Have to get on the record before I don my C-shirt for today’s opener.

Ben Johnson has said he wants to have the highest-scoring offense ever. I’m not going to say no to more points. Points are good. But even better is having more points than the other team at the end of the game, and the offense is just one part of that equation.

Caleb Williams has already broken into the Bears’ all-time top ten in passing yards and passing TDs, holds the Bears’ record for passing yards in a single season, and threw for the fourth-most touchdowns in a single season in Bears history. That may sound amazing, but given this team’s track record and the reality of regression-to-the-mean, all it allows me to say is that he’s an above-average pro quarterback. I hope this turns out to be an understatement but I’ve been disappointed before.

Anyhow, they’re probably going to have a decent offense this year, but I don’t like the idea of playing Nintendo ball. I’m reminded of a great many high-scoring teams (Peyton’s Colts and Broncos, the 2007 Patriots, etc.) setting scoring records left and right, and then not winning rings because racing up-and-down the field led to high-variance scores. You might win 56-10, but you also might lose 43-8 in the Super Bowl.

I’m reminded of those same teams winning it all a few years later with offenses that chewed up more of the clock on their way to scoring not-quite-as-many points as before.

The game’s complicated, but not that complicated. As exciting as it would be to score 48 points a game like I’m playing Madden on an IBM PS/1 in 1989, I’d be much happier with a commitment to setting time-of-possession records, getting the top seed and winning the Super Bowl. Ball-control on offense. Average 4.5 yards per play with a σ of 0.2. Move the chains. No turnovers. Milk the clock. No turnovers. Score a boring touchdown or field goal at the end of a long, defense-exhausting drive. Win 10 or 12 to 3 with 45 minutes of possession, then rinse and repeat the next week.

Here goes. Bear down.

Talked more about 9/11 in my classes today than I expected to. At lunchtime I revisited my tenth anniversary post from 2011. May as well just repost:

My where-were-you story:

It was my first year of teaching. I walked into the library at work just after the South Tower was hit, huddled near the TVs with admins, a few other teachers, and a bunch of students. I remember seeing the South Tower wobble and saying, “It looks like it’s going to fall over.” And then it collapsed. I remember thinking, My God, there’s only going to be one Twin Tower. I don’t remember if I was still in the library when the second tower fell at 10:30– I think I was, but that means we would have had an unusual bell schedule that day. Maybe I just remember it from watching the video over and over again.

I had scheduled a government test on that day. In spite of the fact that the most significant geopolitical event in decades was happening right then, I made them take the test anyway. Partly because I felt obligated to keep on schedule and keep things as “normal” as possible, partly because I stupidly thought my freshmen couldn’t handle it. It is unquestionably the dumbest thing I have ever done as a teacher. I should have flipped on the TV and done nothing else that day.

The kids were oddly calm for the most part, or at least if they weren’t, they hid it well. One student wrote on her test something to the effect of “Seven days until Christ returns,” and handed it in with the saddest look-in-her-eyes you ever saw. I told them to behave on the bus rides home because the roads would probably be packed– I was wrong. The roads were as close to empty as I’ve seen on a workday afternoon. That might’ve been the fastest ride home ever. I made sure to fill up the car with gas and withdraw as much cash as possible from the ATM.

…

The next day, the news showed the feds searching the Boston hotel where the hijackers had stayed. I remember thinking that if they’d pulled something like this off, then they’d probably rigged their rooms with bombs. That hotel was going to blow up and kill even more cops, and God only knew what would come next.

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Remember Barbara Olson? She was one of the original FOX blondes and she was almost a regular on Politically Incorrect. I used to watch that show religiously and was shocked to hear she was on Flight 77. Bill Maher left one of his panel seats empty for her for a while– proof that despite everything, he can be a classy guy.

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Remember the anthrax attacks just a week or two later? Thankfully that was just some crackpot (we think) and not some broader terrorist network. Bio-terror hasn’t quite materialized to the extent we feared. I think this picture of an anthrax survivor did a great deal to allay our fears of bio-terror.

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I remember wondering how my grandmother, 91 at the time, reacted when she heard the news. She simply shook her head. By that age, nothing is new.

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Remember the plane crash in Queens a couple months after 9/11? Almost 300 people died in that crash, including some on the ground. Remember that odd, twisted sense of relief when it turned out to be good old-fashioned pilot error?

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Either on or just after 9/11, I told my students that we’d let our collective guard down partly because we’d forgotten that things like this can happen. Not to blame Clinton or Bush, I said, but our government for the last few years had been run by people who weren’t old enough (or born enough) to remember Pearl Harbor. Those kids got it. They won’t forget. The trick in the future will be to pass on this sort of knowledge to the people too young to remember the World Trade Center.
–Me, “Ramblings on 9/11.”

Remember that day as long as you live. And a large, growing portion of our population today wasn’t old enough (or born enough) to remember it, so make sure to keep teaching them about it, for their sakes, and for the sake of their posterity.

So Spain won, because they were more methodical and they beat generally stronger teams than Argentina, and they had the skill and discipline to not completely flake out.

The statistical difference was staggering. Argentina had no shots on target. Zero. They didn’t even register an off-target shot until extra time was almost over. That’s inexcusable. You’re in the World Cup final, you’re the defending champions, you’ve won every game so far, including a couple of miraculous comebacks… you can’t figure out how to change up tactics to generate some pressure on Spain’s defense? You’d think that at some point they’d take any old shot at the goal on the off chance of a favorable deflection, or the keeper bobbling it, or simply to prove that you didn’t completely forget the point of the game, which is putting the ball in the net.

