. If an individual wrongs us yet again, a Christian must forgive him/her. It would seem as these wrongs continue again and again, we might question the sincerity of the repentance. And yet, Jesus says to continue to forgive. If somebody wrongs me and apologizes, I am not to assess whether or not I believe the apology to be sincere: Jesus' command dictates simply that I must accept the apology.

Michael Vick has apologized: he is taking responsibility for his actions, and he is going to suffer for his actions. If it is forgiveness and redemption he seeks, I hope he finds it.

Michael Vick murdered Barbaro

When Barbaro the horse was hospitalized and then died, and there were a lot of human supporters and then human mourners, the sports blogosphere was generally cynical, snarky, irreverent, and a bit iconoclastic.

"Just a horse," was the rallying cry as the horse and anybody who cared about him at all got mocked incessantly.

Now, Michael Vick is accused of making dogs fight each other to death.

Is the general tone of the blogosphere something akin to "Just a dog"? No, generally, the sports blogosphere has both mocked and vilified Vick. Rather than dismissing the charges with the same "Just an animal" tone that Barbaro was dismissed, sports bloggers used the opportunity to make fun of Vick. It gave sports bloggers a chance to be cynical, snarky, irreverent, and a bit iconoclastic at the expense of Vick.

Why are we not supposed to care about Barbaro because it's "just a horse," but we're supposed to think Michael Vick is a bad person because of the way he treats dogs?

So are there principles in the sports blogosphere? Or are you all just looking for a chance to mock anything?

Was Deion really wrong about Vick?

In Don Banks' recent Snap Judgments column, here's what he had to say about Deion Sanders' comments on Michael Vick:

"Whoever I have to thank for pulling the plug on those Deion Sanders columns on the Michael Vick saga, much obliged.

"'What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I,' Sanders wrote in the Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press. That's some twisted logic that Sanders employs to explain Vick's alleged off-field hobby."

My first reaction was, what twisted logic? If Michael Vick was involved in dog fighting, then isn't the statement "What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I" pretty indisputable? The only dispute is the grammatical error of using "I" instead of "me"; certainly what a dog means to Vick is very different from what a dog means to you or me!

Let's alter this statement. In some cultures, if I'm not mistaken, dogs are eaten. Would I be incorrect to say "What a dog means to a person who eats dogs might be a lot different than what he means to you or I"? No, such a statement is factually accurate. Let's make one more turn of the screw: in Hindu tradition, cows are sacred. Would it be incorrect to say "What a cow means to a Hindu might be a lot different than what he means to you or I"? Of course not! The statement doesn't contain "twisted logic": it is logically indisputable!

Was there something else in Deion Sanders' column that featured "twisted logic"? To find out, I went to Ballhype and found Sanders' column "Don't be too quick to judge" in the The News-Press. Let's look closely at this column, since this column has been criticized by more sportswriters than Banks.

Sanders begins by talking about the potential effects of the Vick indictment. All the things he says are pretty indisputable. Sanders then transitions with "This is all the result of perspective," and talks about how different people treat their dogs. When he describes how Vick might feel about his dogs, Sanders writes:

"You can still choose to condemn him, but I’m trying to take you inside his mind so you can understand where he might be coming from."

Sanders isn't trying to justify dog fighting or exonerate Vick from the alleged actions: he's merely trying to "take you inside [Vick's] mind," doing some long-distance psychoanalysis. He's not excusing, but trying to understand. That sounds good to me: even if you are going to condemn a person/group for any action or idea, it is worthwhile to try understand how that person/group thinks.

Sanders then says of the accusations, "All of that is enough to make me cringe," with a diversion story about his own dogs. He then asks why Vick particularly is being targeted:

"Are we using Vick to get to the ringleader? Are we using him to bring an end to dogfighting in the United States?"

These are reasonable questions. Law enforcement officers are targeting Vick because they believe he committed a crime. But why is the media giving it so much coverage? Why are animal rights groups devoting such energy to it? Sanders isn't wrong to ask these questions.

Sanders then calls Vick's alleged involvement "wrong," "stupid," and "immature." It doesn't appear to me that he's trying to justify Vick's actions.

Then he comes with a statement that a lot of people have picked up on to criticize:

"I believe Vick had a passion for dogfighting. I know many athletes who share his passion. The allure is the intensity and the challenge of a dog fighting to the death. It’s like ultimate fighting, but the dog doesn’t tap out when he knows he can’t win."

Let me ask you this: can you dispute this statement? Remember, Sanders isn't trying to justify Vick's alleged participation in dog fighting; all he's trying to do is "take you inside his mind so you can understand where he might be coming from." If you take "Vick had a passion for dogfighting" out of the context of the column, then you might criticize it. But Sanders is not trying to justify Vick's actions; he's merely saying he believes "Vick had a passion for dogfighting," which is, after all, probably true!

