RadixJournal - Special Report： Football!

00:00:00.000 well i i speak to you mark and america as a self-hating football fan i i've gone as far

00:00:21.320 in becoming a self-hating football fan by writing an article entitled stop watching football

00:00:27.000 and i have not taken my own advice uh so there it is uh yeah i'm i'm not sure i can pull myself out of

00:00:37.100 this addiction uh at some level but maybe i don't want to and um you know that that title was meant

00:00:43.200 to be provocative maybe we should get to kind of a deeper understanding of it and to not just see it

00:00:49.000 as uh oh you're it's a distraction so you're not focused on the real enemy or you know um you're

00:00:55.680 you're a white nationalist watching a bunch of africans you know run around in a field uh you

00:01:00.220 know both of which of course have a kernel of truth to them but um but i i think doesn't get it kind

00:01:06.960 of the deeper nature of the sport and and and kind of what it means to be a fan as well so hopefully

00:01:13.160 we'll be able to talk about that um so you were a fan as well we are we are fans of the two most

00:01:20.800 hated teams in the nfl true yes so you can go ahead and describe your horrible fandom well i i'm

00:01:30.440 a fan of the most hated team being uh from new england so um yeah i think yeah and i think that

00:01:38.600 they actually had a map showing where the at the last super bowl there was a map that broke down

00:01:43.500 the fans across the country and who they were rooting for and literally it was only new england

00:01:48.840 and like every other i i think there might have been some exception in there um you know one of

00:01:56.080 those uh uh square states up in your neck of the woods might have been the exception right up in the

00:02:02.280 montana area i don't know and maybe there wasn't even an exception um but uh so yeah it's the most

00:02:08.960 hated team and anytime you travel people make it clear that they hate the new england patriots so if

00:02:14.260 you happen to travel for business or something like this and you go into a bar uh get something

00:02:20.040 to eat uh yeah you're wise not to mention that uh you're patriots yeah i well i get the same thing i i

00:02:27.340 so i i was born in massachusetts i was actually born in boston and and my first couple years of my life

00:02:34.320 were in brookline massachusetts so um i i actually could be a new england patriots fan and not be a

00:02:41.240 fair weather fan um i have that in my you know birth certificate you know allowed to be a patriots

00:02:48.060 fan uh and i actually did length them in uh the drew bledsoe years and i would actually say that

00:02:55.440 i am not one of those people rooting against the patriots at all costs like anyone but the patriots i

00:03:01.760 might jokingly tell you that but uh i i'm actually not i i do generally like them and i i have a little

00:03:07.480 bit of a claim but um i grew up in dallas texas and i actually you know grew up in the 80s and 90s so

00:03:16.960 i you know when i was quite young and probably too young to be following sports that was in the tail

00:03:24.620 end of the landry era so the cowboys were the team of the 70s really that's when the america's team

00:03:30.680 name came about and roger stallback and so on um and uh during the 80s they they they had some good

00:03:38.780 years they were kind of a decent team but they they it was basically a decade of of decline and i i think

00:03:45.780 joe montana's um uh the the the catch uh he that which he threw to clark in the end zone back of the

00:03:52.980 end zone an amazing catch and throw in i think it was 1981 or or maybe 1980 that that almost like

00:03:58.920 signaled the rise of the niners as you know the team of the 80s and then also the the slow decline

00:04:04.940 of the cowboys and um then uh jira jones bought the team uh jimmy johnson became the the coach and

00:04:14.520 they uh you know the first draft pick was troy aikman and it was uh really up you know uphill from

00:04:21.740 there and uphill at a startling pace um they went from a 1 and 15 squad in 1989 uh to making the

00:04:31.060 playoffs a couple years later and then i would say you know those 92 and 93 teams um you know i i think

00:04:40.200 they probably would go up there with any of the great teams ever you know the 85 chicago bears and

00:04:47.220 72 dolphins i mean i don't you know they did lose a few games but you know such is life i i'm not sure

00:04:55.220 you know in a super bowl any team could beat them they they had it all and uh so at that point i became

00:05:03.880 a pretty extreme uh you know cowboys fan when i was um you know 10 years old to you know up until

00:05:11.000 probably 18 or so and uh but ever since uh jerry jones fired jimmy johnson um in i guess it was a

00:05:19.280 early 94 or something like that and um they uh the story goes i heard um skip bayless tell this story

00:05:25.920 and he he was you know a beat reporter at the time and he wrote a book on it so i think he's probably

00:05:30.820 getting at it there was a a dinner meeting after the 93 super bowl and um they uh jerry felt like he was

00:05:40.760 being dissed by the coaching staff so it was kind of like an adults only coaches meeting and they

00:05:46.880 were all praising each other and saying you know we've got a we did a great job here everyone did

00:05:51.040 their job and no one was toasting jerry because he was just an owner and jerry was furious and uh

00:05:57.300 and it was kind of one of those just watch me moments he fired the super bowl winning coach which

00:06:02.200 is insane hired barry switzer who you know known for the wishbone office and in college football you

00:06:10.480 know running the option and stuff like that it's actually troy aikman's coach for one year

00:06:14.260 uh in you know the 80s but anyway um he was kind of like an overseer and he they were able to win

00:06:22.280 another super super bowl although they were not anywhere close to being as dominant uh and and as

00:06:27.620 exciting and they and they all got into all the you know their heads became big and there were drugs

00:06:32.320 and sex and rock and roll and suspensions and whatever um and uh then ever since then the the

00:06:40.580 cowboys have kind of been in this on long decline where they'll sometimes be really relevant a couple

00:06:47.560 of years but they you know they're kind of most known for blowing it uh in the last 25 years and um

00:06:56.940 even though they've had some great players tony romo and so on you know you know unfairly to a

00:07:03.300 large degree he's still remembered as the guy who blows it um but they they still have a huge fan base

00:07:10.420 and fanatical following and i think they're almost hated even more because everyone's talking about the

00:07:15.240 cowboys but then they go eight and eight as they did this past year but yeah i've had a few times where

00:07:20.720 i've been in a bar even a bar here in montana where there were some like philadelphia transplants

00:07:27.580 or something and uh but i went in there and it i guess it became clear that i was i was rooting for

00:07:34.640 the cowboys but i also kind of made it clear to the guys like you know it's a football game i'm not

00:07:41.520 going to get into a fistfight with you my team you know uh and you know i'm outnumbered six to one to

00:07:49.360 boot but anyway uh yeah i mean it you know it is what it is i i think there is something

00:07:55.620 inherently toxic about football fandom and we can get into that maybe we should get into that i don't

00:08:03.340 know maybe well maybe we should talk about the good parts first and then kind of get into the toxic parts

00:08:06.880 but um there there is something uh there is something great about it uh it's a war game um it's

00:08:16.580 a game for heroes and you know one thing that i i'd like about it is that

00:08:23.700 and there's a there's a kind of tragic quality to it i mean you can say this about baseball and

00:08:29.420 other sports but it's not just about you know joe montana throwing the catch you know in the end zone

00:08:38.080 and then you know nfc championship game it's it's also about joe montana getting knocked out of the

00:08:45.000 game and not playing for two years in in another playoff match against the giants and him walking

00:08:50.200 off the field kind of dazed and confused with a hurt back and and wondering whether he could ever play

00:08:55.780 this extremely violent you know manly sport ever again uh you know it's it's about you know not not

00:09:03.520 you know it's the cliche the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat it's it's about winning and

00:09:08.840 doing it but there's all there's also a moment in football where you just physically can't do this

00:09:14.560 anymore and you might walk off the field uh a loser but either there's a certain heroism and

00:09:21.560 and um and you know being a long time fighter so i you can say this about boxing it's another

00:09:27.620 kind of you know sport where the sport itself is so violent that um you know it's a it's a brief

00:09:33.580 moment in time and it just kind of can't last um so i i think there is a you know there there's

00:09:40.100 there are two aspects about football that that i think are you know good there's you know there's

00:09:47.980 obviously it's a massive distraction and it's stupid and the players are criminals and thugs we

00:09:52.320 get it but uh there's a there's another aspect of it of the um you know the tribalism of fandom but

00:09:58.860 but also the um the heroism of playing this violent game and and i think some people who want to

00:10:05.100 to um criticize football because of say this cte the head injuries concussions it's a you know that's

00:10:13.880 a real thing and it's certainly a concern but those who in a way want to criticize football on those

00:10:20.340 grounds are are missing the point at some level you know in the sense that the the whole point it's not

00:10:27.060 a blood sport but the whole point is that this actually is really dangerous and you have to have

00:10:35.020 balls just to step out on the field there are no real wimps in football even the kickers are probably

00:10:41.480 probably tougher dudes than most uh and the guys who are willing to get in the trenches are super tough

00:10:50.500 and that you know there's just something about it that you don't find in baseball um or or basketball

00:10:57.500 or or or um soccer you know soccer european football uh that that american football has maintained and that

00:11:06.720 that is the the fact that that you you're a gladiator out there and you're always risking something

00:11:13.000 um and just to watch that uh i i think there is something kind of you could say primitive but but also

00:11:19.780 uh i don't know traditionalist in the sense that um uh this is what sport really is about it's not

00:11:27.860 just a kind of measure of pure you know muscle fiber twitch capacity like watching a sprint or something

