Last weekend one NFL (The American version) season ended, and another NFL season (the GAA version) begun. This is a nice symmetry if you are a fan of both codes, like I am. When the GAA’s NFL finishes next April, the championship will begin and the All-Ireland final will be played on week three of the next NFL (American) season. Just as in nature, the seasons of football roll gently into each other.
I watched last Saturday evening’s Dublin v Kerry game with three American friends, Bill Schwab from Boston, and Mike Torresan and Steve Wittman from San Francisco. Mike and Steve had never previously seen Gaelic Football. They were impressed. They were impressed by the presentation of the game, and impressed by the speed and commitment of the players. They were not impressed however, by the quality of the referee and the quality of the kicking shown by both sides.
These guys are sports literate. Bill is a NFL season ticket holder at the Patriots and Mike has a baseball ticket package with the SF Giants. It was very interesting to hear their comments.
Like most people who have never previously seen Gaelic Games, they were hugely impressed by Croke Park and the amateur status of the players. They thought it to be an incredible commitment to a life style and found it interesting that the players would still play for their local club. Local community as it exists in Ireland does not exist in the United States. They are not used to meeting their sporting ambassadors while going about their daily chores.
The referee Michael Deegan intrigued them also. It can be difficult to explain the Gaelic Football tackle at the best of times, but Deegan’s decisions appeared inconsistent to them. In his defence, they felt that there was too much going on, both on and off the ball, for one man to police and adjudicate on everything.
What fascinated them most was the poor display of kicking from both sides. Mike, as baseball fan, has an appreciation of how difficult it can be to execute a shot correctly (every baseball player swings and misses at least seven times out of ten), but he thought a lot of easy shots were missed on Saturday evening. “Isn’t that the point of the game?” he asked, “To get those shots”
Sometimes we all get so close to a subject that we are unable to see the real issues clearly. Year after year we read in the papers that the playing rules of Gaelic Football need to be changed for one reason or another. Perhaps my pals are right. Perhaps there is very little wrong with the game as it stands, and many of the issues that blight the Gaelic Football arise from inefficiencies in policing the game and enforcing the rules correctly. Adding another referee for inter-county games would certainly go along way towards curing the current indiscipline problems.
The defensive tactics adopted by most teams at present is also the subject of whining in the papers. On Saturday evening, Kerry got 15 scores (1-14) and had 18 wides. That is a failure-to-convert rate of 55%. If they could reduce that rate to 40%, they would have added another four scores and made life much easier. That is what is really missing from Gaelic Football at present, a couple of teams with the derring-do to attack the opposition rather than defend against them. Counties would be far better off if they used their valuable training time to practice accurate kicking than learning sophisticated and complicated defence routines.
That point brings me nicely to the other NFL, and last Sunday’s Super Bowl final between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. I watched it with my three American friends. They were much more comfortable, and knowledgeable, watching American Football. Bill Schwab is a Patriots fan. He has attended three Super Bowl Finals in the past. He had planned this trip to Europe long before the Patriots surprised everyone (probably themselves too) by getting to the final.
Bill saw all the Patriots home games this season, including their narrow win against the Baltimore Ravens two weeks ago. He told us that you had to be in the stadium to appreciate how weak some aspects of the Patriots defence were all season. “The number of times the opposition had men free, waving their hands looking for the ball was unbelievable. The Patriots seemed to get a hand in and knock the ball away almost every time, but they were riding their luck.”
Interestingly, while the Pats and Giants were recognised as strong sides at the beginning of the season, neither side was fancied to make the Super Bowl. The probable reasons why both sides did qualify are that they coped best with managing injuries during the season, and their attacking line was always able to make up for the errors of their defence.
There was players’ strike in the NFL last summer. It was settled about six weeks before the regular season began. That meant that up to four months of pre-season preparation was lost by each club. Initially it was thought that this lack of preparation would affect each team’s ability to score. That presupposition was wrong. It was the defences that struggled.
The reason is that it takes longer to set up effective defensive systems than it does to set up good attacking systems. Hence, the teams with the best attacking formations, e.g. San Francisco, New England and the Giants, did best this year.
In that context the final minute of last Sunday’s Super Bowl was a fitting finale to a season where attack dominated over defence. New England led by two points with a minute to go. New York had the ball six yards from the New England line. Their objective was to run as many seconds off the clock as possible before scoring a three-point field goal. This would deny New England the time for a scoring reply.
When NY’s Amhed Bradshaw was handed the ball from the next play, Bradshaw charged for the line expecting to be met by the usual barrage of defensive bodies. New England stood aside and let him charge. A startled Bradshaw tried to stop himself falling over the line as his fellow attacker shouted, “Don’t score”. He stopped just short of the line, but his momentum carried him over for a touchdown.
Ultimately, New England’s ploy to allow him score didn’t work because they failed to a manufacture a touchdown of their own in the remaining minute. Nevertheless, they deserve credit for trying to win by attacking and not defending.
Because Bill is a ‘real’ New England fan we all were rooting for New England. Bill took the defeat well, or else the tiredness had got to him. At home (in Boston) it would have been 10.30pm on Sunday, it would have been 7.30pm in San Francisco for Mike and Steve; it was 3.30am here. At least we all had a good time.
Even Super Bowl winners only get 15 minutes of fame in the U.S.A. By the time Bill, Mike and Steve get home later this week, the Super Bowl party will history and the NFL will have slipped from the public consciousness. Only the defensive coaches will be back at work. They will be plotting to strangle attacking play and scheming more dastardly deeds.
Their kindred spirits are working relentlessly here in our National Football League. Between now and April, as each round of games grows in importance, we can expect to see the points kicking get poorer and not better. Gaelic Football is still a good game. A few more attacking ploys and successful kicks would make each game a great spectacle. As Mike Torresan asked last Saturday night, “Isn’t kicking those shots over the bar the point of the game?”