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...during which I thought about why I'm not altogether that nervous about the fact the Denver Broncos are playing in the Super Bowl this Sunday. I still love typing that. MmmMmMmm.
Here's what I came up with (don't read if you don't enjoy full-frontal male nudity).
Just kidding about the male nudity part. Barely.
One reason I love football is its simultaneous quantifiability, complexity and, by extension, unpredictability. To wit, we enjoy knowing how many yards or touchdowns a given player might gain on any given Sunday, that is easily quantified and collated by the stats gnomes, but the complexity of the game means deeper digging into the context of those yards or touchdowns if we're to gain any insight into what actually transpired on the field.
We're all familiar with the ingenious metrics ginned up by the analysts over the years, metrics meant to distill football's complexity and arm us with predictive power for future contests, but all the prediction machines and psychic manatees in the world still fail to rob us of our anticipation come Sunday.
In my mind, football is without question the most complex game on the planet. The tension between the physical, the psychological and the technical is unmatched in sports. The game we love still eludes exhaustive human knowledge, and it all comes to a head for 60 minutes one day per week (or two weeks
), when one path is chosen from numerous logical possibilities. Football's complexity gives it more possible logical outcomes than other sports, and the compression of time that precipitates an outcome takes the breath away. The singular nature of any one football game basically qualifies it as miraculous.
The protagonists cast in the middle of this maelstrom are men whose names we know. Names such as Big Deck Decker, Bay Bay and Ma'a Tanuvasa. Their actions on the field seem beyond their persons. As if animated by a wight, they sometimes strike me as marionettes whose very actions are symbolic of something very deep, but unseen, and unknown even to themselves. Julius Thomas caught a 21-yard pass one night in January. But is that really what happened?
Empirically, of course, the answer is 'Yes, dumbass.' We can quantify his action; we can make it a data point. But, if you'll pardon the pun, that misses the point.
Like a sculptor might categorize and use his raw materials based on artistic license instead of science, while still believing both perspectives to be true, I think the 2013 Denver Broncos embody a perspective as grand (yet intangible) as the heady stats we know them for, and I think that's why they're going to win the Super Bowl.
Returning to the marionettes: When I watch football, I realize the speed and pressure of the game (even leaving aside Denver's hurry-up offense) essentially renders most participants unconscious actors. As puppets. Knowshon Moreno runs on instinct, but it is an instinct forged from a previously conscious decision, and that decision was furthermore borne from an intricate mix of personality and life experience. None of this is revealed in a stat line.
What life experience induces a man to surrender his will, his very consciousness, to a mad puppeteer who will deplete his body and his time? Football is extremely taxing. The days were spent, months or years in advance, in grueling physical and mental preparation for maybe one play, one second in one play, no one could guarantee was coming. Yet the choice was made, to a man, to move forward--to surrender body, mind and spirit--and I'd wager suffering is the element that informs that choice more than anything else.
In this unscientific moral dimension I speak of, a dimension impervious to statistical analysis, honor, trust and suffering take the stage. These Denver Broncos are well-acquainted with this realm. You hear it when the team talks about what they've overcome in the last 12 months, starting with Baltimore: The execs' DUIs, Faxgate, Von's suspension and legal troubles, Champ's nagging injury, Wolfe's mysterious ailment, Rahim's near-death experience, Clady's injury, Fox's near-death experience, Von's brutal injury and lost season, Harris's brutal injury, or that time they forgot Trindon's booster seat at Chili's.
I haven't even mentioned the sufferer-in-chief dragging this team along, the man who can't answer a question without a pained expression on his face, PFM. Questions about his legacy, his playoff failings, and his journey from Indy to Denver are well-documented, and I don't doubt he has some deep sorrow about some of what transpired. The thing is, though, I feel like Manning has always had a hidden aspect of his life that haunts him, and that it's what made him so successful.
If suffering broaches the topic of surrendering your will for future glory (think of the monks), part of the transaction I think involves a better understanding of the will that is no longer yours. You can stand on the shore and watch your will be cast along by deep waters. I think Peyton made this decision to let go at an insanely young age, and it's probably why he paradoxically looks like he's in such control out there. He somehow sensed the noumenon, and knew his chance at greatness rested on the decision to devote his entire being to it. I can't speak assuredly of what sorrow provoked this. I'd venture it had something to do with Archie, who had a exceedingly disappointing relationship with his father, and who Peyton has tried to make proud his whole life. The funny thing is, the more he accomplished for his dad to alleviate his burden, the more the magnifying glass was turned upon him, and the greater his suffering became (at questions about his accomplishments or lack thereof at Tennessee, in Indy, his health, etc).
Now, after the greatest single season ever compiled by a quarterback, here he is in the Super Bowl with his second team. This would forever close the book on those dark doubts he himself might even carry inside, and no one understands that fact better than the man who knows more about football than the entire Seattle defense put together. He's gained the trust, the respect and love of his teammates and our fan base. He knows the end is nigh. The man who sacrificed as a teenager is well-equipped to lead the men who sacrifice for him now. They made the conscious decision to buy into his system, to be an unconscious cog in the wheel of this historic freight-train from hell, running straight up the ass of the competition.
With all due respect to the Seahawks, they have a helluva defense and a potential great one in Russell Wilson, but there's no way they win this game. It's not a question of athletic ability or scheme, in which case the two teams are probably in a dead heat. There's a whole other dimension at play here, one where braggadocio, 12th Man thievery and corny names for your defensive backfield are as empty as the Chargers' trophy cabinet. This Sunday, Manning dips his pen and writes the last chapter (I hope they call it "Omaha!"). We, the fans, the loyal readers, who know the rest of the story, just have to enjoy it.