00:11:34.980 that it's actually a a sport about war and danger what do you think about that yeah i mean i i think i

00:11:46.460 largely agree with what what you're saying i mean i think that um you know i in the alt right uh there's

00:11:52.980 the meme about sports ball um i think that uh sports are not just the alt right that's yeah yeah yeah

00:11:59.420 i think that sports are generally good now i don't i don't think that they deserve the sort of emphasis

00:12:05.000 that they enjoy now in our culture and i also think that the way that sports have developed uh they've

00:12:10.880 kind of developed in a sort of malignant way in a lot of ways um but in general i think sports are

00:12:16.240 good and i think that it's good i think that that is sort of a good thing for people to also be kind

00:12:22.760 of athletically inclined or interested in sports as youths and being you know well-rounded i mean it's

00:12:29.440 it's it it goes to a sort of kind of apollonian ideal of being you know both a scholar and an athlete

00:12:35.360 in fact that idea of a um the all-american boy is actually in some way uh a kind of uh an american

00:12:43.080 apollo right you imagine this the all-american boy you imagine to serve the blonde football player yeah

00:12:49.920 who in a kind of former time was also a a good uh scholar or someone who was interested in school and

00:12:55.620 he had the varsity jacket or at least this is a kind of ideal um so i you know i think sports are a very

00:13:03.220 good thing and not only they good for fitness uh they're a good way of teaching children um uh you

00:13:10.260 know team skills and being able to work with a team and to like socialize kids i think sports are

00:13:17.200 wonderful you know and fear uh you know what i i think maybe one of the the reasons that um i i i get

00:13:30.460 kind of annoyed with a lot of the kids online is that they will you know try to destroy you you know

00:13:39.860 with a tweet or whatever and um but it's all done anonymously there are no real consequences there it's

00:13:50.660 it's cyber bullying at some level is not bullying it's it's some new form which seems to have no

00:13:57.380 redeemable characteristics to it whereas i think actual bullying is is a a part of growing up and

00:14:04.980 you should get bullied a little bit and you should bully a little bit uh obviously within moderation

00:14:09.980 um but you know look i played uh i played football i through youth and i i am not a great athlete i'll

00:14:18.440 just say that i don't have some great story to tell you about how i won the game or anything like

00:14:23.620 that um i but i did play and um i and i played as a kid and i and i played varsity football at a prep

00:14:31.080 school could i played at one of these big dallas prep schools where they have 200 people on the team

00:14:35.860 i don't know maybe not um but i did play a lot uh as a as a high schooler even though i was not great

00:14:42.340 um i was pretty good and um but you know even in that low level where where you know prep school

00:14:52.380 type thing it's not it's not even approaching the level of ferocity and violence and speed

00:14:58.060 and and and so on in the college ranks or nfl or something um even on that even on that plane

00:15:05.880 you know i i was afraid and if you had to go to practice and you're doing like a two-on-two drill

00:15:13.640 where there's you know usually there are two offensive linemen or defensive linemen you know

00:15:18.500 blocking going at each other and then there's a running back and a linebacker i mean i don't know

00:15:22.360 if they even do this kind of thing anymore because of the concussion question and we've just gotten

00:15:28.040 softer as a culture but like you would do a two-on-two drill like that and there would be

00:15:33.200 some cracking of shoulder pads and helmets like that it was a mono a mono battle between both the

00:15:40.360 linemen and the running back and linebacker or defensive back and there was fear i mean you're

00:15:45.600 sitting there you know wondering if the guy's going to run you over wondering if the guy's going to knock

00:15:50.940 you you know into the stadium uh wondering if the guy's going to you know just manhandle you and

00:15:57.980 throw you down and you're humiliated in front of the the crowd and you know that and certainly that

00:16:04.660 kind of thing happened but the fact is you did it and you had a sense of primal fear and you

00:16:15.380 faced the fear and you did it and even if you failed someone would give you a pat on the ass

00:16:22.740 uh and that just kind of manhood ritual i think is something that you know you know football still

00:16:32.060 exists obviously but i i think it's being totally lost uh among the youth and so we're we're we've

00:16:40.140 kind of raised a bunch of kids that have never gotten the shit kicked out of them they've never been

00:16:47.820 in a situation where it's like you know this guy might be better than you and you've got to

00:16:55.440 you you've got to face face him down face your fear and try your best and maybe fail and i don't think

00:17:03.700 they've ever faced i mean i sound like an you know i'm like people are going to call me a boomer

00:17:08.360 listening to this podcast i might sound like an old timer but this is a real thing and this is a

00:17:14.300 very important aspect of psychological development yeah i know i agree and i and there is something

00:17:22.500 distinct about team sports versus individual sports uh wrestling uh running they're distinct from team

00:17:30.060 sports and i think they both actually have their advantages i think that um you know wrestling i think

00:17:35.920 can probably be a great thing for kids uh i i running can be a great thing i think it develops a kind of

00:17:42.760 individual discipline and um and it is good to be a kind of strong individual and to be competing as

00:17:49.740 an individual um but i think team sports also brings something very valuable uh where you're required to

00:17:56.160 kind of collaborate and work with other people and not necessarily kind of be the quarterback in every

00:18:01.740 instance or be you know in football in particular is a kind of more hierarchical sport in other words if

00:18:08.520 you play ice hockey or if you play um i mean soccer to a less extent but basketball or ice hockey

00:18:14.620 or you know at least in ice hockey in the forward position i mean you you can be kind of create you

00:18:21.160 can kind of be your own person to a certain extent you can be more creative and you can you can sort of

00:18:25.960 elect to pass more or shoot more or or whatever the case may be but in football it's uh the sport is

00:18:33.400 much more hierarchical and it's also a sport that's it's it's a kind of fundamentally fascist sport in

00:18:38.500 the sense that uh the plans are you're literally given uh your sort of role for every play right by

00:18:46.080 by the uh the coach and um it's kind of the most structured and hierarchical of sports and it's also

00:18:53.200 the sport of all the sports that requires you probably requires the most humility from the average

00:18:59.200 player on the team so in other words most people playing football are like on the line or are not

00:19:05.180 going to even touch the ball during the course of the game most of the people that take the field will

00:19:09.220 never touch the ball so they'll never score a touchdown uh and they'll never uh be able to you

00:19:14.840 know sort of run with the ball or catch the ball sort of these kind of glamour aspects of football

00:19:19.380 most of the people playing are kind of these sort of more servile anonymous you know very important

00:19:25.060 the uh you literally cannot at all win without you know putting your ego aside for a little bit and

00:19:32.580 kind of winning in your own little way you know like i i i've um i i played uh some tight end and

00:19:39.680 fullback but actually when i started as a you know um junior and senior year i was playing on the

00:19:45.280 offensive line i played some defense too uh but yeah like no one called my name on the stadium but i was

00:19:53.080 actually pretty good as i as i said like i i would win my little battles and have my little kind of

00:19:58.840 mini war with the defensive end or the or the tackle the linebacker uh but it was a it was one that when

00:20:05.620 went unnoticed uh but you know again if if you're not willing to do that then the team cannot win

00:20:15.260 period um and teams that are better at subordinating people are are better teams um

00:20:22.920 so yeah it's it's absolutely true i i think there is this we we were joking about this it is a fascist

00:20:29.440 sport it's a it's a different sport and i don't know if there's anything really comparable to it

00:20:35.380 because um i was one time when i was at university of chicago i remember i was at this um kind of

00:20:41.260 conference and i was a grad student just you know hanging out and there was this german

00:20:44.520 you know philosophy professor and he was talking about sports and and uh i can't i can't remember his

00:20:49.800 name i wish i could but he he mentioned that you know basketball is all it's it's all energy trying

00:20:58.520 to find structure and so you know with basketball the ball is always moving people are passing it

00:21:04.480 around doing stuff and there are these moments where it actually works and so there's a pick and

00:21:10.460 roll that's beautiful it's like you sketched it out um you know there's a you know you know some

00:21:16.620 behind the back pass that you know it looks amazing and so that structure kind of emerges

00:21:21.620 from just the energy but football is kind of different where it's all structure looking for

00:21:28.000 that energy um that that that that force where it actually all works together and and it's that

00:21:35.520 you know je ne sais quoi that thing you can't really describe which is teamwork

00:21:39.260 and um yeah but it is fascist i don't know if there's any other sport like football i i can't

00:21:46.400 think of one in which you know it's it's episodic they're downs and you you know because obviously

00:21:54.320 football is based you know primitively it's based on you know an old ball game that you know became

00:22:01.680 rugby and became soccer and and so on um but that i actually looked was looking into this the other day

00:22:09.120 and there there's that there are there are these kind of ancient ball games and and actually the

00:22:12.940 middle ages and they they can go back further into ancient times but um but it it's so synthetic

00:22:19.320 they're they're downs you have four downs there's basically four seconds of furious intensity and then

00:22:26.380 everyone stops you know walking to the line and uh and and so on and um you know certainly plays

00:22:34.260 exist in basketball and soccer and any even baseball to a certain degree uh but in football it's all

00:22:42.120 plays you are doing a literally scripted you know

00:22:47.020 invariable to a very large degree you know task and when it breaks down you can kind of improvise

00:22:57.520 and and whatever but you you it's not improvise it's not an improvisational sport it is a highly

