D'Qwell Jackson And the BCS Playoff Mess
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Ten very legitimate and thought out email requests for CAR voting privilege have arrived in the last hour. But no women and, even sadder, no Asians.
Joshua Boggan writes:
Clay,
I know you're not a big fan of the NFL, but let me bring to your attention one D'Qwell Jackson. Currently D'Qwell is leading the NFL in tackles with 77 with the Browns. Clearly, he is being powered to the top by not only the apostrophe, but the rare lack of a U after the Q. I like to think that people tackled by D'Qwell have been D'Q'd. Also, what do you think inspired the D'Qwell naming?
First, I am a big fan of the NFL. I just prefer college football. But I'm a Titans fan. Don't jump to conclusions. I'd take a bullet for Kerry Collins right now.
Nice catch on the absence of the u. I'm picturing elementary school kids in Cleveland raising their hands to object when their first grade teachers have the temerity to suggest that q is always followed by u. Since I'm nothing if not a diligent researcher I headed to the Browns homepage to read about D'Qwell and see if I could find any hints for the name.
My early hypothesis: his grandfather was a hunter and was paying homage to quail. But that seems to be a bit of a stretch. So, anyway, here's his bio. page. I always scroll down to the personal section because I don't care about football stats. What's frustrating about D'Qwell's page is that over 90% of his personal information is still football-related.
For instance, once you're in the NFL do you really need to brag about how many tackles you made in the Florida-Georgia high school all-star game? This is the rough equivalent of an attorney's bio featuring their 8th grade county spelling bee championship. You've made it D'Qwell, we don't need to hear about your SuperPrep status as a sophomore.
Anyway, best thing about D'Qwell's bio? The final line: "Married to Dr. Amira Baker-Jackson, who has a dental practice, Beautiful Smiles, in Westlake, OH."
Yep, he married a woman who kept her last name...with the hyphen! What are the odds they fought about this and she pointed to the apostrophe as the resason she should be able to keep it? The answer is high. Second, how great is the advertisement for his wife's dental practice?
Of course once I saw this thread I had to continue my investigation because I figured there was a decent chance she had a website for the dental practice with a picture of a beaming D'Qwell on the main page. Unfortunately, I couldn't find that. Instead, and this might be better, one of the Cleveland Bronwns preview articles began by talking about the dental practice!
"BEREA: D'Qwell Jackson's wife's dental practice, Beautiful Smiles in Westlake, is nearly a year old and about to expand to Cleveland's east side. But the Browns' inside linebacker didn't want to use his smile as an advertisement. ''Don't look at my teeth,'' Jackson said. ''She's working on mine.''
Amira Baker-Jackson and her sister Ronnie Baker, a dentist in Miami, have seven offices and are trying to start their own chain with their brother, Sharif, as manager."
So D'Qwell Jackson's wife, Amira Baker-Jackson, is poised to be a dental magnate. So much so that her dental practice is leading off profile pieces about her husband. Is it asking for too much for their first child to be named I'ncisor Baker-Jackson? I hope not.
Anyway, be sure and hit up Beautiful Smiles if you're a reader from Cleveland.
Gord writes:
Greetings Mr. Travis
I am writing in response to your “mild expression of disappointment” at the ongoing absence of a CFB playoff system. Allow me to introduce myself and butter you up before I express my disagreement with you on this subject.
Like you I am a lawyer. Unlike you, I am Canadian. Like you (I gather) I practice labour (that’s how we spell it in Canada) and employment law on the dark side - I note that what you describe as “punishing the oppressed” I describe to my friends as “squashing the working man”. Unlike you, I am not married to a former cheerleader – but my spouse is a pretty hot former synchronized swimmer. Like you, I swear like a fuckin sailor and far more than I should. Unlike you I have not fathered any children (but do have a step daughter). Like you I have an unhealthy obsession with CFB – primarily SEC and ACC (don’t laugh). Unlike you I do not like the Vols. Like you, I hate the Gators. Unlike you, I support the Seminoles. Thus, applying the maxim that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I choose to overlook your support for the Vols and focus on our mutual hatred of all things Gator. Like you I am a big fan of Kige Ramsey and hate Jim Rome. Unlike you I have a goatee (but it is a damn fine goatee if I do say so myself and I hope you will not hold that against me given our mutual hatred of the Gators).