Sanders then makes the comparison between the status that comes with dog fighting to the status of wearing expensive jewelry or driving expensive cars. An odd comparison, perhaps, but again, Sanders is just trying to help people understand why Vick (or anybody) might be involved in dog fighting.

Sanders then uses the "Humans before animals" argument, suggesting we should focus more attention on the bad things that happen to people (like Darrent Williams or Antoine Walker) than to animals (a viewpoint that I know is shared by many in the mainstream). Next he suggests the dog fighting indictment is getting so much attention because it's a dull period of the sports year (which is partly true), and that Falcon fans should hope Vick comes back or they have to watch Joey Harrington (which is true).

After reading Sanders' column, I can't see what the controversy is about. What did Sanders say? From the reaction of some reporters, you'd think Sanders said Vick was right to murder dogs and we all should murder our dogs, too. What Deion Sanders said was fairly reasonable, and most of it can't be disputed too strongly (unless you pick and choose which quotes to use to imply that Sanders is justifying Vick's alleged actions).

But Banks isn't alone.

Peter King responded to Sanders' statement (particularly the quote about "passion for dog fighting") thusly:

"All I can say is this: These players, and player-sympathizers who write about the quasi-justification of NFL players being involved in this detestable bloodsport, need to start understanding what the rest of us in the United States think. Dogfighting is sick, and whoever participates in it is equally sick."

Sanders wasn't giving a "quasi-justification," at least not in my reading: he was explicitly trying to help people understand Vick's perspective, not trying to justify any actions. He called Vick "wrong" and said we could still condemn him, but that we should try to understand him first. And for some reason what matters to King is consensus: King lumps Sanders with those that "need to start understanding what the rest of us in the United States think." Mr. King, I happen to think meat eating is sick (though I don't consider "whoever participates in it" to be "equally sick"). But of course my views are not "what the rest of [...] the United States think[s]," so clearly my views don't matter. With King's use of the word "us" here, he seems to imply that if you don't follow the consensus (which he belongs to), you better realize what everybody else thinks and shut up.

Jennifer Floyd Engel of the Star-Telegram used the sub-heading "Idiot alert" to tell us that Deion Sanders tried to "defend" Vick (which he didn't), and picks quotes to criticize without recognizing the larger point of the column, which wasn't to justify dog fighting but to explore why Vick might enjoy dog fighting and why Vick is getting so much attention.

Don't just read the passages some sportswriters have selected for criticism, and believe their (flawed) interpretation that Sanders is trying to defend Vick or justify dog fighting. Go read the column yourself and tell me which parts you would actually dispute (and you indeed might find parts to dispute).

Of course, "When Sanders submitted his follow-up column responding to the criticism to the NFL Network, the network refused to let The News-Press publish it on Sunday" (USA Today). That's too bad, because I would like to hear some further thoughts (and perhaps clarifications) from Sanders.

(And there are other ways for us to protect dogs from suffering: Simon Cowell reminds us never to leave a dog in a hot car. Keep your dog cool this summer!).

Quick comments on the Vick dog fighting story

1. It's getting rather wearisome: everybody is chiming in with comments, and news about Vick is usually the top story on football pages of news sites. Training camps have begun--real football teams are practicing real football. I wish more attention could be devoted to that than to Michael Vick's legal situation. Still, among all the chatter, it's good to look at primary source documents. The Smoking Gun (via Hashmarks) has the plea agreement between the U.S. and Tony Taylor.

I'm mostly going to stick to my efforts not to focus a great deal of attention on this story, other than occasional brief comments such as this.

2. It has become very difficult to argue that there was no dog fighting operation at all on Vick's property. It has also become increasingly difficult to argue that Vick had no involvement. Still, it's also hard to argue with the NAACP, which argues for restraint from judgment and vilification of Michael Vick before due process of the law takes its course (Sports Illustrated).

3. Though nobody would call it such, have you noticed the version of "political correctness" that has emerged in this dog fighting story? See if you recognize the following pattern:

a. Current or former athlete says something that sounds tolerant of dog fighting and/or Michael Vick.
b. Many people and media members lambaste the athlete, usually in harsh, derogatory terms.
c. The athlete makes a statement apologizing for or clarifying his previous comments.

That's a pretty familiar pattern, eh?

4. PETA is an organization I have respect for, but it also has two primary activities, in order:

a. efforts toward more ethical treatment of animals by humans.
b. self-promotion.

PETA is globbing onto the Vick dog fighting story because it is guaranteed to get it publicity (and I don't begrudge PETA for it). But PETA is wrong to demand Vick's employers' suspend Vick before he has been convicted. PETA usually uses its relentless tactics toward changes in corporate policies that actually impact treatment of animals. The unrelenting protests to get Vick suspended do not directly impact treatment of animals. PETA should certainly monitor and comment on this situation, but it would be better served showing some restraint, rather than making demands that really don't matter to its cause.

