Great column from Washington Post [merged]

[JR4]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

great article ... I agree and used that same line of reasoning with
some JETs fans. She says it more clearly than I ever could .
Maybe I should post it for them to read.

Quiting is a sign of disrespect. I've played lots of sports in my lifetime and
nothing is more degrading than when someone just stops playing with intensity. IMO
I'd rather get throughly beaten than get the mercy card dealt.

 

[The Gr8est]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

Great article, it will be interesting to see how the Redskins fans at Extremeskins react. I'm assuming they have access to her locally.

Thanx for a new signature line Sally!

"But in a way, the discussion about whether the Patriots are running up scores is really about competing ethics. It's about gamesmanship vs. sportsmanship. The gamesman is exclusively focused on winning. Rules are something to be maximally exploited, and the final score is an expression of superiority. The sportsman is more focused playing the game the way it "ought" to be played, and is perhaps even willing to lose in the name of sportsmanship."

 

[Patters]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

That's the best column on the subject I've read. Thanks for posting the link.

 

[teamplay]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

Wow! Awesome read! Hmmm, a sports writer that gets it. What's that all about?

you said it!

 

[upstater1]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

Thracian massacres???

She's going way back to Alexander the Great for a metaphor that fits how these Patriots play.

 

[LoveDemPats]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

By and large it seems pretty clear that other coaches, other players, other teams, and even many sports writers see what the team is doing as "business as usual" and as something they themselves would do if armed with the same talent and motivation.

It's the fans of teams that have either lost to us, or have to yet face us and the ratings thirsty big media outlets that have and are blowing this out of proportion.

Tony Dungy came out and said that it was a very dark day in the NFL. He compared the issue with Barry Bonds, a man that has been investigated by the Government. I don't think that he would agree with your business as usual statement. I think that the media fits your description in many cases, but it is not across the board. Some people have an agenda that is beyond what you have stated.

 

[spook75]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

Nice read.

For me this qoute stood out, because it is how I feel too:

"If the Patriots want to play 60 minutes of football, good for them," Theismann told The Post's Mark Maske. "What happens if you play Tom Brady three quarters every week and you have your team used to playing three quarters, and then you go to Indianapolis and you can't get by playing three quarters?"

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

"There are those who don't appreciate the Patriots, who find their dominance cold and unappealing. This is merely weakness, a common complaint from those whimperers and whiners who don't understand what dark beauty lies in dominion and the exercise of total power.

A football game is one of the few instances in which it's okay to guiltlessly enjoy oppression of the weak. Critics complain that there's no honor in the way the Patriots run up the score, but there's nevertheless something sort of magnificent in the way they crush opponents, in their hard quantitative search for total victory, while Coach Bill Belichick watches from the sideline with that expression on his face, part Lord Sauron and part Doctor No." :rocker:

Dunno bout you folks, but at the stadium Sunday, looking at that "Lighthouse" really makes me think of the "Eye of Sauron".

 

[patchick]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

Thanx for a new signature line Sally!

"But in a way, the discussion about whether the Patriots are running up scores is really about competing ethics. It's about gamesmanship vs. sportsmanship. The gamesman is exclusively focused on winning. Rules are something to be maximally exploited, and the final score is an expression of superiority. The sportsman is more focused playing the game the way it "ought" to be played, and is perhaps even willing to lose in the name of sportsmanship."

I chose a different bit...

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

"The Patriots' philosophy is a lot more understandable -- and likable -- if viewed from the angle of what the alternative is. What should they do when the game gets out of hand? Let up? Pretend to play? Take pity? Eugene O'Neill said of that kind of pity, it's "the kind that lets itself off easy by encouraging some poor guy to go on kidding himself with a lie."

When you've already beaten a team so badly over the previous 45 minutes, why is it respectful to suddenly go easy, so they'll falsely feel better about themselves? What the Patriots are saying when they continue to go for the end zone is, "Hey, both teams out here on the field are pros, and this is what pros do." It would be far more demeaning to say, "We could score again, but we just feel too sorry for you to do it." When the Patriots score on an opponent, in an odd way, it's a gesture of respect. Albeit in a tyrannical, domineering, world-conquering kind of way. "

There are a lot of fan bases and sadly (millionaire overhyped) players and coaches who want just that this year - to feel better about themselves as they strumble through a schedule littered with teams just like themselves. The Packers are 6-1 and they play like crap. Think about it. The Giants are playing like dog poop and their fourth year first round QB is putting up QB ratings performances a hundred points beneath Tom Brady's, but the spin is they've won X games in a row and Coughlin's got them turned around and they'll give the up and down Cowboys a run for their money in the NFC...

The concept of parity was to level the playing field. What you make of that thereafter is on you. It was not intended to dumb down the league to a point that no matter how badly you teambuild or how poorly you coach them or how inconsistently they perform, any team should have a realistic expectation of success.

 

[CountChocula]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

There are some mighty fine comments left by readers of Sally's column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103102746_Comments.html

 

[ColtinIraq]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

Well, if you liked that one don't read the rebuttal in the Baltimore Sun.

 

[54Bruschi]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

Well, if you liked that one don't read the rebuttal in the Baltimore Sun.

Link it please.

 

[363839]

Re: Great column from Washington Post

I love Sally Jenkins.
Outstanding article.
She is so spot on.

 

[thunder509s]

The Pats No-Pity Party Article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103102746.html

I have a weakness for world conquest, which may explain my fascination with the New England Patriots. You can have the sentimental underdog; I'll take the dynasty or the empire every time.

 

[PatSunday]

One important point: the Patriots aren't actually killing anybody. It's just a term that means the other team is being outplayed. The players come out alive. The Pats are also not hurting the other team any more than any one else is. They only thing injured is frail egos. If fans whine, that's sad, but if players do, that's even worse!

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Re: The Pats No-Pity Party Article

Fave quotes..."To their critics, the Patriots are chilly practitioners who invite a visceral anger with their Thracian massacre-like final scores."

"We play [until] the clock says zero-zero," Brady said yesterday, asked about running up scores. "That's an interesting question of scoring too many points. I don't know if that's ever been a problem here in the past. I think you just try to do the best you can do."

Interestingly, women are groking what the Pats are doing while male sportswriters are doing the whining.