All Shallow's Eve

October 25, 2011

Wow, those costumes are great. I could have
sworn I was looking at real sluts.

It's almost Halloween, so I'm going to explain to you people how to come up with a good costume.


1. Be Slutty


Wear as little as possible. Get naked, then cover up as little of yourself as possible, then say you're going as a "Sexy _____."

Just come up with something to put in the blank. Here's a few ideas:


A. Put on a dog collar : Sexy Lassie.

B. Put on a beard: Sexy Chuck Norris

C. Cover your face in cocaine:  Lindsay Lohan

She's going as an inside-out cow.

D. Cover yourself in red meat: Sexy Cow/Lada Gaga

E. Put a trash bag on your head : Sexy Baby Lisa


2. Too Soon


Go as someone who just died. Al Davis doesn't count, he's been dead since 1993. Or go as an event.

A. Wear a cardboard box covered in Foil with a model airplane crashing into the side: 9/11

B. Dress up in the shape of Japan somehow, drink 4 red bulls, and you'll vibrate your way to a hit costume.

C. Peyton Manning jersey + neck brace = millions of pissed off colts fans. (See also: Bernard Pollard jersey)

D. Put hair in a pony tail and just look like a bitch: Casey Anthony.

Never forget.

E. Look like a small jewish girl and carry a diary around : Helen Keller.


3. Have some jokes


Last year I went as Harry Potter/stripper. That is, it was like you had booked a harry potter themed stripper to come to your party. I went up to people with my magic wand (slim jims) and offered to cast a spell of protection. Abracadabra and here's a condom. Then I offered to magically make people sexier, then handed them gum. Also I had a banana in my pants.

A. Go as 9/11, whenever anyone asks what you are, very very seriously say "you said you'd never forget."

B. Dress like a caveman, dirty as shit, loin cloth, then run around screaming "Wilson!?!?"

Tap that keg.

C. Dress like Michelle Bachman (crazy eyes), and then say any of the stupid things she has said (Carbon Dioxide is safe because it's a natural product of nature, I'm the only person that said they'd build a double wall on the border, etc.)

D.  Go as a dog then hit on girls by saying, "I want to get your leg pregnant." or "I'd bury my bone in her backyard."

E. Go as a cat and then say and do nothing, just stare at people with utter contempt.

F. Dress like an old person, then chug a bottle of whisky. You'll have no idea what the fuck is going on or where you are for the rest of the night: Alzheimers.


4. Puns 


Make your costume into a pun. I was once called "Cougar bait" by a middle aged woman, prompting someone to suggest to me that for Halloween I simply show up to a party covered in raw meat..."Cougar Bait." Here's a helpful tip: try not to creep the fuck out of everyone.


A. Tape dozens of razer blades to your hands and feet : Blade Runner

B. Cover your entire body in green jello and leaves : Forrest Gump

C. Dress up as a giant douche : Nickelback

D. Does Hipster Hitler count as a pun?

E. Print off thousands of pictures of your friends and glue them all over your body. Then wear a dust jacket: Facebook.


5. Offend your friends.


One year as a kid, I went trick-or-treating as a "fat guy." Then a stranger asked me what I was, a particularly portly stranger, and so...yeah that was awkward.

A. Go as one of your friends. Steal some of their clothes, and just generally pretend to be a moronic version of them all night, including hitting on strangers using his/her name and phone number.

B. Dress like a complete slut, offer to give free HJs or fifty-cent BJs, or do anal if they buy you one of those cheesy hot dogs at quicktrip for you. When anyone asks who you are : "Your Mom." Another variation is to answer that you're one of your friend's girlfriends. It's comedy gold.

Here's a few more:

Go as a friend's recently deceased grandparent.
Go as your friend's recently miscarried/aborted fetus.
Go as your friend's under utilized penis.
Go as your friend's over utilized vagina.



So there you have it. Folks. Happy trick-or-treating. Or as Tibbs' Mom calls it "sucking dick for candy."

Tony Gonzalez: Best Receiver Not Named Rice?

16 October, 2011

When he retires he plans to be a fire
department's designated baby-catcher.