5. This story does, of course, relate to actual football: it seems unlikely that Vick will be playing with the Falcons this year, and that means Joey Harrington is once again an NFL starter. And look at here: the Falcons open the season at the Metrodome against the Vikings.

As Lion QB, Joey Harrington never beat the Vikings (the Lions last beat the Vikings in 2001). As Dolphin QB, he "led" his team to a victory over the Vikings (really, the Dolphins' two defensive touchdowns in the fourth quarter were more responsible).

So the Vikings are now opening the season at home, against a Falcon team that was 21st in team defense last season (29th in yards passing and 32nd in passing yards per attempt). They face a team with a new coach, and a team that might be without (or with a hobbling) Warrick Dunn. And this team will be quarterbacked by Joey Harrington.

The Vikings have a good chance to start the season 1-0, and for Tarvaris Jackson and Adrian Peterson to get a solid start to the season.

6. If you are interested in knowing more about somebody working to help animals, check out The Jane Goodall Institute.

Dog fighting (hopefully, the last comment for a while)

1.
In Harold Herzog's excellent essay "Human Morality and Animal Research: Confessions and Quandaries," Herzog asks "What were the relative roles of logic and sentimentality underlying the moral confusion" of particular uses of animals for scientific experiments. It's a necessary distinction that needs to be presented again and again when we discuss morality in human treatment of animals: what is based on emotion and what is based on reason?

In order to get at the relationship between sentimentality and logic on this issue, I've devised a question. I'm not attempting to frame this question in judgment; I'm not trying to accuse anybody or find fault with anybody. I think it may be a question that can help us get to the line between sentimentality and logic in outrage over dog fighting. Here is the question:

What would be the reaction if Michael Vick were accused of raising dogs, killing them humanely, and then eating them?

What do you think? Would the reaction be better or worse? Why? What would your reaction be? Is this reaction based on emotion or reason? Does this question relate to arguments over the morality of animal consumption? Does it relate to particular outrage over treatment of dogs?

Is this a useful question? Michael Vick is accused of forcing dogs to fight each other: would the reaction be different if he were accused of killing dogs and eating their meat?

2.
Other bloggers have been making points similar to the one I've tried to make on this blog: in the big scheme of humanity's treatment of animals, how bad is dog fighting and why does dog fighting draw such outrage? Serious Dismay Sports explains "Why the Coverage of the Michael Vick Scandal Ticks Me Off as a Vegan and as a Woman." At Sports Law Blog you can read "Professor Darryl C. Wilson on Reaction to Michael Vick's Indictment," where Wilson talks about the outrage in context of "a country that kills dogs and other pets by the millions daily, grinds them up with other junk, and feeds them to livestock that people will ultimately eat."

My point is not that we shouldn't be outraged by dog fighting (we should), but that we should put that in context and look at other treatments of animals for which we could also direct outrage.

3.
I don't know that we'll continue to follow the Vick dog fighting story as closely as we have thus far. For us, following sports is about the fun. We love seeing the performances on the field. We love participating in fantasy football. We love watching the games and rooting for teams and players. We love talking about the players and the games. We love collecting the sports cards.

It's the fun of the games that matter to us. We don't get much pleasure from following the legal and personal exploits of players off the field. We usually avoid these stories in order to read the fun stories about sports, and to follow commentary on the actual games on the field. We're growing weary of this Vick dog fighting story as it is growing bigger and bigger; as the NFL season approaches, we don't want the top story to be federal indictments. It's time to start hearing what's happening at training camp, what people think will happen this season, who's ready to break out and why. We want to follow football for the love of the sport, not to read as much news and commentary as possible on one player's legal issues.

And with that, you may enjoy Cold, Hard Football Facts' "Nice guys finish last? Not always." CHFF reminds us that there are a lot of very good people in the NFL, and that we should be following and praising the exploits of players like Warrick Dunn. There are too many really good people in the NFL, doing really good things, and doing really exciting things on the field, for us to get bogged down analyzing the legal and moral aspects of dog fighting.

We love football, and we want to ensure that football is this blog's primary passion for the next six months and more.

4.
(To direct your attention to another animal rights issue when mentioning the Vick dog fighting story--as I promised--I'd ask you to consider the morality of animal testing and vivisection. Even if we concede that we should use animals for medical research--a position I'm relatively comfortable with--we should work toward only using animals when absolutely necessary, devising alternative experiments that require no use of animals, and making conditions for the animals that are used as comfortable and happy as possible--the latter an argument Jane Goodall makes particularly well in "A Plea for the Chimps").

Helping you positively direct your outrage

As an animal rights advocate, I should be encouraged by the massive coverage and frequent outrage over the charges of dog fighting and dog killing against Michael Vick and others.

