The Drop

Every year around this time throughout Europe sportswriters and commentators and fans start talking about The Drop.  Relegation and promotion (or, I guess, promotion and relegation if your glass is half full) are features of almost every professional soccer league in the world not in the U.S. or Australia.

Rather ironic, since relegation is the most democratic, or Darwinian, of all sporting concepts. Each year in one or two or three of the clubs that finish in the bottom of the standings of a league will be relegated to the next division down, and the same number of clubs will be promoted, either by virtue of their finish in their league during the regular season or by a playoff, to the next higher division. So while clubs in, say, China will (theoretically) rise or fall each year on their own merits, those in the U.S. are among the few that are always safely ensconced in the highest professional division of the sport.

Because of the way professional sports teams developed in the United States, with a small number of clubs owned usually by one individual or entity, promotion and relegation never took hold here. In Europe, however, with its thousands of soccer teams and stronger local and regional ties, it was a natural development.

In recent years, the relegation battle, at least in England, is much more interesting than the fight for the championship of the Premier League. While the same two or three teams fight it out for the crown every year, several more are sucked into the abyss that is the desperate attempt to avoid the drop.

This year the races to the championship and to relegation are both shaping up to be interesting, thanks to the lack of a dominating club at the top and many middling to miserable ones at the other end of the spectrum. But while one of the usual suspects (either Man United or Arsenal) are likely to win the crown, nine or ten clubs, within six points of each other, are capable of playing badly enough over the last eight or nine matches of the season to warrant relegation.

Unfortunately for me and other Blackburn fans, one of those clubs that could face The Drop is the Rovers.  In the top ten and looking good just a few weeks ago, Rovers have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, or at least a draw, on several occasions recently, including two weeks ago when they conceded a penalty in the last minute to lose 3-2 to Fulham, and last week when they had to come from two goals down at home to register a draw with Blackpool. Speculation has gone from wondering whether the club will be able to challenge for a Europa League spot to whether they will be playing in the Premier League next season.

I have to admit, though, that whether it's the glass-half-empty Rover fan, the masochist, or the republican (yes, little "r" republican) in me, I relish the fight to dodge The Drop. Nothing more energizes a fan base than supporting your club to survive to fight another day. And, I have to admit, I always relish the opportunity to chirp when a "Big Club" (like Newcastle two seasons ago) goes down.

How cool would it be to get to see an American pro team (insert team name here -- mine would be the Cowboys or the Yankees) struggle to maintain top flight status? Can you imagine the glee if Jerry Jones was faced with the prospect of a half-filled billion dollar stadium while his Cowboys play some semi-pro team from Waco?

I'll be there on Saturday morning, biting my nails and hoping the Rovers can pick up three or even one point against Arsenal (yeah, right) that would go a long way to avoiding The Drop. But I'll be pulling just as hard for West Ham and Birmingham (two self-proclaimed "Big Clubs") to lose and sink a little farther toward oblivion. What could be more American?

Is XLV the Last of the Small Market Match Ups?

Through all the hand wringing over the health of the league, vis-a-vis players versus owners, what about the health of the league just among the owners? In September, 2009, Per ProFootballTalk reported,

“Right now, we are subsidizing this market,” Jones said, according to Sean Jensen of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “It’s
unthinkable to think that you’ve got the market you got here — 3 ½
million people — and have teams like Kansas City and Green Bay
subsidizing the market. That will stop.

“That’s going to stop. That’s on its way out.”

Jones has said, basically, that he'd like to see both the salary cap and revenue sharing eliminated from the NFL. In Jerry World, it's all Jerry, all the time.

Take away revenue sharing and the salary cap? All of a sudden, the Green Bay Packers, one of the most legendary franchises in the history of football, become the Kansas City Royals. Meanwhile, the most decorated franchise in the entire league, the Pittsburgh Steelers, could end up as relevant as the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Take away the salary cap and revenue sharing and you've just turned football ... into baseball. Which means that an owner like Jerr'Jones could simply buy championships. Perhaps they could even play those championship games at his own Deathstar, a facility Pat Summerall appropriately referred to as Jerry Jones' "monument to himself."

World + the history of the NFL < Jerr'Jones.

What makes the league great is a Super Bowl like XLV because it means hope. Hope for any fan of any franchise, that his or her team will draft well, hire competent scouts and coaches, and make smart free agency moves. If all that works out, and you get a bit lucky, your team can end up here, in the Super Bowl. Dare I say it, its as close to a meritocracy as you'll find. That's the beauty of the NFL.

