East Coast Offense: A Fool-Proof Solution for Awful Announcing

This article is part of our East Coast Offense series.

Bad Beat Jackpot

Heading into the Monday Night game, my SXM producer Trevor Ray and I (for the NFFC team we co-own) were down 16.8 and had Percy Harvin and Jermaine Kearse going. Kearse got an early TD, so it was looking good, and we won three times on Percy Harvin TDs which were called back. It was PPR, and we still would have won but for a rare Harvin drop in the third quarter, too. On Seattle's final offensive play from scrimmage before the game-sealing Steven Hauschka FG, Russell Wilson was actually looking for Kearse, but had to take the sack in the face of the blitz.

The loss sent us to 2-3, instead of 3-2, and it's tough because we lost another game on a last-second (third-quarter of the early games) decision to sub in Geno Smith for Alex Smith in Week 2. This is an NFFC (2 RB, 3 WR, 1 FLEX, PPR) $100K top prize league with Jordy Nelson, Julio Jones, Harvin and Rob Gronkowski, and we have Branden Oliver (on our bench this week) and Ronnie Hillman stashed per our zero RB strategy, i.e., we liked our upside.

It's not over yet, but our margin for error just got awfully thin. Of course, when I complained about the bad beat on Twitter, I got some good responses:

@TRay0128 dude lost a seat to the FD final on a Drew Brees kneel down. I lost 650k by .5 on an audible

— Al Smizzle (@AlZeidenfeld) October 7, 2014

@Chris_Liss@TRay0128 I once lost a game because my kicker pulled a muscle in pregame warm ups. . Needed one point.

— Pete (@panfather) October 7, 2014

Adding insult to injury, I had the Redskins +7, and that last FG cost me the cover - a nice extra kick in the ass on the way out the door.

A Solution to Awful Announcing

Make every announcer assigned to a particular game bet that game on the moneyline with his prorated salary for that day. So if Phil Simms gets $2 million a year to call 17 games, he'd have $117,647 at risk on the favorite or the underdog for each. If he gets it right, he gets paid. If he gets it wrong he doesn't. That way, when a coach punts on 4th-and-4 from the opponent's 36 like Andy Reid did Sunday, it has real consequences for the guys in the booth. I'm pretty sure they'd pick up the strategic nuances of the game within half a season and call it credibly going forward.

Obviously, they would never do this, but there has to be some mechanism to fix the tendency for announcers to identify with coaches and players rather than their real constitiuents, the viewers of the game who are forced to listen to them while tuning in. Sure, Reid wants the Chiefs to win as much or more than any Chiefs fan (or bettor), but he's got the added incentive of covering his ass in the event they lose. Because Simms, Jim Nance, Troy Aikman and their ilk are friendly with the players and coaches (and were almost all players or coaches at one time), they naturally see the game from that perspective and incorporate ass-covering into their analysis.

As a result - just like Reid - they do a poor job in grasping the strategic considerations where the only goal is to win. When they say "If I were Andy Reid, I'd punt," they mean that literally - if they were coaching a team, they wouldn't want to risk the embarrassment and the media barrage after a failed fourth-down try. But that's not the question to which we want an answer. We can see what a coach, worried about his job, is doing. We want to know whether that's the optimal strategy for winning the game.

This explains why despite 4th down probability calculators and studies freely available with the most cursory google search, most announcers refuse to learn key aspects of their jobs.

One other (less fun) solution would be to hire announcers who have never set foot on an NFL field and are not friendly with coaches and management.

Survivor Blame

During the fourth quarter of the early games, a Twitter follower complained that he switched his survivor pick from the Lions to the Saints after reading my column. At the time, I think the Lions were up 11, and the Saints down 10. My philosophy - at least for adults - is you make your own choices, and anything I write or say is just something for you to consider, and accept or reject as you see fit. So I wrote back: "Always think for yourself." Of course, both the Bills and Saints rallied to win, undermining my point.

The tweeter wrote back apologizing and thanking me for saving his season. But if I'm not going to take the blame, I also can't take the credit. He switched the pick, it panned out, so good for him.

I've never understood the idea of outsourcing your fantasy football or survivor decisions anyway. I understand why someone hires an accountant to do his taxes or a lawyer to set up his business, but those are tasks you do only out of necessity. Fantasy football is a hobby - something you ostensibly enjoy and do voluntarily. Why would you want to outsource your final decisions any more than you'd ask someone to serve for you in tennis or shoot your shots for you in pickup basketball?

I suppose if you had a huge amount of money at stake, you'd rather someone more expert than you made the call, but if you're not at least as good as any fantasy "expert," you shouldn't be risking large sums in high-stakes fantasy.

Week 5 Observations

• The Seahawks defense is great, and their offense isn't far behind.

•Russell Wilson simply does not take hits. Hopefully RGIII learned something watching him from the sideline.

• The penalties not only killed me in fantasy, they're killing the game. I'm watching a lot more baseball than usual this fall because I refuse to sit through the endless stoppages in so many of these games.

• As I mentioned before, I woke up one day in March with a premonition the Orioles would win the World Series. I call it a premonition because I had no good reason why except I think Buck Showalter is the league's best manager. But I let myself be talked out of placing a decent-sized bet on them at 50:1. When it was obvious they would win the AL East, I had to get something down on them just in case, so I bought a measley 6:1 ticket at the Aria Sportsbook in early September. Now they're favored in the ALCS, and their WS odds are +225.

