Smart mobs and the NFL
By
Yesterday, we saw a nice moment in professional football. On the last play of the game against the Indianapolis Colts, the New York Jets starting chucking the ball around with fair abandon.
“It’s basically a play when everyone acts like they’re still a kid in the schoolyard. You keep lateraling it backward and never let someone tackle you." (Jets guard Pete Kendall)
Here’s how it went:
Chad Pennington, the quarterback, threw to Leon
Washington who lateralled to Brad Smith who lateralled to Laveranues
Coles who returned the ball to Pennington who threw the ball backwards
across the field to Justin McCareins who fumbled backward "to" Smith
who fumbled backward "to" Coles who lateralled to Nick Mangold, the
Jets’ 300-pound center. Strangest thing, Mangold fumbled. His fumble
was not recovered. The game ended.
It was as if the Keystone cops had been smuggled onto the field in
Jets’ uniforms. And it looked at first as if this might be a moment of
contagion, with the first fumble suddenly striking each successive
player as an increasingly good idea, until the idea found its way to Mangold by which point it was orthodoxy. Lateralling, that is to say, that went from something frowned upon to something you had to
do, with highly trained, incredibly regimented professional football
players looking for all the world like a smart mob. Hope Howard Rheingold was watching.
But, no. Apparently, this moment of pure spontaneity was practiced by the Jets all week. On balance, coach was pleased.
"It was close. I guess we’ll have to practice it some more.” (Eric Mangini)
Now there’s a lovely idea. Practicing chaos. Professional football is now so overformed, so surprised by its moments of creativity, so deeply discouraging of dynamism, that this must be a good thing. The evolutionary path is clear. We must hope the NFL will eventually embrace chaos that isn’t practiced. I mean the military, on which football is so thoroughly modeled, has embraced complexity theory. How long before football follows suit?
2 Comments
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Grant, it was refreshing to read your football post. It was a nice antidote to the pain experienced by my husband, a Cowboy fan, when the incident in this story ( http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/100306dnspohaynesworth.18f5565.html ) happened. Have a good trip.
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Carol, I know, wasn't that grim. Best, Grant