Here's what I came up with (don't read if you don't enjoy full-frontal male nudity).
Just kidding about the male nudity part. Barely.
One reason I love football is its simultaneous quantifiability, complexity and, by extension, unpredictability. To wit, we enjoy knowing how many yards or touchdowns a given player might gain on any given Sunday, that is easily quantified and collated by the stats gnomes, but the complexity of the game means deeper digging into the context of those yards or touchdowns if we're to gain any insight into what actually transpired on the field.
We're all familiar with the ingenious metrics ginned up by the analysts over the years, metrics meant to distill football's complexity and arm us with predictive power for future contests, but all the prediction machines and psychic manatees in the world still fail to rob us of our anticipation come Sunday.
In my mind, football is without question the most complex game on the planet. The tension between the physical, the psychological and the technical is unmatched in sports. The game we love still eludes exhaustive human knowledge, and it all comes to a head for 60 minutes one day per week (or two weeks
), when one path is chosen from numerous logical possibilities. Football's complexity gives it more possible logical outcomes than other sports, and the compression of time that precipitates an outcome takes the breath away. The singular nature of any one football game basically qualifies it as miraculous.The protagonists cast in the middle of this maelstrom are men whose names we know. Names such as Big Deck Decker, Bay Bay and Ma'a Tanuvasa. Their actions on the field seem beyond their persons. As if animated by a wight, they sometimes strike me as marionettes whose very actions are symbolic of something very deep, but unseen, and unknown even to themselves. Julius Thomas caught a 21-yard pass one night in January. But is that really what happened?
Empirically, of course, the answer is 'Yes, dumbass.' We can quantify his action; we can make it a data point. But, if you'll pardon the pun, that misses the point.
Like a sculptor might categorize and use his raw materials based on artistic license instead of science, while still believing both perspectives to be true, I think the 2013 Denver Broncos embody a perspective as grand (yet intangible) as the heady stats we know them for, and I think that's why they're going to win the Super Bowl.
Returning to the marionettes: When I watch football, I realize the speed and pressure of the game (even leaving aside Denver's hurry-up offense) essentially renders most participants unconscious actors. As puppets. Knowshon Moreno runs on instinct, but it is an instinct forged from a previously conscious decision, and that decision was furthermore borne from an intricate mix of personality and life experience. None of this is revealed in a stat line.
What life experience induces a man to surrender his will, his very consciousness, to a mad puppeteer who will deplete his body and his time? Football is extremely taxing. The days were spent, months or years in advance, in grueling physical and mental preparation for maybe one play, one second in one play, no one could guarantee was coming. Yet the choice was made, to a man, to move forward--to surrender body, mind and spirit--and I'd wager suffering is the element that informs that choice more than anything else.
In this unscientific moral dimension I speak of, a dimension impervious to statistical analysis, honor, trust and suffering take the stage. These Denver Broncos are well-acquainted with this realm. You hear it when the team talks about what they've overcome in the last 12 months, starting with Baltimore: The execs' DUIs, Faxgate, Von's suspension and legal troubles, Champ's nagging injury, Wolfe's mysterious ailment, Rahim's near-death experience, Clady's injury, Fox's near-death experience, Von's brutal injury and lost season, Harris's brutal injury, or that time they forgot Trindon's booster seat at Chili's.
I haven't even mentioned the sufferer-in-chief dragging this team along, the man who can't answer a question without a pained expression on his face, PFM. Questions about his legacy, his playoff failings, and his journey from Indy to Denver are well-documented, and I don't doubt he has some deep sorrow about some of what transpired. The thing is, though, I feel like Manning has always had a hidden aspect of his life that haunts him, and that it's what made him so successful.
If suffering broaches the topic of surrendering your will for future glory (think of the monks), part of the transaction I think involves a better understanding of the will that is no longer yours. You can stand on the shore and watch your will be cast along by deep waters. I think Peyton made this decision to let go at an insanely young age, and it's probably why he paradoxically looks like he's in such control out there. He somehow sensed the noumenon, and knew his chance at greatness rested on the decision to devote his entire being to it. I can't speak assuredly of what sorrow provoked this. I'd venture it had something to do with Archie, who had a exceedingly disappointing relationship with his father, and who Peyton has tried to make proud his whole life. The funny thing is, the more he accomplished for his dad to alleviate his burden, the more the magnifying glass was turned upon him, and the greater his suffering became (at questions about his accomplishments or lack thereof at Tennessee, in Indy, his health, etc).
Now, after the greatest single season ever compiled by a quarterback, here he is in the Super Bowl with his second team. This would forever close the book on those dark doubts he himself might even carry inside, and no one understands that fact better than the man who knows more about football than the entire Seattle defense put together. He's gained the trust, the respect and love of his teammates and our fan base. He knows the end is nigh. The man who sacrificed as a teenager is well-equipped to lead the men who sacrifice for him now. They made the conscious decision to buy into his system, to be an unconscious cog in the wheel of this historic freight-train from hell, running straight up the ass of the competition.
With all due respect to the Seahawks, they have a helluva defense and a potential great one in Russell Wilson, but there's no way they win this game. It's not a question of athletic ability or scheme, in which case the two teams are probably in a dead heat. There's a whole other dimension at play here, one where braggadocio, 12th Man thievery and corny names for your defensive backfield are as empty as the Chargers' trophy cabinet. This Sunday, Manning dips his pen and writes the last chapter (I hope they call it "Omaha!"). We, the fans, the loyal readers, who know the rest of the story, just have to enjoy it.
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