00:23:04.000 structured scripted sport and these you know in that way it is hierarchical you you could even say

00:23:10.360 fascist and it's this kind of you know head coach or offensive coordinator who kind of writes the story of

00:23:16.100 the game and you see if the players can enact this story that he's writing and and he's in a gamesmanship

00:23:25.420 um with the other coach that i i think is a greater gamesmanship than any other sport i mean again

00:23:33.600 it's not that these other coaches and other leagues don't do anything but just the the play calling

00:23:39.620 scripted aspect of football makes it a kind of coaches sport much more than anything else it is a

00:23:47.500 top-down yeah you dictatorship dictatorship of the proletariat you could say uh with you know the the

00:23:56.840 guys in the trenches fighting but it is a top-down sport geared in that way and and i think that's

00:24:02.620 probably one of the reasons why it doesn't quite work for some people um and they don't like it but

00:24:08.220 that is you know also kind of its recipe for being you know amazing and addictive and and and

00:24:16.620 having a narrative quality as well unlike other sports where you're kind of waiting for something

00:24:22.880 to happen in soccer you know again i grew up playing soccer as a child but i've never been

00:24:28.480 into it but when i'll watch the world cup or something i'm i'm kind of waiting for something

00:24:32.860 to happen with football you're you know you're kind of like experiencing a play that's being written

00:24:39.800 by the head coach and whether that play can really work or not is is the question it's just

00:24:45.400 very different fundamentally different it's unique um and in that sense and in that sense quite amazing

00:24:51.560 yeah no i mean everything you said i think is correct i mean the uh it's so it is the most kind

00:25:01.280 of micromanaged by the coach right so he's he's choreographing every play um and there is also a kind

00:25:08.280 of highly sort of militaristic aspect of the game as well in the sense that you have these men lining up

00:25:13.620 as if in phalanxes right as if uh as if a line of spearmen lining up against another line of spearmen

00:25:20.280 and just you know basically going against each other much in the way uh sort of ancient battles

00:25:25.620 were fought effectively except i mean they obviously don't have weapons but right uh they're shielding

00:25:30.840 they're so basically they're doing the same thing that a man would do with a shield is they're

00:25:35.140 protecting and again there it goes to this sort of selfless aspect of some of the players on the field

00:25:40.500 or basically they're just to act as kind of human shields for other players on the field and um

00:25:46.680 but yeah i mean i think it's a fascinating game i i actually do like soccer um it is a completely

00:25:53.500 different game and i think it's a sort of there's a kind of subtlety to soccer uh and i'm not accusing

00:25:58.880 you of missing this subtlety but that i think that americans don't necessarily appreciate uh that

00:26:04.840 it there is a kind of i mean i there are many things i dislike about soccer one thing i dislike

00:26:10.100 just briefly is is games being determined by penalty kicks i think that's a terrible way to

00:26:15.260 determine to determine a game and then really ultimately the solution is to you know create

00:26:21.560 faster balls yeah or just get a wider net or you know have some weird kind of like overtime situation

00:26:27.620 where you're removing a player every five minutes or but just don't eat it with a penalty kick because

00:26:33.400 that that's literally like flipping a coin i mean the goalie is guessing you know each time and

00:26:38.040 jumping to that covering one half of the goal and it's like probability and yeah i i i totally agree

00:26:44.160 it would be like ending a baseball game on a home run derby or something you know it's just not

00:26:48.540 like not clearly not fair it's a it's a critical flaw in my mind but what is good about the game though

00:26:58.420 is actually um well i actually it's not even i mean i think it's a good game in general but it could

00:27:04.540 use some adjustments and improvements which are probably you know it's that's probably heretical

00:27:09.300 to a european soccer fan who wouldn't want to change the game because then you make all the sort of

00:27:14.740 records of former soccer grades you know no longer uh meaningful um but that's one thing that you

00:27:21.540 disrupt but the other thing that i like about soccer but it has less to do with the game itself

00:27:28.820 and more to do with the game as it's played on sort of the international level i think the world cup is

00:27:34.260 probably the best sporting event and the reason the world cup is the best sporting event is because you

00:27:39.100 see different nations basically playing each other and in some cases you'll be like a team of like

00:27:44.960 nearly all white guys playing like using the example like certainly like the russian teams but even

00:27:50.920 uh the uh the german team is a largely white team and you'll see them play you know all these black

00:27:57.660 guys or all these sort of uh you know um uh people of mixed race people in brazil for example right

00:28:03.720 and i just think it's it's just to me and it's not even like a sort of kind of racist thing but it's

00:28:10.680 just it just makes it so much more kind of interesting and dynamic and fun on some level right it's your guys

00:28:16.680 against their guys when north korea plays nigeria you know it's a uh yeah it's like hbd in action

00:28:23.700 yeah what's the uh most far away racist yeah i mel uh yeah the expression gibson made famous was

00:28:38.380 that i you know do you have a dog not fight i think in that case i would not have a dog

00:28:42.260 so it may not be a game that i watch but um but you know but what i'm saying is that like so

00:28:50.500 that's what i like about that sport and you also see examples which are not uh the most pleasing

00:28:56.240 examples where france is basically a sort of african team as it turns out yeah so that that's it

00:29:01.940 kind of like but it's still it's still nevertheless a kind of interesting aspect of that tournament is

00:29:07.700 that you kind of see uh sort of how culturally different uh these different uh european and uh

00:29:13.900 world countries are yeah i think real quickly on that um on race in in soccer and again i i've looked

00:29:20.560 um more than half of my viewer i looked at the stats more than half of my viewers are from america but i

00:29:26.440 apologize to the 40 percent of european viewers who are getting mad at the fact that we're calling their

00:29:32.260 sports soccer but um but uh yeah just bear with me here um but yeah i i think the it was like the

00:29:39.940 2000 french team which won the world cup uh was uh becoming this almost african squad it was like the

00:29:48.860 the the those who were colonized were playing for the home country um i i do remember uh i was actually

00:29:55.740 in um uh berlin um when when are those every five years or every four years i think they're every

00:30:02.500 five years uh world cups every four years every four years yeah so i was in um i was actually in

00:30:08.480 berlin in uh 2004 for the italy versus um uh maybe i'm off on a year here but roughly the middle of the

00:30:20.020 knots and i was actually in berlin for the world cup and uh it was quite interesting i i went to a

00:30:29.540 depeche mode concert um and then went to a uh went to go kind of look at the crowd at the world cup i didn't

00:30:36.400 have tickets but that was a that that was almost a kind of race war between italy and uh france uh with

00:30:44.460 with france becoming an african team effectively and italy being an italian team being recognized

00:30:50.540 of the italian and italy won yeah that was a great that was actually a great game and the thing that

00:30:56.580 i loved about that game because uh and i remember that tournament actually somewhat vividly i think

00:31:01.300 that was when i first started um paying attention to the world cup but um the german team was kind of

00:31:07.180 built for speed and power which i think is a kind of they've become a much more you know i i haven't

00:31:12.860 well so people who have uh more knowledge of european football as they call it will know that i will be

00:31:20.000 more closely um tracking these trends but i in recent world cups at least germany has become a much more

00:31:27.300 effective team uh and they've won a couple of world cups uh but uh at that point they were kind of a

00:31:34.860 more power-oriented team as i remember watching the tournament uh whereas italy what had this wonderful

00:31:41.080 chemistry and they were very kind of subtle very kind of subtle team they passed very well together

00:31:46.080 and the one thing too that i noticed is that um you know germany for example because those were a couple

00:31:52.260 of the teams that i was tracking in the tournament um would get opportunities but they would they would

00:31:57.480 just basically choke on opportunities but in italy would get less opportunities but they would

00:32:03.040 they just wouldn't they would sort of have composure when the moment arrived and score effectively

00:32:08.840 um so but that that was a great team that year and uh it would it was brilliant that they beat um

00:32:15.600 france it's like that game's also famous for the uh headbutt of zidane yeah zidane yeah zidane who

00:32:23.620 was like a north african or something he looked effectively white actually yeah i mean he looked

00:32:29.400 effectively white i think he might have had some like purple ancestry so i'll have to go back on this

00:32:33.640 probably um butchering i i didn't research this obviously beforehand but um yeah yeah that was a

00:32:40.740 fascinating game but the rest of the team was you know it's an african team um but uh anyway if we look

00:32:47.440 at the example of american football if we return to that um you know many people have pointed this out

00:32:55.640 uh i remember publishing uh a couple of articles on this in alternative right.com and rate external and

00:33:03.600 so on but the uh the the white fans african-american players um phenomenon which you see really pretty

00:33:11.480 intensely in basketball you see a little bit less intensely in the nfl um i think the nfl is somewhere

00:33:18.680 between 60 to 75 percent uh african-american uh but you will see pretty intensely in in sec uh the

00:33:26.580 what is it southeast conference um with you know home florida and you know a lot of those schools where

00:33:32.020 you'll have uh schools that are that are uh teams that are blacker than uh nfl teams and then you'll you'll

00:33:39.840 almost also see this huge white fan base uh as well rooting them on and uh yeah i mean the the the

00:33:48.540 the racial i i think this is a place where kind of the racial dynamic is noticed by either the

00:33:53.900 alt-right or by um uh or by leftists who see this as inherently you know exploitation and so on and

