The Cortex Chronicles (1f)—Contrapuntal

One year ago on Round and Square (10 September 2011)—Styling Culture: Using Chicago Citation
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"

[a] Counter punts RF

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

This is it. A series of six straight posts on punting wraps up today, and we have considered all of the main points—coaches, punters, centers...and trolley cars. It's all about the transmission of information from unit to unit (both within and between). How it all gets done is a thing at which to marvel. The Axons are tied with (to?) the Dendrites 17-17 as we near the two-minute warning. If punting strategy has held in our little game, we have prevented any situation that has allowed our opponent to start an offensive series in good field position. Using time-honored and frontal cortex-approved strategy, we have chosen field position over the chance for more points. We're just too scared to do otherwise.

[b] Full circle RF

And now we come full circle, back to the New York Times article that I have mentioned repeatedly throughout this series of posts. If you recall (as I have asked you to do several times before), the counterpoint to field position strategy is going for it—focusing on maintaining offensive momentum in every case in which one play has a reasonably good chance of getting you a few yards...and not giving the ball to the other team. We have discussed the reasons why coaches do not often employ this strategic approach. The ol' frontal cortex is likely to control any fleeting images of future success by sending vivid memories of botched plans—memories so painful that NFL Films shows them over and over for decades. Even "perfect" teams have ugly moments, and coaches remember them all.

Every single one, but especially this one: 

Undefeated Dolphins Blow Perfection (sort of) 0:32

You will notice that Garo Yepremian in the clip above was not a punter. My point is that anything can go wrong, and more things go wrong under pressure (such as going for it on fourth-and-short) than in a controlled kicking situation. That they can veer disastrously off-course even then just goes to show how touchy this all can be for coaches. Below are just a few examples of how hopeful wishes were slapped down even when there was little choice but to run a fourth down play (this often happens at the goal line at the end of games). A special kind of drama ensues, and it concentrates the urgency of fourth down in special ways. We can learn a little something from it.  

Alabama-Texas 1965 0:46

Auburn-Mississippi State 1:41

[c] Teammates RF

Yup, even the venerable Joe Namath couldn't get this done on one of football's greatest stages. Coaches seem to have their frontal cortices soaked in the marinade of hopeful strategies that turned to ugly failure. It is, as we have seen, asking a great deal of a coach to exercise a strategy of counterpoint after all of the failure he has seen over the decades.

He needs one. He needs a contrapuntal approach to break through the safety of field position.

Let's conclude, though, by thinking in a little detail about this counterpoint. How would a coach do it? What would be required in terms of personnel and game plans? Could a coach pull it off as a coherent plan? Let's examine this carefully and then call it a week.

So what do we need? Good team. Great offense; stunning defense. 

Those are the prerequisites, and I have not really said anything here that every football fan doesn't already know. A special kind of two-pronged ability is required, you see. There need to be several options for fourth down success—perhaps a particularly sand-paper handed tight end, a fleet wide-receiver for that just-in-case head-scratcher play that seemingly raises risk levels beyond what a more restrained coach would "call," and perhaps a crafty dual-ability practitioner who can block, run, and even throw, to be used as a decoy and a very special enabler of drama. You need all of that if you are going to be able to throw enough diverse offensive resources at the problem. You need to be supple and even innovative if you're going to succeed time after time. You need to have nuance, and...

[d] Sledge RF

Oh, crap. I forgot the most important thing of all. In order to forgo punting in most cases that require three or fewer yards, you need to have...Earl Campbell.

Really, you do. If you don't have "him," you can just forget the rest of the subtlety that I mentioned above. None of that stuff will work without Earl. With an ordinary running back, you will be crushed just often enough for the coach's frontal lobe (not to mention that of the general manager and owner) to start buzzing with cautionary information. 

You need Earl, and you need him bad.* 
*Correct grammatical form just seems so out of place here. 

You need a workhorse running back who will "always" be able to punch through a tough defensive line—the guy who will get you three yards in a cloud of dust, mud, sweat, blood, and tears. Earl Campbell—the guy you need on your team if you don't want to punt much—was a sledgehammer runner. You need that. If you don't have it, if you only have a scrawny little guy who weaves and spins, but can't run right over big, tough defensive linemen...well, you might want to go back to the careful strategy and just punt. 

You need to have Earl. 

Let's wrap it up now. You seem to have all of the parts in place. You are an already successful coach, have understanding managers and owners above you and, below, assistant coaches who are completely on-board with your approach. You have played Madden NFL 13, and you didn't punt "there." Now that you're a coach, you don't plan to punt...much (fourth and thirty from your two yard line is a good time to test bubba's leg). In most cases, though, you are going to develop offensive momentum, run over the opposition (or fake 'em out with a little pass to your tight end). You will make up for the few times you don't succeed on fourth down with all the points you will score when you do. With this strategy, you plan to win 38-16, and not 10-7. You have it down (so to speak).

