Another entertaining football weekend is in the books. The story of the weekend for me was how 3 common football and sports theories were played out right in front of my eyes. These are well-founded theories that have been around forever, but you still see several games where you can't clearly connect the play on the field with these theories and the teams also routinely overcome some of the mistakes and eliminate the effect of these theories. Take for instance the theory that penalties are a killer. It's no breaking news that it's not a good thing if you are moving backwards instead of forward on a football field, but players do commit these penalties sometimes because they are convinced they can overcome it. Most penalties are just mistakes, some are emotional acts, but players do cross the line intentionally at times because they kind of know the down, distance and the score and they think their team can overcome it when it's all said and done. The Oakland Raiders are a good example of this. They have always been notorious for their penalties, but lately, they also have a better record in games in which they commit a lot of penalties than their cleaner games. Weird stat and it sure doesn't give the Raiders much inspiration to play disciplined football.
But the Arizona State Sun Devils were not as lucky as the Raiders on Saturday night against the dangerous Oregon Ducks. The Devils had their hands full against the Ducks on the road, but their many mistakes and bad penalties didn't help the cause. Lesson 1 from the weekend was a particular sequence in this game which in my opinion clearly took the game away from the devils and handed it to the ducks. It was towards the end of the second quarter and ASU was driving down for a score eating good chunks of yards every play. They were already leading 17-14 and were poised to go up 24-14. Brock Osweiler completed another pass to Gerell Robinson to Oregon's 22 and they were almost in the red zone. That's when Robinson committed a stupid penalty and killed the Devils. He got up after the catch and kicked the defender who was on the ground. The penalty took the ball back to Oregon's 37 and Osweiler's next pass was intercepted. Oregon scored and went into the half leading 21-17 instead of trailing. The momentum shifted for good. Robinson's penalty didn't make Osweiler throw the interception, but I strongly believe that this interception would not have happened if the ball was on the 22 yard line instead of back at the 37.
Oregon's speed is just too much and it's just amazing to watch that offense. It's even hard to track the ball on TV as they fake, shift, move and option you do death. They are impossible to beat at home and they always play much better in the second half. All things considered, ducks probably would have put the devils away anyways, but I clearly saw how a stupid penalty can change the momentum, kill a drive and finish a team off prematurely. When I saw that penalty, I became one of those alums you see at the stadium yelling at players saying things like "I pay your scholarship, get your act together you idiot". That always cracked me up and now I was feeling the same anger at Robinson. He had a good game statistically, but he screwed up big time with that penalty. That was a great lesson on penalties and how and why they hurt. Too bad ASU had to suffer through it.
The second lesson of the weekend came on Sunday in the form of an interesting game between the niners and the lions. This game was as good as advertised and the niners won a big one on the road. Conventional football wisdom always says you win with rushing, defense and by playing the field position. This is exactly what the niners did all game. Jim Harbaugh is all about playing conservative, disciplined football and he did the same at Stanford too. Alex Smith and that passing offense is not reliable, but I was still surprised how committed Harbaugh is to his philosophy and how he followed it to a tee from start to finish despite various situations where it would have been easy to start chucking the ball all over Ford field. Many teams win with defense and rushing, but the discipline with which Harbaugh has his team playing right now is pretty striking and impressive. He deserves all the credit in the world for having the niners at 5-1 with basically the same team as last year. It's impressive to see his football philosophy built around defense and rushing considering he was a pretty good quarterback.
Speaking of Harbaugh, he was also the man behind the lesson number 3 from the weekend. Coaches and front office types are constantly asked to stay in their shoes so as to not take attention away from the players and the game on the field. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is the best example of this as he is constantly accused of talking too much, getting in too much trouble and taking away from his team. Coincidentally he lied low last year and the Mavs won the championship. Harbaugh proved to be that guy this weekend when, after the game, he got carried away and gave an excited pat on the back and an aggressive hand-shake to lions coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz exacerbated the situation by chasing Harbaugh as if he was going to fight him, but Harbaugh definitely broke protocol and misbehaved to start it all off. Both men were at fault, but an important lesson for Harbaugh is that he definitely took attention away from the team and the game. "Handshake-gate" has been the story on sports radio and TV all day across the nation. Even in the bay area, people are forced to talk about it instead of celebrating one of the biggest wins for the niners in many years or talking about the potential for this interesting team. Neither coach got fined and I am fine with that. You can't fine people for bad etiquette. But Harbaugh made a mistake and hope he now understands that he has to save his emotion for the locker room. This is a clear proof of how distracting such behaviors can be.
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