00:34:02.960 and they actually have uh uh you know they're they're right uh to a large degree i i think especially

00:34:10.400 with um college football in which these players are not being paid and this is actually now being

00:34:17.280 talked about seriously i i in a way that i don't think it would have been talked about at all

00:34:22.120 even 10 years ago certainly not 25 years ago uh where people are are putting forth quite seriously

00:34:29.100 we we need to pay these players we know that they're getting you know thousand dollar handshakes from

00:34:35.100 from boosters and don't you know donors to the university etc and they're they're probably being

00:34:39.760 paid in some fashion but uh the fact that they're generating millions per game the fact that the

00:34:47.140 coach uh if if he's successful at one of these big schools might you know could be earning tens of

00:34:53.300 millions of dollars i i think there was actually a hundred million dollar contract or something like

00:34:57.300 that for coach and clemson um and they're also risking their health and you know inherently just by

00:35:05.180 the violence of the sport they're risking get risking getting their knees blown out or whatever but

00:35:10.240 uh with the cte phenomenon you know they're uh even if they're not injured in the in the standard way

00:35:16.900 they they are risking serious memory loss and and even worse um and the fact that they are not being

00:35:24.940 paid at all is you know inherently exploitative and and does actually kind of evoke this slavery image

00:35:33.220 which is kind of hanging in people's minds they don't really want to go there but the basically the uh

00:35:40.100 the the white plantation manager uh you know with his team of uh of african slaves out fighting on

00:35:49.280 the field while he's getting well he's getting paid and they're risking their lives um you know

00:35:55.400 this critique is real you hear you hear that mostly on the left but it's uh uh you know contains

00:36:01.920 more than a kernel of truth i'd say yeah no it's uh i mean that's sort of like in

00:36:08.640 uh alt-right 1.0 that was sort of the uh that was the kind of rebuttal that was the kind of rebuttal

00:36:15.540 to uh southerners who would uh uh get irritated at yankees right for being such liberals was that

00:36:22.440 go watch for that yeah that the south was essentially addicted to football and yeah like sort of the

00:36:30.060 blackest teams in the country as it were um so and other people are being exploited i'll let you go on

00:36:36.780 this but just to mention there's an another element in in which uh there were these scandals uh there

00:36:43.160 was actually one scandal at um and i wrote about this in in an article a big article i wrote a

00:36:48.500 about a year and a half ago now but um you know the uh there was a scandal north carolina where all of

00:36:54.940 these you know athletes they're you know getting a scholarship they're taking these joke classes where

00:37:00.680 they would make you know probably not even attend class and if they did they were just hanging

00:37:05.680 out and they got their little study buddy to write a paper for them or they cheated or whatever and

00:37:10.500 there was just this tacit assumption that you know you're not here to learn son you're here to play

00:37:16.400 football and uh that that was a huge scandal just because it made a mockery of the idea of a student

00:37:22.540 athlete uh but things could actually get much worse um you know barry switzer was involved in

00:37:29.700 some other coaches um but baylor had a major scandal of effectively prostituting out some uh female

00:37:38.240 student athletes interestingly and and just some you know college co-eds were basically just uh you

00:37:45.560 know thrown at these recruits uh very often you know an 18 year old in high school and he arrives on

00:37:52.320 campus you know are you going to go to ut are you going to go to baylor well you know we want to

00:37:56.980 baylor wants to you know get up there so we're just going to throw a bunch of you know cheerleaders

00:38:01.580 at you and there there is this you know you're bringing these people onto campus you're making a

00:38:08.140 mockery of the idea of a student athlete or scholarship uh and girls are getting raped girls

00:38:14.820 are being pressured into having sex with football players to get these top recruits i mean yeah there is

00:38:19.820 just something so uh inherently toxic about the whole thing it it makes you kind of want to walk away

00:38:27.800 from it uh whereas with the nfl you know they're getting paid millions you know we know what's going

00:38:36.140 on you know that yeah they're not they're not making a mockery of anything it's a professional league

00:38:43.080 for gladiators we know this yeah no um it's like a um a tom wolf novel what you're describing yeah

00:38:52.500 i am charlotte simmons yeah definitely which i never read but i i can yeah i i've enjoyed other

00:38:59.800 books that i would recommend uh the painted word is it's a very insightful book actually about the

00:39:05.740 modern art industry um so yeah i mean i think that um uh college football um yeah you know that's

00:39:15.840 something that i never really got into uh i never i i didn't go to a school that had a very good college

00:39:20.600 team i went to the school in the northeast and uh typically the teams are just not as good in the

00:39:26.560 northeast i mean they you know so in other words new england ironically enough even though we have this

00:39:31.340 fantastic professional team it's probably it's it's relatively speaking a kind of desert in terms

00:39:37.480 of a football talent as it were i mean i think that most of these kids come from whether they're

00:39:42.380 quarterbacks or other positions they come from texas or they come from california um or alabama or

00:39:49.180 mississippi or you know some of these places yeah uh doug flutie is kind of our most famous

00:39:54.340 college football right you went to boston college didn't you yeah yeah though i we've we've actually

00:40:00.100 produced some good quarterbacks uh um ryan who uh who's uh atlanta right oh matt ryan yeah yeah

00:40:08.540 matt ryan he's good um he was also uh boston college uh so good quarterback um but uh yeah so

00:40:16.000 it's not really kind of football country as it were but ironically enough we we have this very good

00:40:20.940 football team uh professional football team uh but you know tom brady of course is uh from california i

00:40:27.680 believe yeah and uh i mean you know just to kind of segue uh back to uh the patriots uh you know one

00:40:35.760 of the sort of because we we talked at the beginning of this uh podcast about how you know people

00:40:41.620 generally are hostile to the patriots in the country because they've been such a successful team i mean

00:40:47.080 it's sort of understandable in a way it's it's the way people are hostile to um the new york yankees

00:40:53.520 how would you cheat as well i mean well i don't know my tendency is actually to uh to defend them

00:41:02.520 in the sense that i think that probably everyone is sort of doing everything they can to kind of get

00:41:06.800 an advantage i would argue right now maybe taping practices of another squad playing with deflated

00:41:12.860 footballs i mean you guys are the worst oh all completely invalid points i'll say

00:41:18.860 but but but in any case i you know i because i don't i don't want to uh look you know ridiculous

00:41:27.320 defending my sports balls in too kind of earnest or passionate manner um what i what i'll say though

00:41:35.180 is that it is a kind of irony in the sense that i mean very visibly and obviously uh the patriots have

00:41:41.460 been a very successful team for the last i don't know it's fifth over 15 years um and in a kind of

00:41:47.360 unique way uh it's been a franchise it's sort of uh it's a kind of unrivaled franchise one thing

00:41:53.920 that's interesting about it is that a lot of the skilled players have actually been white guys

00:41:57.680 yeah um the famous skilled players and by skilled players we mean the wide receivers they've actually

00:42:03.400 had a couple of good pretty good uh white running backs as well yeah which is kind of even rarer

00:42:08.820 phenomenon i remember was a you know kind of an unknown guy who was you know playing really well

00:42:14.660 in the super bowl and and so on and yeah yeah the white running back is is an absolute rarity

00:42:20.400 yeah and and uh belichick is actually kind of unique in the regard that he's i mean there were

00:42:25.520 obviously other white uh skilled players in the league uh but i think he's you know in the last

00:42:30.980 like 15 years he certainly has been kind of at the head of that trend um and a lot of it has to do

00:42:36.320 with the fact um you know uh paul kersey actually said on a podcast um that he's very good at like

00:42:42.180 kind of uh getting a deal as it were i mean he didn't say this exactly but in the sense that

00:42:47.640 there's all these kind of undervalued white players in the league because there is this

00:42:51.520 sort of like subliminal racism towards them as it were right but you know in other words

00:42:56.700 particularly at skilled positions not not at offensive line but definitely at at wide receiver

00:43:02.040 running back or defensive back or things like that yeah sure and to finish up my earlier point

00:43:08.380 though it is it is kind of an irony that uh the patriots are so hated but they're also kind of

00:43:13.640 the i mean and i think that you actually wrote an article that contains a similar sentiment um with uh

00:43:19.800 about the uh leitner the famous uh uh duke basketball oh yeah yeah the unbearable whiteness

00:43:27.960 the unbearable whiteness yeah white devil yeah yeah that i wrote that 10 years ago oh my god

00:43:34.480 yeah i feel uh quite old yeah i wrote that in the early days of alternative right in 2010

00:43:39.060 uh but yeah they're duke is an interesting one in in basketball because it although the although

00:43:47.180 there were certainly black players and the team has become uh blacker you know as as time's gone on

00:43:53.180 uh their their key players were these cocky white guys you know uh bobby hurley christian laettner

00:44:03.300 being just paradigmatic you know he he was you know uh he was actually from a working class

00:44:08.380 background but he he was kind of had a snobby air to him he was cocky and that game in the 90s early

00:44:16.120 90s against unlv where you had it it was it was kind of the catholics versus the convicts you know

00:44:22.660 kind of rivalry you had this um that was a uh notre dame versus miami rivalry in the 90s but uh this

00:44:29.500 was the this was that version of it you had this team that would just seemingly so athletically

00:44:34.200 superior that you know it was like an nba squad playing a a middle school team or people were just

