Not a Big Truck

In the AFC wild card game, the San Diego Chargers just beat the Indianapolis Colts in overtime, 23-17.  Several aspects of this game are utter bullshit.

1. That the Chargers got into the playoffs in the first place is absurd.  The Chargers made the playoffs despite having a record of 8-8 when the New England Patriots, also in the AFC, did not get in with their record of 11-5.  Why should the fact that the Chargers won their division (the AFC West, arguably the worst one in football) outweigh the fact that the Patriots had a dramatically better regular-season record?
2. In a similar vein, it is ridiculous that the Chargers hosted the playoff game against the Colts.  Why should the Chargers’ division title be so important?  The Colts were 12-4, for crying out loud.  It makes no sense at all that a 12-4 team (which finished second in its division only because of the bad luck that the best team in football this year, the Tennessee Titans, happened to be in the same division) did not host the game against an 8-8 team — a team without a winning record!!!  In a game that proved to be so close, home field advantage may well have been the deciding factor.
3. The NFL overtime rules are garbage.  The NFL needs to adopt the college overtime system.  In the NFL, the team that wins the coin flip to start overtime wins 60% of the time because they choose to take the ball first, and that is a huge advantage in a sudden-death system.  The Chargers got lucky and won the coin toss.  Peyton Manning, the NFL MVP and surefire future Hall of Fame quarterback, never even had the chance to get on the field in overtime to win the game for his team.  Bullshit!!!

Following up on earlier posts, here’s a good article from ESPN.com.

Sports commentators have been tearing Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young to shreds since last Sunday’s game against Jacksonville. To recap what happened:

Young, after playing poorly and being booed by fans, took himself out of the game. Titans coach Jeff Fisher pushed him to return to the field and Young subsequently sprained the MCL in his left knee, which will necessitate several weeks’ recuperation time. On Monday, Young worried his team by disappearing from contact for four hours when he had been in obvious emotional distress. Fisher called police, who tracked down the quarterback. News organizations picked up the story but all parties involved sought to downplay what had happened. Young’s mother, however, spoke out for her son, apparently against his wishes, saying that Young is “hurting inside and out” and indicating that he is unhappy.

Boy, did Vince Young catch flak. To paraphrase some of the things that sportswriters and commentators said about him following these incidents: What a baby. His momma had to stand up for him. He was too pampered during his college days at Texas, just like other players who played for Mack Brown there. Nobody wants to hear a rich quarterback whine about how he is unhappy. He should grow up or get out of the NFL.

At the time I thought it likely that these commentators were putting their feet in their mouths.  Sure enough, this evening, more news emerged.  The reason Fisher had called Nashville police on Monday for help locating Young is because Young’s therapist had phoned Fisher and informed him that Young was distraught and had made references to suicide.

Of course, we don’t know for sure what is going on with Young.  Young himself spoke out on Thursday, saying “Now I am OK. I was never depressed. I just hurt a little bit … When it happens again, I’ll know how to handle it.”

Maybe.  I am no expert on mental illness, but I do have some experience in observing depression in people to whom I have been very close and trying to help them through it.  It seems likely that Young is dealing with some serious mental and/or emotional issues, probably depression.  A healthy person would not have expressed a desire to kill himself and disappeared from contact, taking a gun with him, just because fans at a football game expressed their temporary disapproval of his play.  Booing happens all the time in pro sports.

I just think it is a shame that Young’s struggles have been treated so disparagingly by so many commentators.  Depression and other forms of mental illness are real illnesses, and they are usually treatable by medications because they are fundamentally linked to chemical imbalances in the brain.  Depression is not caused by being a wimp.  Maybe it did not occur to the commentators who were speaking derisively about Vince Young that he was probably battling mental illness of some kind or another, but that in itself reflects a lack of awareness of mental illness.

Although our society has progressed a long way from the days when we were locking up the mentally ill in prisons, I think public attitudes towards mental illness still have a long way to go.  There is too much of a stigma still attached to mental illness, which is really harmful to those people who need help because it discourages them from admitting their problem to themselves and from being willing to get help for it.  I have to think that the stigma is only worse in the tough-guy NFL, as was alluded to in an earlier post on this blog.

I hope Vince Young gets whatever help he needs, and I especially hope that sports commentators can take a properly respectful, non-demeaning attitude towards his situation as they discuss it in the coming days, so that the wrong image of mental illness as weak and shameful is not solidified in the minds of millions of impressionable young sports fans.

Labor Day is here, which means that football season is too.  Having been out of the country last year, I’m excited about once again being able to crash on the couch and watch a few games on the weekends this fall.

But I am presented with a dilemma of sorts.  I have just moved to a new city: Washington, D.C.  (Well, actually the Maryland suburbs, but it’s the D.C. metro area.)  I assume that Washington Redskins games will be televised every week here, which means I will probably find myself confronted with a decision: do I adopt them as my team?

When I was growing up, the closest NFL team was many hours’ drive away.  We didn’t really have a default home team, at least in my part of the state, so once I started watching football games (about ten years ago) I had to pick a team to root for.  I liked Peyton Manning from his days playing at Tennessee, and, to be honest, I liked the classic blue and white color scheme and logo of his team, the Indianapolis Colts, so I adopted them as my team.  They’ve been my favorite team ever since.

I’ve never liked the Redskins, though.  In fact I’ve actively disliked them, not for any football- or geography-related reason but for another reason entirely: I haven’t liked the idea of rooting for a team whose name has an unsavory origin.  “Redskins” seems like a borderline offensive name to me, especially if you dissociate it from the football team and imagine a person using it as a pejorative, like “That guy is a redskin.”  That definitely crosses the line.  I mean, what if there was a team called the “Darkies” or something?  I can’t imagine people would be okay with that, but a lot of people seem just fine with “Redskins.”  What’s the difference?

So, what should I do?  Should I just get over my dislike of the “Redskins” moniker and root for them because they are my hometown team?  I don’t see a conflict between rooting for them and rooting for the Colts too since they’re in different conferences.  I do like the Giants okay since Eli Manning plays for them; both teams are in the NFC East, so that might make it difficult to root for the Redskins.  Is it possible to be neutral even with so many Redskins games destined to be on TV here?  I need some advice.

I thought this was interesting because it isn’t the sort of thing that one anticipates NFL players admitting to.  Mental disorders and things that are often labeled as “unmanly” are not viewed as acceptable in professional athletics.

Interesting that this guy was able not only to face the truth despite his own confidence as a strong athlete, but to admit it to a team filled with alpha-males.  Not the easiest thing to do.  A lot of respect for his courage.