Spoiler Alert… Today’s post is about football (American football, yes, I see you, non-US friends)…If you refuse to read posts about football on principle because of CTE, the outrageous amounts of money involved, or excess testosterone, I appreciate your perspective. But, sorry mate, My Team is GOING TO THE SHOW! I need to talk about it.
I do like me some sports, so much so that I wrote a book about ’em, and I do like my teams, especially when the team works together, has intelligent leadership, and has fun. I can’t help but think about this approach as business model, ’cause I’m an MBA and organizational behavior coupled with analytics is in my DNA. After all, it says “statistics” right there at the top of my site, plastered across the California hills.
Thirty Runs
A curious thing happened after the Niners completed their 27-10 drubbing of the Minnesota Vikings in the playoffs. One player after another started mentioning how many times the ball was run. Not just the coach or the running backs, but the tight end (who catches passes and blocks) and the defense:
I think 47 rushes is pretty good, right? I think we had close to 200 on 47 rushes. …Playing against six techniques with the linebackers on the inside, it’s pretty easy to get those combo blocks up to them.
George Kittle, tight end (offense)
That was the biggest thing for us this week is trying to get 30 runs. We had like 40 or something, 47. We knew if we did that we’d win.
Nick Bosa, defensive end
It’s one thing for the coach to come out after the fact and mention that their goal was thirty runs. It’s another for all the players to have known that was the collective goal as well. Perhaps it’s easy in retrospect to claim that the Niners are a running team because their two playoff games were rather lopsidedly run-based. However, none of the rushers would be considered exceptional (until last week), and we fans were nervous throughout the season about the “run by committee” approach. We’d love to have a true star running back (a la Derrick Henry of Tennessee) or a quarterback with a bit of mobility (like Patrick Mahomes).
Continue reading “Why They Play the Game”