00:44:41.660 like this can't happen and uh duke did it they they won and they won by playing you know solid

00:44:49.280 basketball i mean uh sheshevsky is known for uh complicated offensive schemes and then playing

00:44:54.380 tough man-on-man defense and they won and uh yeah it was absolutely like that it during the super

00:45:01.180 bowl a couple years ago it was the super bowl where um i guess it was 2016 early 2017 which uh in

00:45:08.300 which um the patriots had a miraculous comeback i think they were down 28-3 at one point or something

00:45:14.660 like that and um they were playing the atlanta falcons and i remember it well yeah i'm sure you do

00:45:21.480 yeah i well i remember it well too because i i became a kind of i wasn't even planning this but

00:45:27.440 it just all worked out where my twitter was going insane and basically you know a dozen or so

00:45:34.860 celebrities and and sports writers were retweeting me you know just saying like this is the worst person

00:45:40.420 in america but i basically said that i was like okay i'm rooting for new england in this game

00:45:46.300 and uh you know first off i i actually was born in boston so i can do that but but secondly like uh

00:45:52.740 you know they have three white wide receivers and tom brady is this you know arian avatar you know and

00:45:58.260 just kind of being using you know provocative language and uh it was it was an epic tweet yes

00:46:05.540 it actually got picked up in the boston newspapers i mean to the extent that they were yeah yeah yeah the

00:46:11.380 people were freaking out and then i was getting when it was 28-3 at halftime or early third quarter

00:46:17.500 or something i was getting all these tweets like oh you know here you know what do you think about

00:46:21.480 this spencer what do you think about this it was it was kind of a i guess a sign of where we were

00:46:27.180 where we just couldn't lose you know for that about a year or so and you know the patriots came back

00:46:32.820 and then i you know was you know engaged in lots of frivolity uh the rest of the night but but it is

00:46:38.800 you know again i was getting at something i talked to the sports writer in 2017 who was he was actually

00:46:44.500 a a nice guy i'm forgetting his name in the moment but he wrote an article about this

00:46:49.240 and what i i basically made this argument which i think paul kersey might have pioneered um which is

00:46:56.880 that you're you have a hard salary cap sports so you know you you cannot overpay players in the 90s

00:47:04.680 of the cowboys jerry would just throw money at people because they were being they were so

00:47:08.380 successful he wanted to win you cannot do that um and so you have to find undervalued talent it's

00:47:15.440 like picking a stock you know where you you you don't want to buy the stock that everyone wants

00:47:21.600 to buy you're overpaying for it you want to buy the one that no one wants to buy and so belichick was

00:47:26.340 able to create the system where he had tom brady so he had the centerpiece of a very good

00:47:32.220 quarterback who became a great quarterback and then you just put in all these pieces around him

00:47:37.800 and there there there have been some stars but it's been remarkable how few stars they're on i don't

00:47:43.900 think tom brady maybe in 2005 he might have had a dream team of all these amazing players but that

00:47:50.240 was the only time he's he's one with players that were kind of like a little too old not underappreciated

00:47:56.920 maybe not used in the right way because they were a bit niche in their skill set uh and you know

00:48:03.800 belichick just puts it all together and belichick is a master at special teams which other teams can

00:48:09.940 sometimes overlook he puts the pieces together and you can't and it's obviously successful despite their

00:48:17.360 rampant cheating as i mentioned um but uh you know and again there was this kind of incorrect

00:48:24.780 there's this notion that part of that was picking up these players i mean wes wes welker i believe was

00:48:32.820 five foot eight or something and um julian edelman is five ten uh they are a bit undersized when it

00:48:41.140 comes to wide receivers they are more of the kind of guy of like oh he's a slot receiver which is code

00:48:47.080 for he's white uh you know to a large degree and they but he made it work as those guys are number one

00:48:54.540 because they're they're really quick they've got great hands they run great routes they do the kind

00:48:58.900 of white stuff and belichick and brady proved that that can be much more important than having a

00:49:05.680 you know diva wide receiver who wants to go deep all the time and make an amazing catch but the fact is

00:49:12.620 again it's a team game it's a slog it's about doing the little things over and over and over again as

00:49:19.360 opposed to doing that one amazing thing once and it worked and yeah there was a super bowl squad

00:49:25.760 that started three white wide receivers that is something you know there's great white wide receivers

00:49:30.980 in the nfl right now but it's just something you don't see and uh and belichick did it and so there

00:49:37.640 was this kind of even though that i think the the sports writer told me that uh in aggregate the new

00:49:43.300 paper it's were not whiter than other teams and which might very well be true uh but what i was

00:49:50.180 pointing out was that you know uniqueness of finding these guys who are breaking the mold of you know

00:49:57.120 you're six feet tall maybe taller you're you're you're african-american you're super fast you've got

00:50:03.000 you know you're a flamboyant guy like that's the mold of the star wide receiver um and uh the patriots

00:50:09.520 one without it yeah no and uh it i the other thing too i would say is that i while everything

00:50:17.080 you said is true in the sense that uh belichick found all the sort of right pieces and more than

00:50:22.780 you know focusing on these diva uh wide receivers or finding these great individuals he kind of built

00:50:28.800 a sort of machine that kind of well-oiled machine where every part was kind of doing its serving its

00:50:34.240 role um that's all true i think it tends to undervalue the those athletes those white athletes

00:50:41.840 as wide receivers who are who are you know some of them or will be hall of famers or should be hall

00:50:48.200 of famers guys like wes welker uh even this guy edelman is a fantastic uh receiver uh and physically

00:50:55.420 remarkable receiver he's a very quick guy and very skilled and a lot of it you know part of it's his

00:51:02.440 physical attributes part of it you know these sort of white traits you describe of like the

00:51:06.840 discipline the reliability or whatever the case may be um but it becomes because of these sort of um

00:51:13.240 you know i think that there is obviously a kind of psychological bias toward the black athlete

00:51:19.080 and one of the reasons that these other uh coaches in the league will not play uh um you know uh white

00:51:27.100 guys at receiver at these skilled positions like belichick will is because they are not as confident

00:51:34.520 in their ability to sort of uh see talent as it were i would argue in the sense that they you know

00:51:40.020 because their fear is that if they play the white uh cornerback and the guy gets blown by in some

00:51:45.640 critical play then they're going to be fired or their their reputation as a coach is going to suffer

00:51:50.440 because they play the white guy when you know the sort of default position is play the black guy right

00:51:56.160 so i i think that there is some kind of fear or a lot a kind of lack of confidence in their own

00:52:02.400 ability to assess talent among some of these other coaches in the league whereas with belichick i think

00:52:07.500 that that doesn't you know i think he does play the best players and they may have these white traits as

00:52:12.020 you say and he may kind of fit them perfectly into a system but they're also individually very

00:52:15.880 skilled uh one example of this is uh this guy uh rob gronkowski gronk as he's kind of more

00:52:22.800 popularly known uh he's a physical freak i mean the guy is massive i mean he looks like a cartoon

00:52:28.460 character of a football player yeah and he's he's just this ridiculously buff massive guy who actually

00:52:35.140 can run pretty fast and he's actually very athletic and uh so he you know so that's an example and you

00:52:41.360 know and i used to kind of work on the foot speed but but you know or or but he would he was and he

00:52:48.000 obviously was big hulking guy but he would make these amazing catches that you would expect from

00:52:54.620 a guy who's like 5'9 but he's 6'4 250 or you know whatever he was and uh yeah i mean he he is he is

00:53:02.540 the typical guy who you know gets drafted in the later rounds wait i i think he won't he might have

00:53:07.220 been a first round first round draft pick maybe not but um uh but he uh you know just this you know

00:53:14.480 guy who you you can't the talent doesn't jump out at you by just measuring it you know i don't know

00:53:20.660 what he ran the 40 in or whatever but if as a football player he's a complete unstoppable badass

00:53:27.180 yeah and there's there's all these sort of like strange uh and i don't know if it's becoming a more

00:53:33.740 kind of common thing but they're these sort of strange outliers arguably they're outliers but it's

00:53:38.420 really hard to tell because i do think that there is a kind of subconscious balance bias happening in the

00:53:43.020 league i mean i think certainly you can say that blacks have an advantage in sort of straightforward

00:53:47.180 speed and in leaping ability as well but those those two things while valuable for wide receiver

00:53:53.820 don't make a great wide receiver by themselves uh being a great receiver uh requires more than just

00:53:59.920 being able to jump high or run fast because um you know i mean the the league is full of black guys

00:54:07.820 that can basically do exactly that yeah but very few of them are as good as well west welker i mean

00:54:13.020 he's a very kind of rarefied elite in the league um so so that's the other thing i would say is that

00:54:18.360 there are other attributes um that make a great receiver a great skill player and then we we are

00:54:24.460 also starting to see all these kind of strange outliers recently um there's this guy uh what's his name

00:54:30.240 christian the running back oh christian mccaffrey yeah yeah now he's a he's a i he he's

00:54:37.620 arguably the best sort of skilled player in the league he's arguably the best football player

00:54:42.720 in the nfl right now in the sense that um i mean he he was on a team that that sucked this year

00:54:49.360 the carolina panthers uh but in terms of a player that can catch the ball run the ball run the ball

00:54:57.920 inside the tackles run the ball outside and in i don't know if he's doing this anymore but he was a

