In Week 2, play the opposite of Week 1
In the NFL, nothing happens twice. Teams are correctional facilities. They play whack-a-mole with their problems.
If the run defense gets gashed, they will load the box the next week and get beat through the air.
If they only throw for 150 yards, they will go deep four times in the first quarter next week. If a running back has a great game on Sunday, the next week, his opponent will build a game plan around preventing that from happening.
Keep this in mind when deciding who to start on your fantasy teams.
“They might beat us, but this guy sure as hell won’t!” I heard that a lot over the years. Coaches and players take pride in stopping a man in his tracks. Especially one who is feeling good about himself. But if one player, or one mistake, or one loss haunts your mind — you will make yourself vulnerable.
This is where the job security of a coach affects the reaction to a loss. New coaches, unproven coaches, have no time to wait for the winds to change in their favor. Belichick, Tomlin, Carroll, Reid: these are coaches who can afford a few losses. The rest of the NFL’s coaches can be counted on to be inconsistent.
That’s why, a good way to bet on the NFL, especially fantasy football, is that if red hits on Week 1, then in Week 2, bet on black.
“The Niners will be amazing and will beat the Panthers!” I wrote last week. I was full of hope, but optimism has no landing gear. We simply survive the crash back down to earth, and by midweek, feel ready to declare another imminent victory. It is an exciting ride to be on — the NFL — and completely void of subtlety.
We will win! And no matter what, the show goes on.
Out here, in the real world with you guys, my weeks are much different. There’s no way to judge wins and losses. I keep looking around waiting for someone to attack me, or throw me a football, or something. But all I see is the mail lady handing me another letter from a lawyer who wants to represent me in the NFL’s billiondollar concussion settlement.
“Brother,” it always starts out, or “Fellow NFL Veteran,” or something — then they give me the pitch. They want me to sign on with their firm, then they will collect 15 percent of my future dementia payments. Payouts are said to be high, so now there is a clamoring of lawyers around the case, and the waters are muddy.
But the payout structure is not negotiable. That’s what the letter from the presiding judge, Anita Brody, said. We don’t need representation, she said. The testing procedure is in place. You simply sign up. But that has not stopped lawyers from squeezing in and taking advantage of uninformed players — and in some cases, giving cash advances to potentially demented (fingers crossed!) former players, so they will sign over 15 percent of up to $5 million future payouts.
The most recent one I received also appealed to any girlfriend or spouse who has been affected by the behavior of a braindamaged lover. She is entitled to the money, too. In addition, this lawyer would be happy to represent me in the new class action suit against Riddell, the helmet maker, another company caught in the concussion saga’s legal crosshairs.
Last week, I toured a concussion rehabilitation facility. They claim to heal the brain through a series of treatments — diet, yoga, meditation, brain games, art therapy, rest, light-control, brain-mapping machines, etc. They’re pitching their services to ex-athletes with brain injuries. Only 50k a month. They want to get the word out, especially to the players who are fresh out of the league and who still have an insurance plan that might cover it.
I volunteered to be the guinea pig of the group. They put a cap on my head with wires sticking out of it and holes in it, filling the small holes with gel to stimulate the brainwave connection through my scalp.
My heart raced as I sat in a soft chair in front of a flat screen and watched my brain in waves. I saw how each errant thought, each whimsy, each recognition of the test in process — caused a jump or spike on the screen. “For instance,” said the technician in a soothing voice, inches behind my ear, “when you blink, these lines are affected. Here … see.” I blinked and the lines jumped.
Then they switched to a 3D scan of my brain, which could isolate the brain-wave activity in each section. Green was healthy. Red was bad. I had some red flashing in there. She isolated it to the prefrontal cortex. But was it flashing in defiance of the task or because I have brain trauma?
“Do you have a hard time falling asleep sometimes?” she said. “Or do you dwell on a thought and can’t let it go?”
“No. Well, yeah, I mean, sometimes.”
“Yep, I can see that right here, look. And the beauty in this treatment is that you can fix it without taking any drugs whatsoever. It becomes as easy as … here, I’ll show you.”
She hooked up a video game — football, of course, so that I understand. Before me on the screen was a quarterback standing in full gear on an empty field facing a striped bucket 20 yards away.
“Throw the ball in the bucket,” she said. The quarterback threw the ball and it landed 5 feet in front of the bucket. Then I looked at the bucket and the next throw bounced off the lip. Then I really looked at the bucket, and the ball went in.
One after another, as I stared deeper into the bucket, the balls kept going in. The bucket moved back to 30, 40, 50 yards. Over and over, the ball went in the bucket. I heard them talking behind me, about me, about the treatment, but the words floated over me like clouds. It was only when I acknowledged hearing them and tried to engage them — with a wink or a smile — that the circuit broke, and the ball fell short.
There are a lot of people trying to analyze Week 1 of the NFL. They are wearing caps with wires sticking out. They claim to have the answers. They will tell you you’re smart if you agree with them. But do not listen. Do not acknowledge them. Do not change your game plan. Just focus on the bucket, and let everything else float away.