There is football wherever you turn these days, whether it is high school (signing day), college (bowl games) and NFL (playoff possibilities!) so lots of media people (and fans) spend lots of time talking and the words they are using make no sense.
But that doesn’t matter, because they think it makes them sound smart.
Go back and watch a football game or a pre-game or post game show from 20 years ago and you heard exactly zero of these terms listed below. When means that somebody came along and made them up (take a bow, Trent Dilfer and Mark Schlereth) and other football people just bought in hook, line and sinker. We want to sound fun, too!
Trust me, we would all survive if the following terms were eliminated from our consciousness.
I’m saving the best (translated: worst) until the end.
“HIGH POINT THE BALL” – A Kirk Herbstreit favorite. Kirk obviously didn’t take many geometry classes at Ohio State because this doesn’t make any sense. A quarterback throws a ball into the corner of the end zone from 30 yards away and the receiver goes up over the defender and catches it. Nice play! But simple geometry would tell you that the “high point” happened about 15 yards back upfield. The receiver would have to jump about 20 feet in the air to catch it at that point. Let’s just say he out-jumped the defender, Kirk.
“EYE DISCIPLINE” – I swear that I have tried and I still don’t even know what this means. I know lots of guys who go shopping with their wives/girlfriends and have to use some real-life “eye discipline” when a very attractive woman walks by and they don’t want to get caught looking. As for football, it’s just words for the sake of words.
“CATCH RADIUS” – First of all, shouldn’t it be “catch diameter?” (Again with the geometry?) When a receiver has the ability to catch a pass that’s thrown anywhere near him, that’s a good receiver. Anybody ever hear that Jerry Rice had a great catch radius? Of course you didn’t. We just accepted that he was really, really good and didn’t need to qualify it with some stupid term.
“ARM TALENT” – A Trent Dilfer special. The former ESPN announcer (and current Alabama-Birmingham coach) loved to use this every chance he got. Classic over-talking when describing a quarterback. Apparently, “the dude has a strong arm” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
“FOOT SPEED” – Duh. When a guy runs a 10.2 and he’s headed for the end zone, we have pretty much already deduced that his feet have good speed. Not really worried about his hand speed or his elbow speed.
“QB1 & QB2” – This one has crept up on us in the last few years and is getting worse. Apparently being called the starting quarterback or the backup quarterback just doesn’t cut it anymore. How come there is no DS1 (Deep Snapper 1) or LG1 (Left Guard 1)?
But none of those above compare to this …
“THE _____ ROOM” – The quarterback room is really happy that the wide receiver room has better depth this season, but the running back room took a hit due to injuries. Still, all appears to be fine in the linebacker room, which should benefit the cornerbacks room. How many rooms do these schools/teams have?!?! Why can’t we just have plain ol’ quarterbacks and linebackers and running backs without having to make this idiotic qualifier? Coaches starting using this term a few years ago and it has spread through all levels of football at warped speed. And where did all of these schools get the funding to start building these “rooms” all over the football complex?
Please make it stop.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com