Tony Gonzalez can move into 2nd all-time in receptions today. He has 1,096 and is 4th. Cris Carter had 1,101 for 3rd and Marvin Harrison is 2nd with 1,102. 1st all time is a bit out of reach. Rice had 1,549. He needs 7 catches to move into second.

I don't mean to alarm you, but if you look up the active leaders in career receiving yards in the NFL, you'll find Tony Gonzalez at the top of the list. I would imagine this is the first time in history that a Tight End has held this distinction.

He gave up Basketball because it was far too easy.

Pro Football Reference actually lists him at #3 with 12,752 yards, trailing Randy Moss with 14,858 and Terrell Owens with 15,934. Moss retired and Owens is a free agent, though he claims he's coming back. So depending on how strictly you define "active," you could have Tony G on top.

Gonzalez is the best Tight End ever. He holds all TE records there are to be had. He's also a hell of a blocker.

Some of the TEs these days are more like Wide Receivers. They line up outside more, they aren't often asked to act like an Offensive Tackle and help pound the rock. So some of these younger TEs are putting up bigger numbers than Tony did, but it's almost like they play a different position. Tony was part of the offensive lines that made Priest Holmes, Larry Johnson, and Michael Turner into running machines, while he was also setting records as a receiver.

He gets confused about the NFL's alley-oop rules.

So clearly he's accomplished more than any other TE. But is he one of the best Receivers of all-time?

We like to talk about how many 1000-yard seasons receivers have, because we like base-10. Tony G has 8 900-yard seasons and 4 1000-yard seasons.

In 2004 he led the league in receptions. He's caught at least 70 balls in 11 seasons.

He's 14th on the all-time list for receiving yards, ahead of Art Monk and Michael Irvin.

AND-1

By the end of this season, he'll probably pass Irving Fryar (needs 33 yards), Steve Largent (needs 350 yards), Andre Reed (needs 450 yards), and could pass Torry Holt (needs 650). If he plays next year he could pass Henry Ellard (about 1000 behind him), Cris Carter (about 1200), and James Lofton (1400 or so). He could easily be 7th on the all time list in 15 months.

He's 9th all-time in Touchdown catches. 1st amongst active players (again if you don't count Moss and Owens).

Tony G's greatness goes beyond statistics.

He saved a man's life with the heimlich maneuver. A Charger fan.

He literally saved a man's life by knocking him over. No seriously, he ran into a photographer after a play, causing a concussion which led to doctors discovering a brain tumor that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. That's Jesus territory.

Oh and he literally fucks October. And I mean literally, because he's like Paul Bunyan. His wife's name is October, but it's also the month his teams have the best record. So when Tony bangs October, they made a River...River Gonzalez. Seriously, he IS Paul Bunyan.

And he's only ever missed 2 games. Drafted in 1997, he missed one game in '99 and another in '06. That's it. That's 231 games in the NFL.

Before Leaf and Manning there was the
Lafleur/Gonzalez debate. Good call Cowboys.

The sad footnote to his career is 0 playoff wins. He lost to the '97 Broncos as Elway led them to a championship. He lost in '03 to Manning and the Colts in a game that had no punts. He lost to the '06 Colts on their way to a Super Bowl win. And he lost to Aaron Rodgers and the Super Bowl champion Packers last year.

Tony recently said he could play another 3 years. It sounds ridiculous. But you know what, Tony Gonzalez is pretty ridiculous.

He's a hall of famer without doubt. But at some point we're going to have to stop thinking of Tight Ends and Wide Receivers as totally different positions. So where does he rank amongst TEs and H-Backs and Wideouts and whatever the hell Reggie Bush is? That's what we're going to have to figure out at some point. (Just not about Reggie Bush, he sucks. FYI, Reggie Bush has fewer rushing yards in the NFL than Mark Brunell.)

So today, watch for Tony G to maybe move into #2 all time in receptions.

Kurt Warner: The Greatest of All-Time

Man, the X-files were great.

Kurt Warner isn't a lock for the hall of fame. He only started 116 games and won one super bowl. Eli Manning is at 108 games and counting (without missing one) and has a ring too. One thing the Hall looks for is longevity. They don't like guys that were great for a couple of years. They like the Jerry Rices and the Reggie Whites. Kurt Warner just doesn't fit that bill. 


