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Jan. 8, 2005 Terrell Owens belongs in Philadelphia. Because of the Mummers, Philly appreciates the delicacy of a good strut. But with the strut, the theatrics, the bravado, or the swagger, T.O. brings my hometown one special quality that makes all the difference. With him, the Philadelphia Eagles are a dominating team. Without him, the team’s in trouble. What makes such a difference? He infuriates safeties. That makes a huge difference. It’s simple math. You might hear that a player can run a “4.3 forty.” That means that from a standing start, he can run forty yards in 4.3 seconds. If you reckon that the start is slower than full speed, you can roughly guess that the player, at full stride, covers ten yards every second. Actually, pro athletes cover more, but ten yards is impressive enough. Every tenth of a second, in football timing, is a yard. So let’s say it’s first and ten. The quarterback drops back seven yards to throw. His receiver needs to get ten yards downfield. That means that for a first down attempt, the quarterback has to throw the ball at least seventeen yards. Usually the receiver is not directly in front of the quarterback. For every yard the receiver is closer to the sideline, you add a Pythagorean fraction to the total distance. Just for simplicity’s sake, let’s say that a typical first down throw goes about twenty yards. How can the quarterback measure whether his receiver is open? Obviously, if a defender can’t get in front of the receiver before the pass can get there, the receiver’s open. You only care if the defender can get in front of the receiver. If the defender’s behind, the receiver can still catch it; or it’ll provoke an interference penalty, which serves the same purpose. Suppose your quarterback is Brett Favre, and he can throw a ball twenty yards in a half second. That gives the defender a half second to get in front of the receiver. A defender can make up five yards in a half second, at full stride. Of course, since the defender isn’t at full stride when he’s angling toward the receiver, it’s less, but a modern defensive back can accelerate much faster than normal humans. He may not get to full stride, but he can get surprisingly close to it. Even so, let’s say for Brett Favre to consider his receiver open on a twenty-yard throw, no defender can be within six feet of getting in front of the throw. Calculating those six feet gets dicey on the move. During a play, receivers don’t stand still. They run at different angles, hopefully away from you. (If your receivers come back toward you, they’re going the wrong way.) We won’t even mention those maniacal defensive linemen trying to kill you. A quarterback has to make a life and death decision very, very quickly. Even so, modern professional quarterbacks can make those calculations easily. Maybe it’s a gestalt overview, a trust in one’s subconscious perceptive powers, or just a trust in The Force, but a pro quarterback makes these calculations all the time. The defense has a trick, though, to screw up a quarterback’s calculations. They switch defenders. When a receiver lines up at the start of the play, a cornerback faces him. Just when it seems like your receiver escapes the cornerback, a safety comes out of nowhere. The safety is a wild card. He doesn’t have to defend any particular receiver. He follows the ball. His job is precisely to be unpredictable. As soon as the quarterback throws the ball, the safety sprints toward the target. So the quarterback not only has to reckon how far away the cornerback is, he also has to account for the safety. Accounting for defenders takes time, and when you face a decent pass-rushing defense, time runs out quickly. Every split second matters. A good safety can force a quarterback to take a few extra split seconds every pass. Every tenth of a second is a yard. For every tenth of a second the quarterback has to waste finding the safety, the pass rush gets a yard closer. When you get a strutting, showboating, trash-talking Terrell Owens, however, you know where the safety will be. The last thing a safety wants is for that obnoxious loudmouth to score. So when you line up, you can guarantee that the safety will cheat toward Owens. Terrell Owens is a loudmouth, no question. But every touchdown he scores, and every obnoxious end zone celebration, makes him more dangerous. The more obnoxious, the better, because that makes it even more likely that the safety is going to focus on him. As a quarterback, you already know who the safety’s going to cover. Experts say that football is a game of emotion, but they don’t tell you which emotion. It’s confidence. Some play football with a lot of anger, but angry football players get called for fifteen- yard penalties at the worst times. Football success brings joy, but you savor joy, and anyone who stands around savoring will get whacked. No, the only emotion that matters is confidence. Since every tenth of a second costs a yard, the slightest hesitation can make the difference between the first down and punting. A confident player, though, makes up yardage by efficiency: he wastes no time debating. Terrell Owens brings confidence. Without him, and without his confidence, the Philadelphia Eagles could be in trouble. ------------ About the author: KC Mulville holds graduate degrees in philosophy, and is an ex-Jesuit. Now a husband and father of four, he is a programmer for databases and for the web. Email KC Mulville: kcmulville@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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