.

Dr. D is not sure when he's ever seen a pro sports team with more personality than the Seahawks have:

.

Player	D&D Character	Defining Moment
QB	Brainy Bilbo	I have a home too.  I'll help you regain yours if I can.  (Talk about under-promise / over-deliver)
RB	Lycanthrope	GET OFF ME, boss
CB	Neo-Deion (cutpurse/assassin)	Head-butting* Erin Andrews; Magic Missile vid cover
FS	Land Shark	Entourage & "best defender who ever lived" shtick
SS	Deathbacker/Revenant/Nazgul	Play #1*, Super Bowl
HC	Wizard	Motivational seminars / sage library
DT	Black Santa (shopkeeper)	"Dream Shake" sack dance
OLB/DE	Bugbear (18 STR, 18 DEX, 8 INT)	2.5-second blindside sack, followed by 40-yard-downfield sideline interception
etc

 

Rick quoth Black Santa, who draws anti-RW3 cultural complaints from exactly nobody:

.

"Ninety percent of the NFL is scared to tackle," Bennett said. "There is only a small 10 percent of players that really want contact in the NFL. We have a lot of our guys in that 10 percent."

http://www.sportsradiokjr.com/articles/seattle-seahawks-289737/seahawks-...

Hard to believe the literal truth of this quote, but there is a significant kernel of truth here, and it helps explain the significant advantage the Seahawks have. If these guys don't like to tackle, they sure don't like to tackle Lynch - and he loves to hit. And that Seahawk hangover effect is still in play - what, 9 games now?

- See more at: http://seattlesportsinsider.com/comment/156945#comment-156945

...

Of course he's using "scared to tackle" in the sense that Johnny Knoxville would use "scared to take a flying double-footstomp to the clean-shaven side of the face."  Bennett is talking about the kind of MMA fighter who relishes getting his eye socket fractured.

Did you see the Knoxville stunt in which he set himself up to take a deadeye Jared Allen blast, with Knoxville catching a pass across the middle?  And it seemed like one of his most dangerous stunts ...

.

.

Dr. D has zero doubt that in 100 years, they will look back on the NFL in much the same way that we look back on the Roman gladiatorial games, or bloodletting as a medicinal practice, or saying "Merry Christmas" ....  That doesn't mean that Dr. D would outlaw it.  The NFL, he means.

When a DeMarco Murray type lowers his head against a Kam Chancellor type, the physics involved are a lot like a motorcycle crash at 50 MPH (oblique, not head-on).  HERE IS AN ARTICLE that conveys the idea:

• Russell Allen's on-field stroke, which during the game he naturally accepted as a routine play in football
• The complaints of fans that we are "sitting on our butts watching people hurt each other for entertainment"
• The laments of retired players:  If only I could go back and play one more game

Testosterone is a funny thing, and a great thing.  (So is estrogen.)  The sensibilities, and choices, that are made by Mighty Men of Valor are different from yours or mine.  They want to hurt each other for our entertainment.  Guess what?  I'm fine with that.  

My wife and I love the NFL.  As a completely separate issue, we admire Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch and Michael Bennett.  Sports just doesn't get any better.

...........

Equal time announcement :- )  I can't imagine the courage needed to go through natural childbirth.  And C.S. Lewis once said, "the most ordinary woman" routinely makes unthanked self-sacrifices that would be considered heroic by even the most selfless of men, and she does this dozens of times a day.

...........

By the way, would you rather face Detroit and then Green Bay, or get a free week and then face Dallas?

I'm definitely torn on that one.  Dallas is the one team that I fear could beat the Seahawks with both teams playing at their best.  But math is math:  it's always easier to win one game, than two.

...........

A kamikaze, or a berserker, is one thing; NFL fans don't suffer the Nuh Dam a Kong Suhs very well.  He kind of ruins the whole effect that we are looking for, and here's why.  

The Seahawk violence is not an unthinking violence.  Pete Carroll is trying to teach the "rugby tackle" to the entire industry of football.  He'll probably succeed; football is a sport where changes trickle down from top to bottom.  Russell Wilson is the personification of carefully-measured, cheerfully-accepted physical risk.  

A George Washington, who kneels down in the snow in prayer and then thoughtfully walks out onto a battlefield with bullets whizzing by his head ... how heroic can you get?

........

Of course the Mariners have had their share of players who bear Deeprak Chopra's "lightness of soul" when down by 1 run to the Yankees in Game Five with the city stadium at stake.  

Robinson Cano's unhurried "lightness," in a triple-deck stadium, is beyond my comprehension.  Mike Zunino literally does not seem to mind being hit by a 92-MPH baseball; this bodes will for his hitting future.  Maybe Matt can calculate the energy behind such a pitch.  

Kyle Seager, you might have read, has a few more RBI than we thought he'd get.  Felix Hernandez won four 1-0 shutouts against the Yankees :- ) one year.  Lloyd McClendon has the kind of "forget you" attitude that comes with 5 homers on 5 swings.  Joe Sheehan said there is no clutch performance "because they're all clutch performers," but he was wrong.  Kyle Seager and Dustin Ackley are not the same kind of performer.

Neither is Colin Kaepernick the same kind of performer that is Russell Wilson.  Well, Kap performs, so to speak, but ...

........

The 10% of NFL players who are more courageous than the other 90%, yes, Pete Carroll has collected quite a posse of them.  

Richard Sherman's courage was unique in the way he called WR's out before he was a big star.  How many other players do it? 

Russell Wilson's courage is unique in that he's not fazed by dire game situations; he'll just throw the Hail Mary and complete it.  

Marshawn Lynch's pure physical courage defies an attempt to capture it in words.  My kids often refer to the Roman gladiatorial games when watching him run.

Sports and movies seem to be the only places we are unapologetically exposed to real manhood any more, much less exposed to (physical) heroism.  And sports are better, because the physical heroism isn't simulated.  

I'm definitely entertained,

Dr. D