Bottom line – I really like your style and enjoy reading your work – Dixieland Delight is heading my way for Christmas and I look forward to the insider’s account of Mr. Fulmer’s demise. And in all seriousness, I loved your interview with Kige and your account of the visit to the headquarters of YouTube Sports. I can tell that you really “get him” in the same way I do. It actually somewhat annoys me that some of the loons that comment on Deadspin say such nasty things about him. You gotta’ believe that at least 95% of those fuckers LIKE Jim Rome.
So in summary, I like your work, share your love for CFB and am a bright guy. And I couldn’t disagree with you more about your views on the merits of a CFB playoff. In the past day or so there has been an exchange on the subject at The Wiz Of Odds. I am attaching the link below (I hope I captured it correctly – if not, please go there and click on the comments (there are only 9 at the moment) under the posted video of Barack Obama’s 60 Minutes interview):
The comments made by “John” largely articulate my views on the subject and I hope you will read them. I do not think the Wiz truly responded to any of the points made by John. That is fine I suppose but what bothers me (relatively speaking – although I am a self-described obsessive CFB fan, I can’t say these arguments *truly* “bother” me) is the attitude from proponents of a playoff, that *opponents* of a playoff are fucking morons and/or not “true” CFB fans – that appears to be the opinion of The Wiz. I assure you that I am not a fucking moron and am a true CFB fan – as is “John”.
At the end of the day I am writing because I was somewhat troubled by the manner in which you closed your piece at Deadspin today as possibly indicating that same attitude. “Fuck all of you” could be interpreted as “Fuck all of you who are opposed to a playoff”. I *think* you meant, “Fuck all of them” with “them” being the college presidents and BCS - and therefore am not taking it too personally. J But it is open to multiple interpretations (now you really know I am a lawyer too, right?).
Ultimately, my point in writing is that there are cogent, intelligent arguments to be made on both sides of this issue and I do not think it advances either side’s argument to simply dismiss out of hand the *cogent and intelligent* arguments on the opposing side. Just wanted to make that point.
Continue the great work and I hope the Vols book is a big hit for you.
Cheers
This is a great email. Let me first point out that my eloquent concluding sentence of, "Fuck all of you," was addressed to ESPN's corporate honchos and the college presidents who claim to care about the education of their students but consistently make decisions based purely upon economics. An additional fuck you for good measure once more directed at both of them for allowing ESPN to now control 29 of the 34 bowl games. No one seems upset about this because most sports writers are not very smart and don't realize that monopolies don't voluntarily relinquish their monopolies. Ask Commodore Vanderbilt. Ergo, ESPN, as an all-devouring corporate behemoth, is going to protect the value of all of their non-BCS games at the expense of an eventual playoff. Just you wait. Not to mention the fact that we're going to have to put up with one of those running clocks for the BCS Title Game for 8 months.
I also understand that some college football fans don't favor a playoff. And that, like your link, their primary point is that a playoff devalues an already exciting regular season. Generally their argument boils down to something along the lines of we already have a playoff set up and it's the regular season. Or some such. To me that argument doesn't fly because I live in SEC country. No matter how the season ends down here the regular season is going to be seismically important. I'm not going to recapitulate all the reasons I've nailed down before in columns in favor of a playoff but here are three additional points that don't get talked about much in regards to a playoff.
1. I fundamentally disagree that a playoff would decrease the interest among fans. In fact, I think it expands it to a massive degree. If you had an 8 team playoff, 25-30 teams would enter the final month of the season believing they had a legitimate chance for a national championship--to make that playoff group. That if things broke their way or they won the games they needed to their season wasn't over. Right now we have what, 7-8 teams that are hoping they can get into the top 2? Not only would you care about your own team you'd care about how a lot of other teams did.