He might still make it based more on his public image and the underdog story he embodied, but I think that's missing the point.


If you were building a franchise and could pick any QB in history to be your guy, maybe you go Brady, Manning, Montana, Elway, Marino, and you'd have success for a decade and a half.


If you had to win one game and could pick any QB in his prime to lead your team, I'd pick Kurt Warner. Just one game? Warner is the guy. And here's why:

Here come the PANTHERS

1. Kurt Warner has only ever started all 16 games three times in his career. 


He's tough, it's not because he can't take the pounding, it's because he never gives up on the play. He hangs in there and waits for that opening. He takes more sacks, but also makes big plays. 


So when he stays healthy and plays all 16 games, how does his team fare in the playoffs? Oh They went to the Super Bowl every year. Like clockwork. Warner's totally healthy? Super Bowl bound. One year he started 15 games, that was 2009. They beat Green Bay in a shootout to open the playoffs, then went to New Orleans and lost to the eventual champs. So in the 4 years he played more than 11 games, his playoff record was 9-3. And every one of those losses was to the eventual champion.




2. He is unstoppable in the playoffs. 

"Pop" Warner.

There are plenty of QBs that can put up monster numbers in the regular season, but when the games start to really count, suddenly it's like they just graduated from college to the pros. The hits are harder, everyone's covered, they make mistakes. 


Peyton Manning's QB rating is about 7 points lower in the postseason (94.9 to 88.4). Tom Brady's is 10 points lower (95.7 to 85.7). Joe Montana, Mr. Clutch, goes up about 3 points in the postseason (92.3 to 95.6).  Warner goes up nearly 10 points, from 93.7 to 102.3. That means that the degree to which Brady gets worse in the playoffs, Warner changes that much, but for the better. 


Warner's career playoff stats:
3952 Yards, 31 TD 14 INT, 66.5% 


Tom Brady's playoff stats:
4407 Yards, 30 TD, 16 INT, 62.2%

Hey Trent, can I play? LOL

Hey, they're almost the same! So Warner's playoff resume should be just about as good as Brady's unless you're just looking at SB wins. 


Oh wait, Brady has played in 19 playoff games. Warner only 13. It took Brady 6 more playoff games to have 1 fewer TD, 2 more INTs, and only 450 more yards. 


Warner throws for 306 yards per game in the playoffs. Extrapolate his 13 career playoff games into a 16 game season and it looks like this:


4864 Yards (only 220 shy of the NFL record), 38 TDs, 17 INTs.

You're too old Kurt.

That's how good he is in just playoff games. For comparison, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, the last 2 guys to set the single-season TD record (50 and 49), have only ever thrown for 38 TDs in a season once each, the year they set the record. Marino only ever did it twice. And that's in the regular season, not the playoffs.


Another metric to look at is yards per attempt, which shows how much the QB is stretching the field. Some teams use dump-offs as essentially an aspect of the running game, which inflates their passing numbers. 


Here's some career YPA numbers:
Brady 7.5
Manning 7.6
Marino 7.3
Montana 7.5
Warner 7.9

Time to see what the kid can do.

Go to their career playoff numbers and it looks like this:
Brady 6.5
Manning 7.5
Marino 6.5
Montana 7.8
Warner 8.5


Again we see evidence that when Kurt drops back to pass, he ain't looking to dump it off. He wants it all. 

One of these guys is the quarterback of the future.

3. He's TOO Good.

With just over 2 minutes to go in Super Bowl 34, the Titans just tied the game 16-16. Kurt Warner and the Rams take over at their 27 yard line. This is the Joe Montana, Tom Brady moment. Where the QB leads his team on a game winning drive to run out the clock as time expires.

 NO JUST KIDDING. This is the part where Kurt Warner throws a 73 yard touchdown bomb on the first play. Because Warner is TOO GOOD, they left a lot of time on the clock, enabling the Titans to come just a yard short.

I'd like to thank our defense for letting
Warner torch them and leaving me some time.