00:55:03.040 great punt returner and kickoff returner in college yeah he he's arguably the best football

00:55:08.000 player in the nfl and you know there are other people who go to that but but yeah i i think there

00:55:14.760 are the the occasional person who can fight the mold he was uh blessed i guess with genes i mean

00:55:22.000 his father was an nfl wide receiver who i remember watching when i was a kid and um his mother was like a

00:55:28.040 i don't know like on the olympic alternate team of track and field or it was some crazy

00:55:32.560 you know marriage of athletes that you produce

00:55:35.660 well that's the way the quizak sadarak or something sure but uh nevertheless you know yeah he's yeah he's

00:55:45.780 absolutely amazing and uh but there's no there's also no question that he faced some kind of

00:55:53.380 bigotry for lack of a better word in being a running back uh you know he can be a tight end

00:56:00.260 you could maybe play strong safety or linebacker or something but this idea that you would you would

00:56:06.280 be you would doing the glory position and doing it in a kind of quote-unquote black way uh is actually

00:56:13.700 um uh maybe taboo is too strong a word but it goes against the group think of basically every coach

00:56:22.000 you're going to ever be coached under um for your entire career and every scout and uh so there there

00:56:29.440 is a kind of like uh disruption you know equality to mccaffrey um it's you know it's interesting

00:56:37.840 and we should pursue those we should pursue those eugenic policies certainly yeah but um

00:56:43.600 but the other thing i would say is that he um so guys like that and there's the uh luka donchich

00:56:51.300 is a basketball player now who is a remarkable basketball player if he continues sort of at his

00:56:57.380 current trajectory like he'll he'll be the best basketball player that ever lived hey i mean like

00:57:03.220 he'll be better than the sense of he's this good at this young i think he's like he's 20 he's 20 years

00:57:08.260 old yeah he's 20 years old yeah and he's already had like um i think i you know don't quote me because

00:57:14.340 i don't follow it that closely but he's he's already had well over a dozen triple doubles in

00:57:19.180 the league and i apparently that's more than the rest of the league combined right he's so a triple

00:57:24.160 double he's better than lebron james was when lebron james was 20 that that is something that's

00:57:30.280 irrefutable i i have heard some pushback from some sports guys who say that he doesn't play defense

00:57:35.380 and that you've got to learn that if you want to be an all-around player well okay but uh the fact

00:57:40.680 is he's a tall point guard he's like six he's like a six foot eight point guard which is in itself

00:57:47.300 kind of interesting and highly unusual and he's unstoppable as a three-point shooter and and just

00:57:56.300 dribbler and kind of creative process again i don't really like basketball i don't follow it

00:58:01.460 at all really uh but i've just seen these you know highlights of him playing and he's actually

00:58:09.180 a basketball player that i would want to watch because he's just creative you know he's just you

00:58:14.380 know like cool bounce passes between defenders behind the back you know slowing up and hitting

00:58:21.460 a fade away three-pointer like he's he's got a kind of like pete maravich like showman quality to him

00:58:27.140 which which is again is very interesting and uh we're also seeing that like this kind of thing

00:58:33.500 works in the nba this is maybe even the future of the nba is playing like this playing like players

00:58:39.480 played in the 60s and um you don't need to be a a kind of genetic freak that can jump over uh the hoop

00:58:50.520 and you know swat everything down and so on actually it is still a sport and and it's not

00:58:57.300 it's not just a test of you know your 40 time or your leaping ability it's it's actually a game

00:59:04.440 that involves strategy and creativity and showmanship and and and so on and yeah the guy is um you know he

00:59:11.960 might be an mvp candidate at age 20 as a white guy from eastern europe you know there is hope

00:59:18.320 yeah no it's he is a remarkable player and the thing that you notice about dominant players is

00:59:25.740 that they it's almost like they are sort of more conscious than everyone else on the floor

00:59:30.500 whether it's a guy like wayne gretzky and you know like in other words you're seeing all these things

00:59:35.940 everyone else is kind of trapped in this sort of smaller mindset where they're just trying to do their

00:59:40.800 role or their basic function and whereas this dominant player is kind of seeing all these things

00:59:46.980 that everyone else is kind of missing yeah and he's sort of on it i mean he's literally on another

00:59:51.140 level but it must it has to be related to some kind of cerebral ability that he has it where he's in a

00:59:58.240 way kind of more conscious on a kind of a spatial level and he's able to see all these opportunities

01:00:02.760 that everyone else is kind of missing and or ignoring or just focused on these more basic things

01:00:08.200 um that he's not he's kind of he's already passed those sort of basic things as a war yes i'm a i'm a

01:00:13.960 pretty smart guy and i was never like that in my history of playing all sports so it's not just

01:00:22.920 intelligence it's something else but it is something but it probably is connected to intelligence i don't

01:00:28.140 think you can be a totally dumb person and act like that like it's it is seeing it's seeing something

01:00:33.720 that others are missing yes and it's finding that sort of perfect alchemy of the kind of physical

01:00:39.780 ability and the yeah that that awareness or intelligence or whatever we're calling it

01:00:45.760 yeah yeah now one thing i would point out um you know we were talking about you know group think or

01:00:54.060 bigotry you could say against the white athlete at least at certain skill positions there's there's

01:00:58.940 not bigotry against white tight ends and actually um the the best ones are white i think that you know

01:01:05.420 this guy who's actually playing the super bowl uh kittle uh is really good and he's you know he's a

01:01:11.180 white guy uh travis kelsey is on the other side of the ball these are probably the two best tight ends

01:01:16.760 in america and they're playing in the super bowl and maybe that's not a coincidence actually it's a very

01:01:21.520 important position but um two white guys so in in certain ways they're they're not being discriminated

01:01:27.060 against but they're in in other ways i think there is clearly group think bias going on uh but then

01:01:33.660 flip it around and the quarterback um so do we consider jimmy garoppolo white yeah he's he is white

01:01:43.640 um uh he's kind of a swarthy guy very handsome guy um probably have to be a bit handsome to be a

01:01:50.440 quarterback i don't you know are there any ugly there is okay yeah i mean probably because you've

01:01:56.100 got to be cocky and like a leader and it seems like something that maybe ed dutton has done a study

01:02:01.580 but i think that there is there is a correlation uh between the symmetry of the face and athletic

01:02:07.620 apparently yeah oh there's a correlation between that and in general health and intelligence and

01:02:12.780 just a healthy nervous system in general is a spatial symmetry yeah so physically uh physical

01:02:19.160 attractiveness uh correlates um i don't know how strongly but does correlate with athletic ability

01:02:24.380 yes and it correlates with health as well so yeah um uh so yeah jimmy garoppolo he he he looks

01:02:31.240 kind of like a hollywood almost like a hollywood star from the 50s or something he's you know and tom

01:02:37.280 brady also very handsome and this this probably does play into it at some level i would say russell

01:02:44.260 wilson and patrick mahomes kind of less handsome they're not ugly exactly but um that is interesting but

01:02:51.380 so whereas there's a bias against white athletes at certain positions i would actually admit that

01:02:58.900 there probably is a bias towards white quarterbacks um that i i think there's probably a founded a well

01:03:08.000 founded bias in the sense that the quarterback is a different position it is about processing speeds

01:03:13.700 africans have slower processing speeds um at things like reaction times and so on than

01:03:20.940 europeans so that is clearly a very important thing playing quarterback you've got to just read a

01:03:27.560 defense and you've got less than a second to make a call and you can't just sit there holding the ball

01:03:32.880 waiting for somebody to get open that's like the first sign of a bad quarterback you you've got to

01:03:37.540 make the read and gun it out of there uh so i i think there's probably a well grounded aspect to

01:03:44.260 that i think also in terms of the white quarterback um just because you need less foot speed i mean

01:03:49.720 quickness having a quick release is important but just uh being able to outrun the defense that's

01:03:55.620 not important at least in the way that football is played now um so it kind of levels the playing

01:04:02.160 field and at the end of the day there are more white guys than there are black guys so they're just

01:04:06.460 going to be more white quarterbacks i think these are um these are important factors but i i actually

01:04:12.600 wouldn't i i'm open-minded enough to say that there might very well be a bias against a bias towards

01:04:18.400 white quarterbacks it's kind of unspoken but it's there among head coaches and scouts um

01:04:24.720 and and if you look at that may have been more yeah it might be changing but before i say but

01:04:30.240 because i kind of know where you're going because i i do think things might be changing but if you look

01:04:34.080 back at the super bowls uh they have been white winning quarterbacks on the super bowl squad with with

01:04:41.900 interesting exception of doug williams of the redskins um and uh and then also uh russell or russell wilson

01:04:50.800 who's a very good quarterback um kind of more of a running quarterback but he's more now more of a

01:04:56.200 passer but um uh but he is half white for what it's worth uh so basically white quarterbacks have won the

01:05:06.960 super bowl now there's an interesting case even with patrick mahomes who is a you know clearly

01:05:12.780 superstar quarterback um you know makes some amazing throws you know uh you know uh for the for the

01:05:20.820 kansas city chiefs uh but he's half white as well um i i i think his father i think his father might

01:05:28.900 have been a black baseball player which is unusual in itself but uh and he had a white mother so

01:05:34.540 again um there you know there's this you know you you could say there's this bias but then

