Pro Bowl rosters selected by Michael Irvin and Cris Carter:

Last year, the NFL did away with the AFC vs. NFC format and began using “captains” to oversee a fantasy draft to fill out the teams. In 2014, Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders were the honorary captains, with this year’s choices being Hall of Fame receivers Michael Irvin and Cris Carter.

In other words, they took the one thing fans can control about the sport, choosing the team in the game that means nothing, and gave that responsibility back to millionaires.

Besides the dozens of other terrible things about the NFL, this is the most NFL thing I’ve heard all week.

It’s Thursday. Sadly enough, this year, that means there’s football on. We’re far from peak football, but it’s getting closer. Prepare yourself, and tell your kids of the days when Sunday was a special day because no other day had real football. Now, on to more no-nonsense, jargon-free definitions of football jargon.

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A Hail Mary is the most desperate offensive play. If you’re doing poorly, the end is near, and you need a miracle, your Hail Mary effort is the low-odds, high reward manuever to save the day.

You start executing your plan with the snap.

If someone inappropriately prevents someone else from doing their job, you could say they have committed pass interference.

If you’re not making progress forwards or backwards in your plan, and are instead moving laterally, you may have gone sideways.

If you want to commend a teammate for doing well, and you’re comfortable around them, you might give them an ass slap, but be careful; everyone watching will notice it and wonder things.

Coaching in the NFL is now sufficiently complicated that coaches often have a list of plays that resembles a laminated take-out menu in-hand at all times on the sideline. This is addition to the radio headset that makes them look like they’re working the drive-through at your local burger joint.

A strategy that involves taking medium-to-high reward, low probability chances all the time is not too dissimilar from always passing the ball. If you were instead going for lower reward but higher probability tactics, you’d be always running the ball.

If you run out of chances and don’t even succeed at a small incremental goal, you’ll have to punt. The other team will get a chance and hopefully you’ll get to try again, but your tactical progress will probably be reset.

A strategy that emphasizes protecting against big losses over smaller losses is not unlike a nickel defense.

If you fail to protect the leader, you have given up a sack.

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For more, revisit Part I.

It’s September and football season is upon us. Thus, I will soon annoy the snot out of people who say “sportsball” and generally ignore sports. Some will be able to mute me on Twitter and avoid most of the annoyance. Others, however, work with me on teams and will have to put up with the times when I slip and work a football metaphor in to the process of software development.

What follows is a glossary of things I may say that are football and/or sports related and a simple explanation of what they are. I’ve omitted what the term means in football so you don’t have to learn any sportsball if you don’t want to!

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Move the goalposts is when you change the rules so it’s easier for you to achieve your goal. It’s like how Captain Kirk solves the Kobayashi Maru test. (Ed. David Romerstein pointed out that moving the goal posts often means someone constantly changing the parameters of success such that it’s impossible to succeed. Beware!)

A lead blocker is someone who precedes a person trying to get something done and removes impediments to their goal.

If you start doing something before the official start time, or you start doing it and then have to stop and start over almost immediately, it’s a false start.

If you fully succeed in the task at hand, you have scored a touchdown.

A penalty flag, or just flag, is thrown when you break the rules.

If you force so many mistakes on your adversary that they run out of room to retreat, you have scored a safety.

If you’re doing really well, and you don’t mind giving up a few small victories to get closer to winning the overall game, you are running a prevent defense.

You might attempt to run out the clock if you’re winning and want to use a strategically conservative plan until the game is over and won.

A blitz is an aggressive plan to overwhelm by speed and force. Just like the blitzkrieg, but with less actual war.

The draw is about the simplest tactic you can apply on offense. You rely on one person to get the job done and everyone else supports them.

A read option is one of the most complicated offensive tactics where you prepare multiple different strategies and the leader choses which one to execute at the last possible moment depending on what they see in the situation they face.

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More definitions coming soon! Leave a comment if there’s a sportsball term you’ve always wondered about and want a no-nonsense answer.

2011: should not have thrown that pass
2012: should not have allowed that pass to be tipped and intercepted
2013: should not have allowed his back to become herniated
2014: should not have gone back for that last donut

The Romo singularity is nigh! Soon Romo’s every facial expression will trigger wild fluctuations in betting lines. Prepare yourself.

The NFL is going through an awkward transition from laissez-faire bloodsport to something…less bloodsport-y. Players-turned analysts often rush to the side of the “victimized” defensive players who are now faced with…rules. It’s pretty dumb, on both sides:

• It’s not like these players learned different rules in high-school and college. Tackling is the same from age 12 onwards: you put your arms around a guy and pull him to the ground. Knocking a guy off his feet is just an impressive but dangerous form of bad tackling.
• Defensive players already learn complicated blitzing and coverage schemes. To suppose they can’t figure out how to hit a guy only between the knees and shoulders is a bit cynical.
• All that defensive players do is react. React to a block, react to a ball-carrier cutting, react to a pass. Adding circumstances under which you can’t clock another play is only a marginal increase to their rule-bound duties.
• Football is always changing. New offenses, new defenses, new rules, new schemes, etc. Slightly changing how tackling works isn’t going to turn football into badminton.
• Players know what they’re getting into in the short term: possible injuries. Not as many know what they’re getting into on the long term: the possibility of being a zombie.
• Some former-players have gone on to lead productive lives. Others have not, and a few have taken their own life rather than go on with the one football left them. Survivor bias is not a reason for inaction.

I think football can turn into something less about violence and more about strategy and skill, but only if those on the outside help those on the inside instead of helping those seeking the untenable status quo.