Two years later, Super Bowl 36. The story we remember is that Patriots shutting down the Rams greatest show on turf, and Tom Brady leading the great drive to win the game. However, Warner threw for the 2nd highest yard total in Super Bowl history. 

The Rams trailed 17-3 mid-way through the 4th quarter. He led the Rams back to tie the game. The Rams toook the ball on their 45, with 1:51 left, down by a touchdown. This is going to be the moment, right? Where Warner leads a dink-and-dunk touchdown drive? No.


Three complete passes later and the rams were in the end zone. Warner was too good, leaving the Patriots too much time on the clock, enough for Vinatieri to win it.

7 years later. Cardinals, Steelers. Warner took a sub-par team, once laughed at as the worst playoff team in history, threw them on his god-like throwing arm and nearly won the whole damn thing.

Having trailed the entire game, the Cards took over on their own 36 with 3 minutes to go, down 20-16. It took only 2 plays, one for 3 yards, and the other a 64 yard pass to Larry Fitzgerald. A magnificent 21 second drive to the endzone and to take the lead in the super bowl. 

Thanks Kurt.

Unfortunately, Warner was too good, left too much time on the clock, and the result was Santonio Holmes tiptoing a TD with mere seconds left.

We so often measure greatness in a QB by wins and losses. But it is a team sport. While Troy Aikman, Ben Roethlisberger, and Tom Brady have quarterbacked teams to 3 or more super bowl appearances, they had great coaching staffs, excellent protection, and most of all, a defense that could win championships. Just ask Trent Dilfer about a great defense. 

While it's a passing league now, you don't often see teams that are Pass-first, run-second, winning championships. How many can you think of? The Saints in the epic Saints-Colts Super Bowl. The Colts in 06? Well, they actually ran more in that rainy super bowl. The answer is not many. Most super bowls are won by great defenses, strong clock-controlling running games, and effective quarterbacks that don't make mistakes.

Kurt Warner typically had none of those advantages. He had himself, a split second to throw the ball, and his receivers. With just that, he was the definition of clutch. He would have won 3 super bowls, with 3 game-winning or tying drives in the final minutes, capped with touchdown passes. In fact, those 3 drives only took him a total of 6 plays. 

Damnit Kurt, couldn't you have scored faster?

But we remember more the last second heroics of the other team either beating his defense, or his defense making a miraculous stop. 

Remember the 2007 Patriots, when Tom Brady became a Touchdown machine. How'd that Super Bowl end? Brady led a 12 play, 80 yard drive to the end zone to take a 14-10 lead with 2:42 left. Remember that? No, we remember the Giants desperation drive down the field to take the lead with little time left. It's the curse of the great passing team. They can't control the clock. They leave too much time for heroics.

Imagine if Warner had been a first round pick, a guy given the reigns at 22, a solid defense, a great coaching staff. What could he have done in a 14 year career? Instead, he was overlooked, finally got a chance, and won the whole damn thing, wasn't that long before they took his team away to give it to a younger QB. Then he got a new team, but not for long, he was just keeping it warm for a great new rookie. Then again. The dude never quit, and when it came down to the end of games and seasons, he never flinched.

5084

October 12, 2011

The Greatest Show on Burgh. 

Through 5 weeks, 5 Quarterbacks are on pace to break Marino's single-season passing yards record of 5084:

Tom Brady 6000
Drew Brees 5664
Aaron Rodgers 5504
Cam Newton 5152
Tony Romo 5088 (through 4 games and a punctured lung)

Of course a pace through 5 games won't hold up, but the fact that we have 5 QBs on this pace tells me that it's pretty likely that one of them will be able to break 5100 yards.

HOWEVER, passing yards isn't a great indicator of success. Yeah it's good to have a hell of a passing game, but consider this stat:

The league leader in passing yards has NEVER led his team to a super bowl victory. You would think that in 40+ years, the QB with the most yards would have accomplished this feat. You would be wrong.

That's a sexy yellow. 

If you look at the list of QB seasons sorted by passing yards, with Marino's  5084 in '84 at number one, and Drew Brees 5069 in 2008 as number two, you have to go all the way to the 34th best year to find Peyton Manning's 2006 season to find a super bowl winner. Drew Brees '09 season is 35th, and Kurt Warner's '99 season is 39th. But after that, you won't find another super bowl winner until Brady in '05 at 67th. After that you won't find another SB winner in the top 100.