Demonstration? How many college football fans truly care what's going to happen in Utah-BYU? Hardly any. But if Utah was guaranteed a spot in the playoffs if they won but there'd be a spot open if they lost? Everyone would be watching. Right now we have 5 BCS Games. And the Title Game devours the other 4. As well it should, the others mean nothing. In fact, the other 33 bowl games mean less than the one title game. Anyway, I'm not saying you have to away with the bowls, if you disagree and think they're worth something the teams that don't make the playoff could still play bowl games. But I think the bowl games are the car companies of the 21st century, antiquated relics that are being propped up because they've gotten so big no one is willing to kick them to the curb.
2. Lose twice in September and there's no point to the rest of your season. Every week matters, my ass. Maybe I'm particularly sensitive to this as a Tennessee fan, but if we lose to Florida and another team in September, our season is over. Lose twice at any point in a good conference (this is still 10-2!) and there's nothing to play for the rest of the way other than pride. (LSU is the only exception to this in the past 50 years. A fact Cajuns should thank God for every night. Especially after the vast majority of them passed on the SEC Championship Game in the wake of the Arkansas loss because they thought their season was over.) See, the key to a truly enjoyable season and sport, in my mind, is keeping fans believing that their team can win a championship for as long as possible. College football eliminates almost every team by the end of the first month. That really sucks. Yeah, every game matters, for about 15 teams that haven't already lost twice by October 10.
3. An 8 team playoff represents a very small proportion of the 120 or so teams competing for the overall championsship in FBS football. (Personally I'd favor a 16 team playoff, but that's neither here nor there.) In fact, that would be a smaller percentage of playoff teams than any sport in America (6.6% of the overall teams would advance.) Non playoff proponents point to the NCAA Tournament as if it's a bad thing because the democracy of a tournament devalues the regular season. (An argument that completely ignores that historically you have to be seeded as one of the top 4 teams in a region to win.) But 65 teams advance to the NCAA Tourney. Out of about 320 top tier teams. That's 20% of college basketball. Proportionally college football would just allow a third of those teams to advance. So getting to the college football playoff would be 3x as difficult as getting to the NCAA Tournament.
Taking it further, 12 out of 32 NFL teams go to the playoffs. 16 out of 32 in the NBA, and 8 out of 30 in baseball (corrected, nod to commenters). My point is that college football would still have the most difficult playoff to reach in all of American sports. Which woud still mean that college football had the most important regular season in team sports. Only you'd get the added benefit of a playoff that expands the field of fan rooting interest. Finally, with a 12 game season, the idea that a college football team would ever truly be able to take a game off is impossible for me to comprehend. It would be really hard to make the playoffs, extremely hard. Nothing would be devalued, everything would be enhanced. College football would still be the Elin Grindemyr of sports.
Anyway, I'm going to look around online for my BCS column a while back where I spent thousands of words on things. The above three points are just three things that I don't think get discussed very often. Good email. And I don't hate college football fans who don't favor a playoff. I just think you're misguided souls. Like girls who have anal sex instead of regular sex to preserve their virginity.Labels: d'qwell jackson BCS thoughts claynation playoff
Posted by Clay Travis at 9:43 PM
 
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A Canadian with a goatee? Did he even have to come out and say he was a Seminole fan?
LSU lost twice in their conference last year and still won the championship. Doesn't happen very often though.
Only 8 teams make the playoffs in MLB, not 12. Just something I noticed in your argument...
I thought I put a line in there excepting LSU. Initially I did anyway. But I think the two loss angle from LSU and the fact that we're likely to have two one loss teams playing this year is showing how hard the additional 12th game (plus conference championship games) really make staying in contention. Ergo, I think it will be extraordinarily rare (if not impossible) for a college team to ever take a week off.
As for MLB, good correction. The percentage is still high though, 26.6% of the overall teams advance to the playoffs. It's not the NBA or the NHL, but it's closer to them than it is to what a college football playoff would be.