It wasn't all that long ago that the NFL was not the cash cow we know today. Back in the 1930's and 1940's, and even the 1950's, owners didn't make much profit. They made a decent buck, but nothing like the astronomical figures bandied about today. Back then, some teams considered it a good year if they broke even, most teams made profits in the single digits; two and three and four percent profit margins were common and ten percent profit was a ridiculous windfall. It wasn't until the 1960's that the sport really started to take off, to make some serious money. Commissioner Pete Rozzelle (rightly) convinced the owners that they would all make more money if the league in total was strong top to bottom, not just a few teams at the top. What that ushered in was opportunity. It's this opportunity, this genuine hope that every fan of just about every team has from draft day through training camp to the opening games, that makes the NFL great, that makes it must see TV.

If Jones (and a few other Richy Rich owners) have their way, the amazing, forward thinking structure of the NFL, pioneered by guys like Lamar Hunt, Wellington Mara and Pete Rozzelle can all be undone by greed gone wild. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Jerr'Jones isn't fit to hold Wellington Mara's spit cup.

The NFL works because you can have Super Bowl XLV, pitting Green Bay, Wisconsin (Population 101,000-ish) versus Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (urban population 300,000ish). So enjoy tonight's Super Bowl. Enjoy seeing two historical, small-market teams battle it out, ironically, at Jerry World. Enjoy it while you can.

And hope that cooler, more visionary owners prevail over Jones in the off-season.

Will Experience Be a Determining Factor in Super Bowl XLV?

The Pittsburgh Steelers have 14 starters with Super Bowl experience and 11 of those guys have played in two Super Bowls. [That doesn't include back ups like Larry Foote and Antwan Randal El, who both have Super Bowl experience. That's just the starters listed on the offensive and defensive depth charts.] The Packers, meanwhile, have just two starters with Super Bowl experience -- the amazing Charles Woodson and defensive end Ryan Pickett, who played his rookie year with the 2001 Rams.

Tomlin has coached in two Super Bowls (one as an assistant with the 2002 Tampa Bay Bucs and, of course, as the head man for the 2008 Steelers.) Green Bay's head coach (and the pride of Greenfield!) Mike McCarthy has been to zero.

If experience were the sole determining factor, the Steelers would win in a landslide. But then, if experience were a determining factor for success in life, we would all watch "Murder She Wrote" reruns instead of "The Jersey Shore," AOL would still rule the internets, and Marv Levy would still be coaching.

Recent SB history is pretty mixed in terms of experience versus inexperience, so much so that you have to wonder if experience counts for anything at all. The Packers won SB XXXI, then promptly went out and lost XXXII to the Denver Broncos. The St. Louis Rams won SB XXXIV, then lost to the New England Patriots in XXXVI. Of course, those Pats won a couple more, but lost to the Giants in XLII. The Indy Colts won XLII, but lost XLIV to the New Orleans Saints. On the flip side, the Pats did win two more SB's after their first win. The Broncos defended their title and, of course, the 2008 Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinals for a second title.

Clearly, experience does not equal a win, but what it might mean is that the Steelers can dispatch their jitters more quickly, or at least that's what I hope.

The Super Bowl, no matter how much coaches and players may want to treat it like a run of the mill game, is no run of the mill game. It's weird. It's crazy. Halftime is way longer. Big stars show up for the National Anthem. There are reporters there from all over the world. When a guy with a microphone and a podcast in the Republic of Palau can get media credential, rest assured it's an out of control spectacle.

Beyond that, the players know that all NFL eyes are on them. Guys play just a bit harder on Monday Night Football, knowing that the rest of the league is at home watching them play. They want to perform for their peers. They most certainly don't want to embarrass themselves. If there's that much more additional pressure on a Monday night in October, what must this feel like?

I don't believe there is any way to anticipate what this stage is like if you haven't played on it before. Hines Ward puked his guts out during introductions before SB XL. Pig Ben said that, in most games, he has butterflies at the start, but that they go very early on, but in XL, they never went away.

There's no question that Aaron Rogers has been riding a hot streak for the last month and a half and has made long stretches of the post-season look like a 6 on 6 scrimmage. At times, he has been more accurate than Brady, more mobile than Vick and cooler than Montana. But if the nerves get to him at the start, if the lights and glitz and media glare, not to mention Jerr'Jones' death star HD screen hanging above him, gives him a fit of the yips early on, the Steelers might have the crack they need.

It's reasonable to expect that Rogers and the Pack will have at least some nerves. And while they work through the butterflies and twitches, the Steelers need to dig the Packers' grave and push them into it.

We know the Packers can score. In the regular season, they averaged 24.3 points per game and have averaged 30 per game in the post-season. Nobody's putting 30 points up on the Steelers defense, but I don't think you can keep them out of the endzone all night, nerves or not. So the Steelers defense needs to create opportunities early and keep the Steelers offense on the field throughout the first half. Oh, and they need touchdowns, not field goals. Touchdowns just aren't going to do it in this one.

If the Steelers can build a big enough lead at the start, it could be all the difference end. Just ask the Jets.