Those are definitely real. 

(Source)

Going back to Marino's record, here is how the team with the QB that led the league in yards fared:

2010 Colts - Lost wild card weekend.
2009 Texans - Missed the playoffs.
2008 Saints - Missed the playoffs.
2007 Patriots - Lost SB.
2006 Saints - They make it to the Conference Championship and get blown out by the Bears.
2005 Cardinals - Kurt Warner, Anquan Boldin, Larry Fitzgerald...5-11
2004 Colts - Pats had their number (20-3)
2003 Colts - Pats got them in AFC title game.
2002 Raiders - Lost in SB.
2001 Rams - Lost in SB.

2000 Rams - Lost wild card weekend.
1999 Panthers - Missed Playoffs (Yeah Steve Beuerlein led the league in passing, not Warner)
1998 Vikings - Lost in Conference Championship (huge upset)
1997 Seahawks (w/ Warren Moon) - Missed Playoffs
1996 Jaguars - Lost AFC title game.
1995 49ers - Lost first playoff game to Packers.
1994 Patriots - Lost wildcard weekend.
1993 Dolphins - Started 9-2, lost 5 straight to miss playoffs.
1992 Oilers - Lost first playoff game to Buffalo after blowing a 35-3 lead.
1991 Oilers - Lost divisional round game at Denver.
1990 Oilers - Lost 41-14 Wild Card game to the Bengals.
1989 Redskins - Missed Playoffs.
1988 Dolphins - Missed Playoffs.
1987 49ers - lost after first round bye.
1986 Dolphins - Missed Playoffs.
1985 Chargers - Missed Playoffs.

Mort! Wait...Gary!...no wait. Hold on. 

1984 Dolphins - Lost to 49ers in SB, 38-16.

So in 27 seasons, the QB with the most yards missed the playoffs 10 times, lost right away 7 times, had one of the biggest end of year collapses (9-2 start to miss playoffs), one of the biggest upsets in conference title history (98 Vikings lose to the Falcons), gave up the biggest comeback ever (led 35-3 in the second half against a backup QB and lost), and lost 4 Super Bowls, including the infamous 18-1.

Seems to be a curse not a blessing.

So while we might be ready to admit that Defense wins championships, it does seem that racking in gaudy passing stats doesn't.
There are a few reasons for this.

1. Teams that win big don't need to pass a lot, they'll rack up more rushing yards in garbage time, while teams playing lots of close games or playing from behind will keep throwing late into the game.

The Reich Stuff

2. A solid run game that controls the clock might not be as sexy, but it wins championships.

3. You can throw all over the field in the regular season, but come playoff time, somebody will figure out how to stop you. It's just the nature of the playoffs. Ask Peyton or Dan.

The only QB that really came close to confounding these factors was Kurt Warner, who I think is the best playoff QB ever... More to come.

The Expos

6 October, 2011

They're called the Expos cause they
got some splainin to do. 

Exposition, that is.

The KEY to exposition is to make your audience want to know the information you're trying to tell them. Sounds easy enough.

Here are some strategies.

1. The Mystery

The Matrix's first 30 or so minutes is basically a mystery. We know that Trinity and Agent Smith can jump impossibly high, and then she sorta vanishes some how. Then there's the "bugging," and the mouth closing over. Basically there's a bunch of things that are impossible in the real world. Then we have Neo mention, and wonder aloud about what the matrix is. The audience is along with Neo as he's trying to figure out what the Matrix is. So when we have that set piece where Morpheus directly explains what the Matrix is, it's mind blowing instead of dull exposition.

You take the Red Pill, then I explain a bunch of crap to you.

The Thirteenth Floor, which is a very similar movie from the same year uses the same thing. Except they use the mystery as almost the entire plot.

Instead of coming right out to the audience and saying "Okay, so this movie is set in the year 1995 and there are wizards." You can have little hints about the fact that wizards or magic exists and then the main character and the audience are looking for clues about what's going on.

