We All Are Wrong, Yet We Continue to Try...

Every year millions of my Americans complete an enjoyable process, in which we write team names in series of lines and boxes. Then we sit back and watch in angst as 18-22 year old men play a child's game in which they try to throw an orange ball into a metal circle that is suspended ten feet above ground more times than the other team does for 40 minutes.  Many Americans like to think they have the correct combination of teams to create a perfect bracket, though the actual odds of that happening are 1-in-100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. For those of you who were not math whizzes, that is 1-in-100 million trillion.

International affairs come in second place to March Madness.
Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

But not me. No, filling out the bracket is a miserable process. I overthink lay-up picks and underthink the halfcourt shots. I become enamored with a team solely because every one in my bracket pools and the experts have a popular choice. Instead of picking a mid-major like VCU, Butler or George Mason that completes their Final Four journey, my dark horse pick is usually gone by the end of the first weekend. It is a agonizing process to fill out my bracket every year, which is why I limit myself to only one bracket--as you should to if you have any integrity. 

I like to think I know basketball. I do my homework, and follow it closely (though I rarely write about it), but there is no way to know what team will go on to the next round in a single-elimination tournament like the NCAA Tournament. It is because said zaniness and no-sense order that those like myself, who pay attention to the game, are just as lost as everyone else from from the middle of March to early April in the realm of college basketball.

John Calipari's Kentucky team is the early favorite, but we all know what
that means... nothing.

So here's to you casual fan who will win the office pool because you picked Loyola (Md.) because you picked the team that would win if the mascots raced that a greyhound would dominate the competition. And to you casual fan who wins a lump sum of money between old college friends because you had a Wichita State-St. Louis-Harvard-Purdue Final Four because you had no idea what a Shocker, Billeken, Crimson or Boilermaker is or does. 

Here is my bracket, open to humiliation for all of the world to see. I know my picks are bad and do not be afraid to call me out on them if you please. Regardless of how you came to your Final Four, it has to be more correct than mine, thus closer to that 1-in-100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

A Bounty-Full of Problems in New Orleans

On Friday, the NFL released a 50,000 page document with details of a bounty system the New Orleans Saints had in place under former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. In the last three years under the system, Saints players were paid bounties to knock opponents out of the game and for difference-making plays. As many as 27 defensive players were involved in the bounty pool, which reached a top value of $50,000. Players were rendered a $1,500 reward for knocking an opposing player unconscious, $1,000 if an opponent was carted off the field and a $10,000 bonus was promised from starting middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma if one of his teammates could knock Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC Championship. Williams also used his bounty system in Washington and Buffalo, where he was the defensive coordinator and head coach, respectively.

 Gregg Williams (center) and Johnathan Vilma (left)

Sadly, NFL players around the league have publicly shared how the Saints' "pay-for-pain" is not the only like system in pro football. Many players have come forward and explained on radio and written interviews how teams use monetary incentives to boost players on-field performance.

Former players Mike Golic and Darren Woodson on ESPN's Mike and Mike radio show tried to make the case that paying their colleagues a few hundred dollars for taking out the opponent's top players was essentially the same as high school or college players being given the increasingly popular helmet stickers for good play. One enormous flaw in this argument is that the stickers are given for good on-field play: a sack, interception or touchdown; but there are no schools that celebrate injuring players on the opposite team by adding a sticker to a kid's helmet. Nor are the student-athletes payed by the high school or university for ending an opponent's game, season or career.

Junior Galette making a little extra cash at the expense of Brett Favre.

In regards to rewarding positive play on the field with cash compensation in the NFL, go for it. They are professionals, whose job it is to win football games. Coordinators and head coaches alike, feel free to use the monetary motivation to inspire positive play for your team, but do not use money as incentive to injure opposing player. It is despicable--from the 1998 Atmore, Alabama's Little League Sportsmanship Award winner for the Yankees, yours truly. I have the backing of Super Bowl two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, who told the Washington Post, "it can't be a part of football."

As for the involved parties of "Bounty-Gate," they can expect steep--and deserved--repercussions from the league's office and Commissioner Roger Goodell, who have placed an added importance on player safety. Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman said in an interview a few weeks ago that the NFL would become too violent, as the American public will eventually lose interest a la boxing. America's most popular sport is seems far from extinction, but as players become bigger, faster, and stronger behavior such as that demonstrated by the Saints can not be tolerated if the NFL wishes to remain on top.