Staggering, except of course for the stat that counts most: goals. After all that dominance by Spain, Argentina was still only a goal behind, and had some chances to tie it very late. Here’s the momentum thingy from ESPN’s Gamecast:

Note the dramatic switch in momentum after the goal. You might say that Spain was sagging back and allowing Argentina to get forward, or that Argentina finally had to risk going forward because they were out of other options (and Ferran almost made them pay for it with a second goal), but I still have to ask, where was that all game long? You have to go forward at some point– why wait that long? “Spain’s really good” is not an excuse for your failure to get even one shot on goal, and to have that little momentum throughout the game.

That said… Spain is really good. They defend extremely effectively, with all 11 defending as far away from goal as can be done. If you don’t let the other team shoot, they can’t score. If you don’t let the other team near your goal, they can’t shoot. And so on. Very impressive.

But that just makes me wonder all the more about Argentina’s late surge. There were a few scary moments for Spain in the end. Was it because Spain, instead of defending high, sagged back? If so, why sag back– why change anything against 10 men who’d done nothing all game long? If not, then all the more reason to blame Argentina’s poor tactics, which didn’t change until it was almost too late. I’ll have to rewatch, God help me.

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This final pitted two of Alfredo Di Stéfano’s three national teams against each other. One of my favorite quotes is attributed to him: “Goals are not deserved, they are scored.” Spain might’ve deserved goals (and the win) yesterday, but I was afraid that Argentina would still score that late goal, and force the game into a dreaded shootout, where deserved’s got nothing to do with it. Argentina and Martinez would have probably have the advantage. Which leads to my next point:

FIFA should require that every player on the field at the end of extra time takes part in the shootout. Eleven versus eleven, assuming no reds. First, I like the idea of forcing the nervous wrecks and the backs to take part, whether they want to or not. The whole team tied, so the whole team should have to break the tie.

Second, it’s an additional punishment for teams that suffered red cards. Under my rule, Spain would’ve had an extra shooter, which woulda put Argentina at a disadvantage. In 1990, the other time Argentina barely lost a final in which they had no shots on goal, West Germany would’ve had two extra shooters. Is that an unfair advantage? Maybe. So don’t get red cards. Don’t get second yellows.

Also in 1990, Italy would’ve had an extra shooter in the semifinal against Maradona. Italy lost. In Naples. Yes, I’m still bitter.

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Congratulations to Spain and their young’uns!

Congratulations also to Argentina on a great run, and to Messi on a great career, but… I’m not sure he’s done with World Cup ball. Not with Argentina hosting one of the first games of the centennial tournament in 2030. Yes, he’s up there in years, but the guy with eight goals and four assists in this cup was not the problem yesterday.

England and France have rightfully earned a great deal of criticism for ruining my prediction. I still say France was wrongly penalized for Spain’s first goal. Some say that it was a penalty by the letter of the law. Well, if the law says I can draw a penalty by jumping directly into the path of a leg that is being reasonably swung towards the ball– despite my committing a handball just before I get kicked– then the law needs changing. France was flat regardless, and Spain slowly strangled the life out of them… but that little downer just before the water break didn’t help France at all.

England’s collapse was humiliating enough that I don’t feel as bad about the US tanking against Belgium. To park the bus with over 30 minutes of regular time left was clearly insane. To go with essentially six backs for that long against Messi et al was insane. For five or ten minutes? Or if you’re down to nine or ten men? Maybe then it would make sense. But when you’re the fourth-ranked team on the planet, and you’ve had success attacking your opponent, and you have two solid scoring options… why? Why crawl into your shell? Why tell Argentina that they’re not going to have to worry about counters? Dumb.

Granted, if it had worked, all would be forgiven and Tuchel would be the genius who got England back to the final for the first time since 101966. The problem is… it didn’t work. I saw somewhere that in the roughly 37 minutes between England’s goal and Argentina’s gamewinner, Argentina had 88% possession. There was an 18 minute stretch in there in which England completed just two passes, while Argentina completed over 100. Argentina again showed life and desperation and smart tactical flexibility, and Messi again showed his mettle, and his teammates again stepped up.

Yesterday’s bronze medal scrimmage was a sour sort of entertaining. It was nice to see a 6-4 game, and yay for Mbappé setting a record, and yay for Saka scoring a consolation hat trick, and so on, but the teams were clearly mailing it in.

Anyways, time to call the final so everyone can place the opposite bet. For now I don’t care who wins, so long as it’s legitimately entertaining. Maybe something will happen early in the game that forces me to take a side. I don’t know whether the scriptwriters would rather have Messi and Friends be the first repeat champions since 1962, or have the torch passed on to Yamal and Rodri and Porro and so on.

Argentina has beaten everyone they’ve faced, and they’re the only team to have won every game so far. In fact, I think they’re only the second team to be 7-0 in a World Cup– I’ll have to check. They’ve been spectacular… late in the second half and in extra time. You don’t want to have to count on winning it late over and over again, and the good fortune has to run out sometime. Doesn’t it?

I’m leaning towards Spain, because they’ve been more methodical and they’ve beaten generally stronger teams than Argentina has. If anybody has the skill and discipline to not completely flake out like England did, it’s this year’s Spanish team. That said, after reading my own blog, I’m not leaving this call up to my own judgement. Heads Argentina, tails Spain.

Tails, Spain. They will co-host in 2030 as defending champions.

Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey might be the worst adaptation of a classic I’ve ever seen. It’s one thing to take some creative liberties, it’s quite another to take a story about a boring day in the life of some Irish guy and turn it into a decades-long travelogue of the Mediterranean– hold on, it’s my editors.

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I’ll start over. Spoilers ahead.

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