What's he standing on?

The mystery plot is overdone in sci-fi and stories set in the future. For example, the Will Smith I, Robot film is entirely based on a murder mystery. The founder of US Robotics, James Cromwell, perhaps jumped to his death. Will Smith thinks it's murder and is suspicious of all robots. So you go along with Will Smith as he suspects a robot, then a broader plot, and then a robot takeover of the planet. He follows hints left by James Cromwell. Ultimately it turns out that the giant AI running the robots and the city infrastructure decides to takeover the world in order to prevent human deaths from wars and pollution and such. And James Cromwell wanted to stop it, so he commanded a robot to kill him, and then left these hints for one specific detective to follow so he can stop the AI from taking over the world. But...wait a second. Why have yourself killed to leave cryptic hints? Why not just call him up and tell him what's up? Or, since he's the founder of US Robotics, and works in the same building as the evil AI...why doesn't he just destroy the AI like he vicariously gets Will Smith to do? It really doesn't make sense if you think about it. The screenwriter decided it would work better if there was a mystery angle and didn't bother to make Cromwell's actions realistic or logical.

2. The Lay Person

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away...they had these laser
sword things and they went all WOOSH and were awesome.

Make a character not know the exposition either. Luke Skywalker doesn't know much about the force, and neither does the audience. Then it makes sense to have someone explain it to them. See many other movies.

3. The Info Dump

Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are pretty big fans of this. Just throw a ton of information at the audience right off the bat. Make them read if you want to. This is the laziest and least dramatic way to do it. However, it can be effective for delivering a lot of information quickly and therefore getting the story moving faster.

4. Small Talk

"Hey Timothy Johnson, how are you doing since your son, Chris, died five years ago. I bet that's been hard to get over. How is your wife, Cindy, handling it?"

This happens far too often in films. You can adeptly deliver exposition through conversation, but it takes some finesse, other wise a lot of the audience will immediately see right through it.

5. The Expostion Device

Nice head. Too bad it got blown off. I mean...oral sex. 

Starship Troopers uses the fake propaganda videos to deliver information quickly. The beginning of Tropic Thunder shows a fake trailer for a movie starring each of the main characters, thus establishing each character and their acting persona very very quickly and it's funny. Get Him to the Greek uses a similar device, a music video for Russell Brand's musician character. Children of Men uses a news report about the death of the world's youngest person, an 18 year old, to very quickly establish that there are no kids being born.

6. Bad Narration

(V.O.) And then I pointed my gun at him and
made a squinty, wrinkled brow look to show
him I meant business.

The use of a voice over at the beginning or peppered throughout is the favorite tactic of meddling studio execs trying to ruin a film. They thought Blade Runner needed a poorly worded voice over to make it make sense. They thought Dark City's mystery plot was too confusing so they just had Kiefer Sutherland deliver a short narration at the beginning that gives away most of the mystery plot, thus leaving the audience watching the main character stumble around in the dark trying to figure out the mystery that the voice over just gave away. Not all voice overs are bad, but it's usually a bad sign.

7. The Status Quo Beat

One of the most popular ways to deliver exposition is to have a 10-15 minute sequence at the beginning of the film, showing the main character in action doing what they do, prior to the real inciting incident. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, we get to see Indiana on a mission, running from the big-ass ball, and then he goes back to being a teacher. Then the real plot begins. We've established his character by showing him in action. Minority Report (another Spielberg flick) does the same thing. We see Pre-Crime in action for a quick mission, establishing the characters, the setting, Pre-crime and how it works, and all while on an otherwise meaningless mission that has nothing to do with the real plot. That starts right after we've set up the status quo. Gladiator also uses this method. There's a quick battle that has nothing to do with the bigger plot, but establishes Maximus as a badass.

Before we get to the plot, first we have to show
the audience how this cool Operating System works. 

