Tag Archives: NFL

A Super Bowl on Steroids

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After just two seasons, the Broncos' Von Miller already had failed two drug tests. But he'll be on the field in tonight's Super Bowl because cheating in football, unlike in baseball, doesn't bother us. [Credit: gtbets.eu]

After just two sea­sons, the Bron­cos’ Von Miller already had failed two drug tests. His absence from tonight’s Super Bowl is due to a knee injury, not PED use, because cheat­ing in foot­ball does­n’t seem to both­er us. [Cred­it: gtbets.eu]

A 315 pound man with a body mass index over 36 is con­sid­ered obese, accord­ing to the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health. But if he can bench press 225 pounds 35 times, jump 32 inch­es ver­ti­cal­ly and run 40 yards in 4.8 sec­onds, he prob­a­bly plays in the NFL. And we prob­a­bly don’t care what he may have put into his body to facil­i­tate such feats.

Tonight an esti­mat­ed 110 mil­lion Amer­i­cans will watch tech­ni­cal­ly obese but sub­lime­ly ath­let­ic men con­tend for foot­ball suprema­cy. Our indif­fer­ence as to how they acquired such strength and ath­leti­cism expos­es a dou­ble stan­dard in our atti­tude toward ath­let­ic achieve­ment. We shame Alex Rodriguez and Lance Arm­strong as cheaters, but we’ll cheer on two teams whose ranks include sev­er­al play­ers who have been caught tak­ing per­for­mance-enhanc­ing drugs (PEDs) and no doubt many oth­ers who have avoid­ed detec­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Vince Young And Economic Mobility

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Vince Young in happier times. His rapid rise and sudden fall constitute a cautionary tale. But behind it all there is good news about economic opportunity and upward mobility. [Credit: Dallas Morning News]

Vince Young in hap­pi­er times. His rapid rise and sud­den fall tell a cau­tion­ary tale. But a new study pro­vides wel­come news about eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty and upward mobil­i­ty. [Cred­it: Dal­las Morn­ing News]

Vince Young is bank­rupt.  The sto­ry of a star col­lege quar­ter­back who rose from hum­ble cir­cum­stances to impos­si­ble wealth only to plunge into insol­ven­cy in the course of eight years is one marked by extrav­a­gant spend­ing, fool­ish invest­ments and, he has argued in court doc­u­ments, exploita­tion by agents, busi­ness asso­ciates, fam­i­ly and friends.  His is an extreme exam­ple of eco­nom­ic mobility.

Reports of Young’s bank­rupt­cy fil­ing coin­cid­ed with the release this week of a new study by a group of Har­vard and Berke­ley econ­o­mists that reached an unex­pect­ed con­clu­sion: upward eco­nom­ic mobil­i­ty is not the exclu­sive province of entre­pre­neurs, enter­tain­ers and star ath­letes like Young. The Nation­al Bureau of Eco­nom­ic Research [NBER] report con­clud­ed that “chil­dren enter­ing the labor mar­ket today have the same chances of mov­ing up in the income dis­tri­b­u­tion (rel­a­tive to their par­ents) as chil­dren born in the 1970s.” Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Why You’ll Watch The Eagles-Bears Game Tonight

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It won't be a Very Brady pre-Christmas game on Sunday night, as NBC will feature Nick Foles and the Eagles against the Bears, rather than Tom Brady and the Patriots vs. the Ravens. [Credit: warroomphilly.com]

It won’t be a Very Brady pre-Christ­mas game on Sun­day night, as NBC will fea­ture Nick Foles and the Eagles against the Bears, rather than Tom Brady and the Patri­ots vs. the Ravens. [Cred­it: warroomphilly.com]

Foot­ball com­bines the two worst things about Amer­i­ca: it is vio­lence punc­tu­at­ed by com­mit­tee meet­ings.  – George Will

The NFL has decid­ed that today’s fea­tured game – played at night dur­ing prime­time, rather than dur­ing the after­noon – will be the Philadel­phia Eagles against the Chica­go Bears. That deci­sion shows just how con­fi­dent the league is that you will watch just about any game they decide to air, a well-ground­ed con­fi­dence built on decades of sol­id leadership.

They could have put the Bal­ti­more-New Eng­land game in the slot.  It pits the reign­ing Super Bowl Cham­pi­on Ravens against Tom Brady and the Patri­ots.  It seems a bet­ter rat­ings-get­ter. Tom Brady is an elite quar­ter­back who has won 3 Super Bowls, done GQ cov­ers and has a super­mod­el wife. Your sis­ter knows who Tom Brady is.  Ask her if she’s heard of Nick Foles.  Or Jay Cut­ler. Con­tin­ue read­ing →