I never realized so many sports fans and reporters were so committed to ending cruelty to animals! Because that's what this is about, right? It couldn't be that a lot of people that eat meat and wear leather are using outrage over animal cruelty as an excuse to attack a prominent black athlete, right?

Since many of you are so outraged over over the accusations against Vick et al. for heinous treatment of animals, I want to help direct your attention to other forms of animal cruelty and show ways that you can actively oppose and resist animal cruelty. From now on, whenever I make any mention of the Vick dog fighting story, I will provide you a link to information on another animal rights issue. Since you are so disgusted by dog fighting, I hope you will find this additional information helpful.

I'll begin by directing your attention to PETA's Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign, which exposes the horrible treatment chickens suffer through, and targets KFC because KFC appears pretty tolerant of this cruel treatment, and could take active steps to force more humane treatment of the chickens.

Don't rant and rave: there are things that you can do. Direct your outrage into positive action. Expand your outrage over dog fighting into positive action to combat all forms of animal cruelty.

From Virginia to Pamplona

(Here is another post that's partly about sports, but also moralizing analysis on animal rights. As always, it's your choice to keep reading or not).

Following the Vick dog fighting allegations story has been frustrating and illuminating. There are intensely heated opinions and arguments from all sides, some rational, some not. I rarely write about the alleged crimes or personal issues of athletes on this blog; it's just not a part of sports that interests me. But since I'm a sports fan and an animal rights activist, I try to write when an animal cruelty story intersects with sports. I hope that I'm in a position to offer a unique perspective, and I usually try to offer insights on these issues that might be unexpected. For example, when I wrote about Barbaro, I suggested there's something fundamentally flawed about meat-eaters mourning over one particular horse; when I first wrote about the allegations of dog fighting at Vick's property, I suggested a lot of the outrage was misplaced considering how many forms of animal cruelty are openly accepted in our society.

There have been some questionable motivations behind some of the writing on the Vick allegations. I can't know another's motivations well, but I hope I have kept my focus, as Leave the Man Alone puts it, "on the actual crimes at hand and not just the undermining of Michael Vick." Going forward, I'll be following this story regardless of Vick's role in the story, because for me Michael Vick is not the main theme of this story.

Perhaps it is worthwhile to shift from dog fighting, a pseudo-sport devoted to animal torture, to bullfighting, another pseudo-sport devoted to animal torture (though Hemingway writes in Death in the Afternoon that "The bullfight is not a sport in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word, that is, it is not an equal contest or an attempt at an equal contest between a bull and a man. Rather it is a tragedy; the death of the bull, which is played, more or less well, by the bull and the man involved and in which there is no danger for the man but certain death for the animal").

According to Wikipedia, Spanish-style bullfighting has three stages. In the first stage "The picador stabs a mound of muscle on the bull's neck, which lowers its blood pressure, so that the enraged bull does not have a heart attack. The bull's charging and trying to lift the picador's horse with its neck muscles also weakens its massive neck and muscles." In the second stage, "the three banderilleros each attempt to plant two barbed sticks (called banderillas) on the bull's flanks. These further weaken the enormous ridges of neck and shoulder muscle through loss of blood, while also frequently spurring the bull into making more ferocious charges." And finally, it all "ends with a final series of passes in which the matador with a muleta attempts to manoeuvre the bull into a position to stab it between the shoulder blades and through the aorta or heart."

How does such activity sound to you? Though for many this is entertainment, it reads like systematized torture to me.

There are reasons why you might be more concerned about dogfighting in American than bullfighting in Spain. But such activity is worth at least as much vitriol as many people have directed at Michael Vick or the activities alleged to have occurred on his property.

But let's set aside the question of whether people who have been loudly critical of Vick in the past few months really hate dogfighting, or really hate Vick (for whatever reason).

Instead, let's consider the concept of misplaced hatred as a form of scapegoating.

In Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, characters frequently transfer what should be righteous indignation against a victimizer into hatred against an innocent party, creating more victims. There are many examples, explicit and implicit, of characters misplacing their hatred (and other feelings) throughout the novel. Some of this misdirected rage turns to self-hatred: several black characters in the novel internalize society's racist standards of beauty, and hate what they see as their own ugliness. But in the end, the entire community is able to transfer its self-hatred onto the innocent victim and scapegoat, Pecola Breedlove.

I would suggest that hatred gets misplaced in many of our attempts to make moral sense of our dealings with animals. This misplaced hatred becomes scapegoating, where people bring vitriolic indignation to egregiously cruel or indifferent treatment of animals to help downplay our frequent and accepted mistreatment of animals.

Make the connection between dogfighting and bullfighting. And keep looking, for there are more connections to be made.

(Image from Wikipedia Commons. Sorry if you're annoyed to read analysis of animal cruelty on a football blog, but you were warned at the beginning).