So if you have a lot of information to deliver, you are probably going to use one of these. Your situation dictates your choices to some extent. If you have no lay-persons that need things explained to them, then that's obviously out. The info dump, the small talk, and the bad narration approaches are the laziest. Unless you really know what you're doing, I'd advise against them. That just leaves the Mystery, the Device, and the Status Quo beat. Mystery works well, but does take up plot time, so if you have a more complicated plot in mind, perhaps the exposition shouldn't dominate the first bit of plot time. The Expo device is one of my favorite, but you need to find a way to make it original or to have it not be so transparently exposition. The Status quo beat is one of the safest ways of doing it. You give us the setting, the main character, lay down some rules for how this universe works, but without the pressure of having to get to the big plot just yet. It forces you to find something actiony for the characters to do, and that's basically the candy to help the medicine go down. Exposition is the medicine. Don't forget that, the audience doesn't like it. They're like dogs, you gotta hide it in their food.

Snoretoberfest: Or Why You Aren't Watching the MLB Post-season

6 October, 2011

I know what I'm watching. 

On Monday Night, sports fans had the option of watching the Tigers-Yankees ALDS Game 3 (with the series tied at 1-1), OR the Colts-Bucs Monday night game sans Peyton Manning. This should be a no-brainer, playoff game or a early season matchup between a basement dweller and an up and comer from a small market and few marquee players. So how do you think the ratings went?

MNF = 10.84 million viewers
MLB Playoff game = 6.05 million viewers.

Source

This discrepancy is a very big deal. Common sense would tell you that a playoff game following a grueling season featuring two teams from big markets and plenty of star power should completely destroy an early season matchup without much star power at all. The biggest draw in the football game was Peyton Manning in the booth.

So why does nobody give a shit about the MLB playoffs?


1. Baseball is Boring


Okay, before I get death threats, let me be clear. I believe that almost ANY sport can be incredibly entertaining if you get invested in it enough. If you're raised playing it, watching it, with a favorite team, you know all the intricacies, and you can really understand the minutae of the game, then it's going to be more interesting to you than some sport you've never seen before. This is true of all sports. My point is that when you throw a baseball game on the tube in front of a lay person, it's not going to excite them as other sports they are also unfamiliar with would.

Imagine we take Borat and tie him to a chair and give him a remote and the only things on TV are Baseball, Football, Futbol, Hockey, Basketball, etc. He's gonna settle on Football or Hockey. Those sports can be quite exciting even if you don't really know what's going on. The problem with basketball is that scores are so frequent they seem practically meaningless until the endgame. Futbol and baseball are the opposite. There's so much inaction (come on Soccer fans, don't tell me 90 minutes of light jogging is non-stop action) that you'll fall asleep if you aren't invested in the outcome. Maybe baseball would be alright if a game only took 80 minutes. But if I'm gonna invest 3 1/2 hours in a game, it's gonna be football.

Non-stop Action

The biggest thing about baseball is the pitcher/batter duel. Yet to the lay person, this duel is practically incomprehensible. They can understand how many balls or strikes you need, but aren't going to get anything out of pitch selection. Kids these days can't even sit through a movie without texting. Don't underestimate the power of being attention grabbing.

Baseball simply isn't the top sport in America, it's football and by a longshot.

2. The Playoff Format Sucks


In the NFL, you play 16 regular season games, then in the playoffs it's one-and-done. No best of 3 or 5 or 7. One game decides who moves on. That means that the quickest you can be eliminated is after playing a postseason 1/16th the length of the regular season.

In MLB, you play 162 regular season games, then the first playoff series is best of 5. If you lose the first 3, you're done. So that means the quickest you can be eliminated is after a post-season  that's 1/54th as long as the regular season.

See the problem? The NFL equivalence of the MLB playoffs would go like this:

World Series Champion

You go 13-3, ensure a first round bye. Then you host a 10-6 team. The first quarter is a disaster, with three turnovers. With 12 minutes to go in the second quarter, you trail 21-0. If this were baseball, that's it, game over, your season is done. 17 minutes is equal to 1/54th the length of the regular season. Even if it's a close game, you gotta call it by halftime, because that's the equivalence of the series going to a full 5 games.

How about comparing it to NHL which has an 82 game season and starts the playoffs with a best of 7 series. If the NHL had a playoffs just as short relative to the season as MLB did, then you'd call the series with 10 minutes to go in the 2nd period of Game 3.

