Media Day for the Superbowl usually consists of vanilla questions being lobbed at players and coaches, who retaliate by drawing from their bottomless reservoir of cliches and cookie-cutter answers. New England running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis, however, arrived with a new toy for NFL Player Safety officials to play with.
Green-Ellis brought with him a special chinstrap called the Impact Indicator, which measures the amount of force at which a player's helmet has just collided. If the chinstrap lights up, the hit was possibly enough to cause a concussion, and trainers know to check the player out before letting him back on the field.
Green-Ellis plans to wear the new chinstrap, designed by Battle Sports Science, during the Superbowl, and stressed the importance of preventing concussions in players while noting the potentially life-altering affects of such injuries. He specifically mentioned how important it is to prevent these injuries in younger players.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Aaron Rodgers is like that one guy at your company softball game who takes it way too seriously
Aaron Rodgers admitted to ESPNMilwaulkee that he was disappointed by the lack of effort put forth by his teammates in the Pro Bowl.
To be fair, I didn't watch the Pro Bowl. I watch the All-Star games for most other sports, however, and they all have their respective flaws. The NHL does perhaps the best job, as the emphasis is clearly on "having fun," though there are still things that need to be changed to make the event all it could be. The MLB All-Star game is just that, an actual game, usually with a realistic score, something that other sports cannot claim. However, this game goes too far in the opposite direction and takes itself way too seriously (i.e. deciding home-field advantage for the World Series).
I didn't watch the Pro Bowl for the same reason as most people, and apparently I didn't miss much. My only information on the event came after a brief chat with my roommate this weekend:
"Hey, did you see the Pro Bowl?"
"No."
"It was a pillow fight."
Of course it was a pillow fight. Of all the sports in the world, football is perhaps the most difficult to design an All-Star game for. In the middle of the season, no one would want to go and risk getting hurt. By the end of the season, everyone's already hurt, and no one wants to make it worse.
Aaron Rodgers, who's job in the Pro Bowl is fairly cushy from a physical standpoint, expressed open disappointment about the lack of effort his teammates put forth in their defeat. No one likes being surrounded by people who aren't taking what they do seriously, but a glorified practice after a grueling season seems hardly the place to get mad over it.
To be fair, I didn't watch the Pro Bowl. I watch the All-Star games for most other sports, however, and they all have their respective flaws. The NHL does perhaps the best job, as the emphasis is clearly on "having fun," though there are still things that need to be changed to make the event all it could be. The MLB All-Star game is just that, an actual game, usually with a realistic score, something that other sports cannot claim. However, this game goes too far in the opposite direction and takes itself way too seriously (i.e. deciding home-field advantage for the World Series).
I didn't watch the Pro Bowl for the same reason as most people, and apparently I didn't miss much. My only information on the event came after a brief chat with my roommate this weekend:
"Hey, did you see the Pro Bowl?"
"No."
"It was a pillow fight."
Of course it was a pillow fight. Of all the sports in the world, football is perhaps the most difficult to design an All-Star game for. In the middle of the season, no one would want to go and risk getting hurt. By the end of the season, everyone's already hurt, and no one wants to make it worse.
Aaron Rodgers, who's job in the Pro Bowl is fairly cushy from a physical standpoint, expressed open disappointment about the lack of effort his teammates put forth in their defeat. No one likes being surrounded by people who aren't taking what they do seriously, but a glorified practice after a grueling season seems hardly the place to get mad over it.
Superbowl Myths
SBNation is an amazing place. Jon Bois, who writes for SBNation, is amazing at his job.
His job, usually, involves writing about baseball and making people laugh, though the order in which those two job descriptions should be places is debatable. It hardly matters, however, since he's so good at both.
Today, he wrote a piece about football. Specifically, the Superbowl. As a casual football fan-so casual it's arguable I barely qualify as a fan-I'm not quite sure how much weight to give to the football "conventional wisdom" that fills my car whenever I turn on sports talk radio.
Does defense actually win championships? That's an adage I've heard applied to every sport more times than I can quantify. When Jon looks at all the Superbowls from this century and compares the regular season defensive prowess of both teams, there is no pattern whatsoever. That's not to say that defense doesn't matter, or that it doesn't help. This just pokes some holes in the belief that defense wins Superbowls as a general rule.
The reason I find the two weeks leading up to the Superbowl to be so agonizing is the relentless scrutiny that every aspect of the upcoming game is subjected to. Nothing makes me turn the radio dial faster, however, than the unending stream of grueling speculation as to whether or not the week off will hurt or help the teams.
This season, teams coming off a bye-week were 16-16. Since 2001, the winning percentage of the Brady/Belichick Patriots after two-week byes is scarily identical to their overall winning percentage. The Manning/Coughlin-era Giants are in more or less the same situation.
This piece taught me a few things about how much I should buy into these Superbowl "myths." I am very skeptical about this kind of speculative conventional wisdom as a general rule, and this knowledge will likely only make hearing the media buildup to Sunday's game all the more insufferable.
His job, usually, involves writing about baseball and making people laugh, though the order in which those two job descriptions should be places is debatable. It hardly matters, however, since he's so good at both.
Today, he wrote a piece about football. Specifically, the Superbowl. As a casual football fan-so casual it's arguable I barely qualify as a fan-I'm not quite sure how much weight to give to the football "conventional wisdom" that fills my car whenever I turn on sports talk radio.
Does defense actually win championships? That's an adage I've heard applied to every sport more times than I can quantify. When Jon looks at all the Superbowls from this century and compares the regular season defensive prowess of both teams, there is no pattern whatsoever. That's not to say that defense doesn't matter, or that it doesn't help. This just pokes some holes in the belief that defense wins Superbowls as a general rule.
The reason I find the two weeks leading up to the Superbowl to be so agonizing is the relentless scrutiny that every aspect of the upcoming game is subjected to. Nothing makes me turn the radio dial faster, however, than the unending stream of grueling speculation as to whether or not the week off will hurt or help the teams.
This season, teams coming off a bye-week were 16-16. Since 2001, the winning percentage of the Brady/Belichick Patriots after two-week byes is scarily identical to their overall winning percentage. The Manning/Coughlin-era Giants are in more or less the same situation.
This piece taught me a few things about how much I should buy into these Superbowl "myths." I am very skeptical about this kind of speculative conventional wisdom as a general rule, and this knowledge will likely only make hearing the media buildup to Sunday's game all the more insufferable.
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