01:05:41.040 it's kind of easy to be biased when the the most winning team the most successful quarterbacks have

01:05:49.140 been white guys sure no and that that's that's i think that that's changed and there's been a kind

01:05:55.640 of conscious effort i mean for uh maybe the last uh 20 to 15 years um the nfl

01:06:04.180 and coaches ostensibly as well have been sort of attached to this idea of the the running

01:06:09.380 quarterback right so in other words and in one sort of uh early not that early example but one

01:06:15.980 early example of it um is michael vick right he was a sort of uh the archetype of the the running

01:06:22.920 quarterback and the idea is that you basically have a hybrid player who's based who's skilled both

01:06:28.500 at distributing the ball through passing but also can like you know run the ball you know whether

01:06:34.000 he's in trouble or through planned plays or whatever the case may be um there are two problems with that

01:06:40.240 model in fact i i would argue probably the most successful quarterback of that model was um steve

01:06:46.580 young who's a white quarterback like yeah he he was he was a very good running quarterback as it were

01:06:53.840 now the problem the problem with the model is that whether you're white or black or whatever your

01:06:59.800 processing speed is still gonna is it yeah well there's well that's that's the second thing i was

01:07:05.680 gonna yeah injuries is the other injuries is a big problem for that sort of model of play as it were

01:07:11.540 and so it doesn't really seem that well thought out in my mind like you're gonna have this running

01:07:15.660 quarterback okay and then what's gonna happen when he gets injured right uh so because he is the

01:07:22.260 most important player on your team and he doesn't use the cut as well he's the general every play

01:07:27.620 yeah a running back they can you can rotate these guys in and out they can get winded they can get

01:07:32.160 banged up and you know take breathers you can't do that with a quarterback he's your field general

01:07:37.660 effectively right so he's the most precious player that you have on the team and so but the other

01:07:44.060 aspect of it is that you know in a way it's almost like you almost don't want to have the option to

01:07:50.660 be able to run because you already have so many options and so many problems to deal with as a

01:07:55.760 quarterback that it just creates another layer of complexity to the position where you're also

01:08:00.980 thinking about running versus like in other words and especially if you're someone who's a kind of

01:08:05.700 fleet-footed runner like a guy like michael vick is that there's always the temptation to say hey

01:08:10.900 fuck it i'm gonna run you know like i don't see the pass i'm gonna run and uh so it's almost like uh

01:08:17.240 um it's i think it's a very difficult thing to pull off a running quarterback is a very difficult

01:08:23.520 thing to pull off and i think very few people have actually pulled it off in the history of

01:08:27.700 the game and been exceptionally successful quarterbacks and one of them is steve you know

01:08:31.720 i mean so in other words but steve young was a brilliant passer is the other thing he wasn't just

01:08:36.760 some guy you know like the the person who who will probably win the mvp this year is named lamar

01:08:42.940 jackson and he um plays for the baltimore ravens and he you know again i i don't i don't want to

01:08:51.060 get all racist or whatever but you know he he doesn't usually the quarterback is the guy who gets

01:08:57.000 he's not just the field general he's also the guy who gets interviewed and he's he's kind of the fans

01:09:01.680 connection to the team he's he's more of a you know more intelligent almost seemingly normal guy in

01:09:08.940 that sense whereas if a defensive lineman has an iq of 80 and long hair and tattoos and is a just

01:09:15.240 total wild man or whatever all the better you know you're not expecting him to you know be you know

01:09:21.520 your your your representative out in the field but the quarterback is just a different position it's

01:09:26.280 the golden boy it's the gory position etc lamar jackson is much more like i've i've seen some him

01:09:32.400 get interviewed or or things like that he kind of strikes me is having the mental capacity of like

01:09:40.860 the guy who plays linebacker and i don't really mean that as a criticism to be honest because

01:09:46.260 you're out there to play football i don't care you've read shakespeare uh but he's just a different

01:09:54.360 type and he runs the ball very well he's very fast uh he can turn the corner on most players

01:10:01.200 he is you know very dynamic in that way he he does throw the ball and he's had some success with

01:10:06.680 it but i i sometimes i i see these some of these highlights of him throwing the ball and i'm i'm

01:10:12.000 kind of um i i don't i i i i'm i'm incredulous that he's completing passes he he it's a it's not a great

01:10:22.260 ball it's kind of weak he has this funny throwing motion it's it's not the type of quarterback that works

01:10:28.180 in the the way that offenses have been heading for the past 20 years which is um you know short

01:10:35.400 passing game um you know fairly complicated playbook uh you know quick reads so on that that's the

01:10:43.420 direction the game is headed and he seems to be headed in a very different direction which is a

01:10:48.060 run first quarterback and he he seems to have success throwing because he can run

01:10:53.340 um and uh but as a passer you know i i'm in a way kind of amazed that he's doing what he's doing

01:11:02.760 and um you know he's had success he's obviously a great athlete i've you know nothing against him

01:11:08.780 but i i can't imagine that working uh for 10 years or maybe even for two or three years

01:11:15.560 you know and the other thing that people have remarked um i haven't followed uh the league very

01:11:21.680 closely this year um i'll admit and i've i've folded less closely increasingly as the years have

01:11:27.040 gone on it's just less interesting to me in general but um what i would say is that one thing that people

01:11:32.700 have been remarking on is that the sort of the quality of the league in general was sort of in

01:11:36.920 decline is is the feeling and uh in fact to such an extent that people were optimistic in new england that

01:11:44.380 the patriots had a shot i did win yet another super bowl with a 42 year old quarterback like so

01:11:50.920 so so in other words so the league was didn't strike people as that impressive this year in

01:11:56.400 general now obviously the two teams that are uh in the super bowl now are better than yeah or better

01:12:02.320 than the patriots were um and and they they include very good players and are good teams but the general

01:12:08.780 trend in the league is that it's it's just it's a less skilled or it's becoming a less skilled league

01:12:13.480 than it was in the past maybe its height was uh um you know when uh payton and and brady were in the

01:12:20.400 league and these like sort of super quarterbacks as it were um so i and i think that if they are

01:12:27.440 kind of artificially pursuing this agenda of getting like this sort of fantasy hybrid quarterback which

01:12:33.680 again i think is just a kind of strategically bad idea to have your quarterback even run the ball or

01:12:38.160 have that as a main option because of injury uh first and foremost um i you know i so i i i don't

01:12:45.760 i think that what will what may actually happen is is kind of remarkable because you always think

01:12:50.660 about sports as the athletes always getting better and the the game getting better but there are these

01:12:58.060 sort of subtle changes that happen in sports leagues that can actually decrease the quality of play

01:13:04.520 whether or not the sort of physical athleticism of players is actually increasing um there are things

01:13:10.480 uh that can happen for example in the uh the professional basketball league i mean these one of

01:13:15.380 the reasons that luca is so successful um is because you know he's a he's a good shooter and uh shooting

01:13:22.480 i think for a long time had started to to a decline in the nba because people you know became very

01:13:29.280 attracted this idea of a player that who could you know dunk the ball or uh slash the basket um now that

01:13:37.220 changed um that changed uh uh who is the uh jump shooter see i i just don't follow look i don't

01:13:45.540 i don't follow basketball as well but i actually think you're you're you're almost um you're about like

01:13:51.560 10 or 15 years behind because uh basketball has become i i think through this money ball like

01:13:59.000 algorithmic well yes look at the game hurry seth curry it's become a three-point shooting league

01:14:04.680 and um which i think is really problematic actually is as exciting as a long shot could be it's it's not

01:14:12.000 as good of basketball so basically you know if you know i'm just throwing out numbers here to make a

01:14:18.800 point but you know if if you shoot three pointers at 30 percent and you shoot you know five to ten

01:14:26.000 footers at 60 percent uh you should basically never shoot a five to ten footer you should just keep

01:14:32.220 shooting threes you get an extra point it makes up for the lower percentage of shots and so

01:14:38.900 algorithmically just don't shoot threes and and that's where the game has gone so the game

01:14:43.700 used to be more about defense and kind of like even bruising defense uh you know despite the fact

01:14:49.560 that they're fouls and so on but you know if you if you drove to the lane you would have to go up

01:14:54.280 against the big men well there aren't really any dominant big men anymore that's gone it's more about

01:14:59.940 just spreading the court out and firing off a three getting as many attempts as possible in a high

01:15:04.920 scoring game where you kind of win algorithmically but i think i i think basketball has declined in the

01:15:11.000 sense that i would rather watch ball movement and slashing and and and so on then i would watch just

01:15:18.220 you know one pass and you throw up a three-pointer i i that gets pretty boring and it's just not as

01:15:25.220 intense um and uh you know football i i don't know that i think the the money ball concept has had

01:15:32.900 less effect on football i mean it's it's certainly more of a passing game uh but you know i don't know

01:15:38.820 i don't want to watch a different sport you know i want to i want to see people run the ball and gain

01:15:46.380 four yards in a cloud of dust and be like all right it's good first down now you know let's set up the

01:15:50.680 third down all that kind of stuff that that's interesting to me if they they came up with some

01:15:55.480 weird like hybrid sport where they're throwing hail mary passes every down or it's just kind of like

01:16:00.520 i don't want to watch this and i i think basketball has become like that um uh to a large degree so yeah

01:16:08.340 so my my point though was the trends basically so it's not just about this sort of athletic