MLB has such a long season. Just think about investing yourself in 162 games, winning your division, having the best record in baseball, and then losing 3 in the row and the year is over. Or even just losing 3 of 5.

That's two balls and one strike. 

This might make sense in other sports, but Baseball is the worst sport to have this problem. There's a saying in baseball that "Every team is gonna win 54 games, every team is gonna lose 54 games, it's what you do with the other 54 games that counts." If you wanna narrow it down to decent teams that have a shot at the playoffs, then you could make the saying "every team is gonna win 82 games, lose 55 games, it's what you do with the other 27 games that counts. That's it. The difference between the best team in baseball, and a mediocre team that was barely in the playoff hunt is just 27 games spread over 6 months.

Baseball is a sport of averages, likelihoods, and it only works right if you have a large sample size. It's the one sport that really makes sense to have such a long season. And it's the sport that makes sense to have the longest playoffs. And yet it has by far the SHORTEST playoffs of the major American sports.

The quickest you can win the WS is in a playoffs that's 6.8% the length of the regular season. The quickest you can win the SB is in 18.8% the length of the regular season. The longest the playoffs can take would be 11.7% for baseball and 25% for football.

3. The Regular Season is Almost Meaningless. 

Yeah, the regular season doesn't mean anything. 

There's so much talk about "diluting the regular season" in college football if you bring up a playoff system. Since your regular season is only 11-13 games, in order to have a shot at the title, you need to win them all, or maybe you can get away with 1 loss. This means that every single game has meaning.

Baseball is the exact opposite. There are so many regular season games that you can easily lose the first 20 games and to end the season at .500 you just gotta go 82-62 the rest of the way, or go .570, which isn't that significant a hole to climb out of. By September, most people are burnt out on baseball, especially the ones whose teams aren't gonna play in October. Contrast this with NFL fans. Even if their team sucked up the joint, they're not gonna miss the Super Bowl.

Let's look at it another way. In the NFL, you know your team is going to have to win 12 games to guarantee a playoff spot (as 11-5 teams have missed the playoffs), or if you wanna play the odds a bit, let's say 11 wins is enough to guarantee a playoff birth (4 teams in the last 4 years have won 10 or 11 games and missed the playoffs).

So you need to win 11, and you can't lose more than 5. That means that losing the first game of the season can get you 20% of the way to too many losses to control your destiny. Winning any game gets you another 11th of the way to the playoffs. Losing any game gets you a fifth of the way closer to staying home in January.

I call this one the Castigator

In the last 6 years, the best team to miss the MLB playoffs was the 2005 Indians, who went 93-69 but missed the big show. So let's say that guaranteeing a playoff berth requires 94 wins, or no more than 68 losses.

Winning any one game gets you 1/94th of the way to the playoffs, and losing any one game gets you 1/68th of the way closer to staying home. That's how utterly unimportant regular season games are individually. So think about this. You're asking teams to go 162 games where the stakes are that a loss gets you 1/68th of the way closer to missing the playoffs, THEN you ask them to play games where a loss gets them 1/3rd of the way closer to ending their season.

The regular season is far too diluted in meaning, and then they try to make up for it by giving a shortened playoff and that makes the games somehow mean "too much."

Using the same metrics, NFL postseason games are 5 times more important than regular season games. MLB postseason games are  22.6 times more important than regular season games. So that means that a single MLB playoff game is just as important as the month of April.


4. How Playoffs should be done


The Stanley Cup Playoffs are the greatest 6 weeks of sports anywhere. You start with 16 teams. You need to win 4 best-of-7 series to win the cup. Teams come in as a roster of professionals. By the end of the Cup Finals, you're looking at two teams of Brothers who've just completed an epic quest. These two teams spent 82 games trying to get in, then they spent up to 25 games battling for their playoff lives. That's like playing another 30% of the regular season where every game is extremely important. The longest the MLB playoffs can go is 19 games, but compare that to a 162 game season, and that's only 11.7%. That's why Hockey players look completely spent after the finals. They've just spent every ounce of energy, sacrificed their bodies, taken slap shots to the face, lost teeth, bleed all over the ice, and come back for more. Man I'm glad Hockey's back.