• I love that Pete Carroll refused to settle for a field-goal on fourth and half a yard, up seven with 11:24 left. But snapping the ball seven yards back to your holder on a fake FG and having him run for the first down is kind of insane when you could sneak it or hand it to Marshawn Lynch.

• For some reason, the Giants offense huddled between plays for most of the game and lost the tempo that allowed them to dominate the Redskins and Texans. They were still able to pull through, but the effort wasn't as crisp.

•Odell Beckham caught a touchdown and looked like a good fit for the team's offense in his NFL debut. I don't think he necessarily took targets away from Larry Donnell so much as Donnell wasn't necessarily a focal point to begin with. The three-TD game was nice, and Donnell has soft hands for a big target, but he's one of four primary looks for Eli Manning, and the distribution won't necessarily be predictable week to week.

•Rueben Randle again led the team in targets with 10, but he caught only four, one of which was a TD. The Giants seemed to be force-feeding him near the goal line – I'm not sure if that was the game plan or simply Manning reading the coverages. Victor Cruz had a quiet day, but he'll still get his chances going forward.

•Rashad Jennings left the game with a knee sprain, and Andre Williams ran hard in his stead and even caught two passes for 18 yards. Williams, who had 20 carries to Peyton Hillis' two, could be a top-10 back for the next few contests, especially if he can catch 2-3 balls per game.

•Antone Smith busts a long touchdown almost every game, but the Falcons refuse to give him regular work. Steven Jackson ran hard as the lead back and caught some passes, but it's likely no back sees 20 carries in most of their games.

• The Giants corners are good, but Roddy White seems like an afterthought at this stage.

• It's amazing the Panthers covered for me as 2.5-point favorites after being down 21-7, while the Titans (up 28-3) and the Eagles (up-34-7) did not.

• For some reason the Chargers were only 6.5-point favorites at home against the Jets, so the game seemed like a trap. But sometimes things actually are what they appear, and there's no monster under the bed.

• The Jets issue is not about whether to start Geno Smith or Michael Vick. It's about having a healthy Eric Decker; otherwise, there are simply no weapons to whom to throw.

• Blitzing a quarterback as experienced and good as Philip Rivers was a mistake, as he knows how to put the ball up and give his receivers the chance to make plays.

• It's amazing how the Colts cycled through Vick Ballard, Ahmad Bradshaw and Trent Richardson last year before discovering Donald Brown was their best back. This year, the Chargers have cycled through Ryan Mathews, Danny Woodhead and Brown before discovering Branden Oliver.

• I tried to watch some of the Colts-Ravens, but I couldn't stick with it.

• The Eagles' five defensive and special teams TDs are suppressing their offensive stats the last couple weeks. I also think it's hurting their efficiency because their fast-paced offense isn't getting enough possessions.

•Austin Davis had a big game – though everyone does against the Eagles. Brian Quick's been good all year, but it was nice to see Kenny Britt get involved. The Rams have a lot of athletic weapons if they ever figure things out.

• If Calvin Johnson isn't healthy, Matthew Stafford is not a top-10 quarterback.

•Kyle Orton went for 308 yards on 7.2 YPA on the road against the league's top-rated defense to date. That has to be better than what EJ Manuel would have done. Sammy Watkins saw 12 targets and Fred Jackson nine. C.J. Spiller could not get going, while the 33-year old had no problems.

• While Justin Hunter caught a 75-yard TD pass, he was targeted only four other times all game.

• The Browns are 2-2 and barely lost to the Ravens and Steelers. If Brian Hoyer is decent now, he should be a lot better when Josh Gordon comes back.

•Marques Colston's had a tough time catching and hanging onto the ball. He already cost the Saints one game and nearly cost them again Sunday. For all the Brandin Cooks hype this preseason, he's underwhelmed as a weapon for the Saints. Cooks had 56 yards on 11 targets, while Pierre Thomas had 77 on 10. When you catch the ball in the short areas of the field, maybe tackle-breaking is more important than speed.

•Drew Brees didn't play well but he always gets his at home – 371 yards and 2 TD (albeit with 3 INT). The Saints are actually better at running than passing so far this year.

• I liked the idea of Blake Bortles – mobile rookie QB on a team that needs to throw – but the reality so far has been disappointing.

•Demaryius Thomas moves like a little guy, but he's 6-3, 229.

•Drew Stanton averaged 4.5 YPA before leaving with a concussion. His replacement, Logan Thomas, averaged 10.1, despite completing only 1-of-8 attempts.

•Montee Ball could be out for a while, and if that's the case, he'll go down as one of the year's biggest busts. Even if he misses a few weeks, I'd be surprised if he got the job back if any of the backups – Ronnie Hillman, Juwan Thompson or C.J. Anderson – proves competent.

•Phil Dawson is a bad-ass.

• The Patriots annihilation of the Bengals seemed totally normal on my TV screen even though the Bengals were arguably the best team in the league through three games, and the Patriots were life and death with the Raiders at home two weeks ago and got blown out in Kansas City six days ago. Such a useful reminder of the week-to-week variance in performance in the NFL.

•Tim Wright played the Aaron Hernandez role Sunday night. Let's hope he's not a method actor.