01:16:12.940 athleticism of the players it's trends and with a guy like stefan cure like in in other words one

01:16:19.120 player uh can be very influential in these trends and stefan cure is one example in the sense that it

01:16:27.020 became more of a jump shooting a three-point shooting league as his model became successful

01:16:32.060 and i and i'm more closely familiar with football which i've i've followed in a more close manner

01:16:36.960 but not in a kind of obsessive manner um in the sense that uh the um you know with the patriots team

01:16:43.640 the um there was a period where effectively the tight end became very important in the league

01:16:50.180 and teams were trying to copy the patriots model and have you know a tight end and have basically a

01:16:56.860 system where they had a player like gronk or a sort of kind of inferior version of gronk and were

01:17:01.880 running these schemes that sort of focused on the tight end as it were but a lot of that the reason that

01:17:07.540 trend developed was because of the success of the patriots so in other words that trend that did not

01:17:12.620 that trend was sort of synthetic in the way that that's not the only way to win a football game

01:17:18.260 it's just that the most successful football team was winning in that way and so the same can be said

01:17:23.780 for stefan sefan curry right yeah so or lamar jackson where it's kind of like you can you can do this for

01:17:31.560 a little bit in the sense of you have a you have a quarterback who's basically at the his peak

01:17:37.760 physical condition he can run a four three or four two or whatever he can run 40 he can just turn the

01:17:43.440 corner on pretty much every defensive lineman and linebacker and you can kind of win like that i mean

01:17:50.020 there's no there's no you're not breaking the rules to do that but it can't really last and it's you know

01:17:58.260 if it's you know it you can't just look at that model and try to reproduce it and have a successful

01:18:04.620 team uh you know in terms of other squads um i i've seen a couple there's been a couple of like

01:18:10.220 iterations throughout my life of like the new hybrid black quarterback and it's kind of always

01:18:16.220 peaked and petered out pretty quickly and these players didn't really change the league

01:18:21.960 you know um uh who is uh the guy who he retired a couple years ago uh philadelphia eagles

01:18:29.220 i'm forgetting his name right now um he didn't really change the league there's actually a

01:18:34.960 controversy with brush limbaugh about the black quarterback um michael vick didn't really change

01:18:40.520 the league um uh you know i don't think uh lamar jackson will change the league either yeah yeah and

01:18:47.800 so i guess in that sense so the trend that we saw in basketball was actually more organic in the sense

01:18:54.180 that people were kind of they were basically copying a successful model right now the reason

01:18:59.540 the model was successful is because you just happened to have a guy that was an extremely good

01:19:03.620 three-point shooter but it's not because it was the only model that could have succeeded so if people

01:19:08.660 just started imitating a successful model uh so it's very human in that way right and so the same

01:19:14.260 thing happened with this sort of tight end trend where people were looking for like a great tight end

01:19:18.960 scheme or a great tight end like gronkowski but that just happened to be the way that

01:19:24.040 belichick those were kind of the tools that belichick happened to be using now now in this

01:19:29.900 sort of uh this trend towards the running quarterback i think that this is actually kind of a more

01:19:34.500 artificial thing where where you actually haven't really seen the model yet but they're sort of

01:19:39.400 dreaming up this model of sort of this uh this throwing running hybrid that it that now represents

01:19:44.960 a kind of new ideal for the quarterback but we actually haven't really seen it succeed yet so

01:19:49.340 that's kind of different in that way right um we have definitely not seen it succeed um in terms

01:19:55.960 of super bowl victories and and the ravens uh i think lost their first playoff game so even though

01:20:00.780 they were they're very good in the regular season so yeah yeah i mean in that way sports are kind of

01:20:06.980 interesting and there is a real kind of human dimension in the sense that there is this kind of

01:20:11.200 copycat phenomenon that forms trends like there are actual trends in sports so it's not just it's not

01:20:18.260 just a matter of like okay the guys are bigger and stronger and faster now so it's you know there

01:20:23.140 are other kind of factors involved where um a certain type of player is going to be successful

01:20:28.220 during a certain type of during a certain error as it were yeah and there does seem to be i don't i

01:20:33.640 don't know if this is just a trick of memory where you remember the good times and not the bad but

01:20:37.480 it does seem like nfl play has declined and there are a lot more just mediocre bad games going on and

01:20:46.840 i i don't quite know why yeah and it might have been one of the reasons that uh the patriots have

01:20:52.760 been so successful yeah because uh the the rest of the league has uh not i mean they're they're one of

01:21:00.160 the few teams in the last 15 years it's been kind of consistently a good team very few teams have that

01:21:06.120 consistency in the league they'll they'll be like sort of one hit wonders as it were yeah including

01:21:10.160 player like there'll be a successful quarterback like cam newton was he's one of these guys that

01:21:14.660 they hope will be one of these running throng hybrids and he was very successful early and then he kind

01:21:20.200 of petered out and he kind of you know i mean well he suffered injuries predictably um though i don't

01:21:26.140 know how he suffered that particular injury but i i guess it would probably was related to

01:21:30.040 whether in practice or in again i don't know um but so in other words you you understand what i'm

01:21:35.800 saying that a lot of these football teams tend to be one hit wonders um and the patriots have been

01:21:41.140 successful um and so it's kind of an anomaly actually that they're not in the super bowl this

01:21:46.260 year thank god so um who do you think well we'll just put a bow on it with this um who do you think

01:21:54.180 it's going to win the super bowl uh i kind of don't care um but i think i'm going to root for san

01:22:01.860 francisco because they have a sort of they have a whitish quarterback it's a white guy um and i i

01:22:10.700 don't mind being uh you know i mean i think that uh i think that's natural to root for someone that's

01:22:17.320 kind of i think san francisco is going to win as well i mean uh kansas city they throw the ball really

01:22:23.380 well you know batrick mahomes is is obviously amazing but one thing that i i noted with san francisco

01:22:30.560 because i i watched their game against the packers um i guess two weeks ago and uh and i i had not

01:22:37.340 you know again i'll i'll kind of watch the cowboys on a on a sunday afternoon that that's the you know

01:22:42.160 i'll keep up with it to a degree but that's kind of the level of cat my casual fandom but um what i

01:22:48.280 what i saw from the from the niners and i and i've seen some of their their highlights as well is that

01:22:52.300 they're they're doing kind of old school stuff like they um you know jimmy garoppolo threw the

01:22:59.680 ball eight times against the green bay backers that's unheard of i mean that that that's unheard

01:23:05.100 of over the past like 40 or 50 years of football and they have this zone running attack and they use

01:23:12.920 a fullback which is a white position that's been lost to time lost to trends basically uh they're

01:23:20.740 they're doing it's a highly sophisticated attack you know done by um kyle shanahan but it has a lot

01:23:27.760 of old school elements where they're able to run you know as a team run the ball and play strong

01:23:34.500 defense and just out scheme the other side and uh i i yeah i i i think i would put money i might

01:23:42.580 you know i don't know i might at 25 bucks on it just for the thrill of it i'm not a big sports game i'm

01:23:48.440 not a big gambler at all i'm not a big sports gambler as well but uh yeah i would put my money

01:23:53.280 on san francisco i i just think they have a better team the better scheme they're doing the old school

01:23:58.120 football stuff which have never gone out of style because it's still i mean despite all the rules

01:24:02.860 changes despite the new athletes and training etc it's still the same game and if you know the best

01:24:08.740 defense is to keep the other side off the field run the ball you know sure still yeah i mean you don't

01:24:15.880 have to be this like you know high flying passing attack it's not there's no rule that you have to

01:24:21.300 do that if you if they can't stop you and you run 3.5 yards every down you're just simply like you

01:24:28.380 cannot lose sure no and um i think that uh it's it's being characterized as a contest of um kansas

01:24:37.920 city's offense against um uh san francisco's defense um i think that uh i i actually don't

01:24:46.000 really have a prediction as to who's going to win i i'm pulling for san francisco uh garoppolo is also

01:24:51.920 a former patriots uh player so uh he could have been your quarterback now if brady didn't have such a

01:24:58.440 huge ego yeah don't remind me well you know look we we were happy to give him a couple more super

01:25:05.400 bowls right which is really a consequence of uh garoppolo leaving and not taking over the position

01:25:10.580 is that he did win literally another two quarter another two super bowls right yeah so we do have

01:25:17.000 bragging rights for the goat as it were right now it means now we have we're in a little bit of a

01:25:22.640 recovery mode but honestly uh belichick come on i mean he's the most important element of that team

01:25:28.900 in my mind there was briefly there was a um there was this period uh uh matt castle do you remember

01:25:35.360 that guy yeah yeah he won 11 games when brady was out yeah yeah so and he was the backup and they and

01:25:45.260 that was kind of in their a drought their super bowl drought as it were right yeah just which was

01:25:50.940 like five or six years as opposed to the the normal like 35 years the most yeah um so you know i think

01:26:00.740 it's the border or rather i think it comes down to belichick it's a head coaching league you know

01:26:04.920 it's what it's about nba might be about like players um you know the nfl is about the head coach

01:26:11.760 yeah and belichick is really good at cheating that's right all right well that would be another

01:26:17.840 that would be another hour discussion so

01:26:19.960 you

RadixJournal - February 02, 2020

Special Report： Football!

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