Ummm...except in a very close game against a truly tough opponent. Gosh. We're going to need one more thing. 

[e] Enlightened RF

Yup, that's it. We need a defense of such strength that there is a formidable cushion, even if you blow it on fourth down from your own forty. A great defense just pins them there and gives you the ball back. It is so dominant that you will be on the offensive road again soon. This sounds good, and even pretty easy. Just get a great defense and have them stifle the other team's momentum. Three and out. Then they punt (their coach is not as enlightened as you are). You get the ball back, and get back to your plan.

All you need is to have a defense like the 1985 Chicago Bears. That's all.

So that's where we will leave this series of posts. Whole bunches of fans and football cognoscenti dislike punting and "small ball" field position strategy. I have argued that the same reasons you don't spend most weekends dancing with a lampshade on your head (your fully developed frontal cortex is at work) play into head coaching decisions to punt even for minimal gains that will bore the television audience to the point that fans under thirty will just go back to their computers, where football is more fun.

All I can say is that it's a long way to Tipperary...and football coaches think too much. In short, I don't think that we're likely to see much less punting anytime soon. I wish it were otherwise, but I just can't stop thinking about how difficult this all is. Darnit, but my own frontal cortex is getting in the way of my passionate desire to defend a go for it and punt only when necessary strategy. I just can't get around all that could go wrong, and there really is only one solution (one I completely reject). If the frontal cortex is too dominant in football decision making, could we...weaken it a bit?

Ummm. No. Absolutely not. As Dorothy Parker put it many years ago:

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

I guess we'll be punting...a bunch. For now.

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

[f] Frontal RF

The Cortex Chronicles (1e)—Long Synapse Punting

One year ago on Round and Square (9 September 2011)—Styling Culture: Chicago Style Citation
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"

[a] Centered RF

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

We're heading into the final stretch in this miniseries on punting and the brain. Imagine that it is the beginning of the fourth quarter, and it's all starting to come together. It is time to bring in one key performer who has been silent up until now. He is big and smart, and the entire sequence of neural synapses within and between our head coach and punter depends on him. He is central to the entire operation. 

He is the center, and I mean that in at least two significant senses.

[b] Exchange RF

He* holds one of the most important work portfolios in all of football (there are twenty-two starting positions—half on offense and half on defense—plus a smattering of high-resolution types who can swing a game just as formidably as a leg or foot). If you follow the game you already know this, but even if your only introduction to American tackle football comes through the world of Chinese cosmology, you will have guessed that center (中) is a pretty important position. Heck, he's probably the Mt. Song (嵩山) of the sacred O-line, and the pivot of the four quarters for all who stand to his side or to his rear. If he is talented and experienced, players and coaches revere him...even if they forget his name from time-to-time and don't pay him very much (linemen are like kickers in their combined importance-and-marginality).
*Organized American tackle football remains a distinctly male preoccupation in terms of position players. There have been a few intriguing alterations to the gendered landscape lately, but (so far) none at the position of center.

One way of understanding this attitude is to hear the affection with which many stars who speak of the centers who played with them during their careers. Famous figures in football history played with some of the most talented players never to be known to almost anyone but other centers and a few crafty fans.There are so many examples of positive sentiments out there that it is hard to choose just one. That is what I would have written before 1989, when Terry Bradshaw, the quarterback of the four-time Super Bowl winning Pittsburgh Steelers joined the  Pro Football Hall of Fame. You see, his center introduced him, and Bradshaw became as emotional as any honoree has been in a situation that is prone to bring back floods of memories from many seasons of youth and early adulthood. Many quarterbacks have thanked their centers, and countless running backs have bought luscious steak dinners at Ruth's Chris for their offensive lines—this as an expression of overflowing gratitude for protecting them from danger and affording opportunities (holes in the defense) for advancement. 

[c] Under center RF

No one had ever thanked a center quite like this, though. At his acceptance speech in Canton, Ohio. An emotional Bradshaw, referring to one of history's greatest centers, said precisely this: 

     Oh, what I would give to put my hands
     under Mike Webster’s butt one more time.

Eight years later, at Webster's own Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Canton, the two did just that, and fans cheered as Bradshaw lined up under center one last time.

For people who don't know a great deal about American football, Bradshaw was referring to "the snap" or "the snap from center" that quarterbacks in Bradshaw's day went through sixty or seventy times a game (the world of "snapping" is even more complicated today). Here is what it looks like. 

Short-snap synapses 1:48

Exchange synapses 1:38

It should not be difficult to see what Bradshaw meant by his nostalgic rearward glance. To get the ball, the quarterback must cozy up and take the pigskin. This basic exchange is so vital to the success of the game that it has often been taken for granted by fans. Trust me, though. Coaches require players to practice it repeatedly, from training camp to every day of the season. This is because the margin between minor (assumed) success and absolute disaster is so narrow—and the consequences so great—that it needs to go well every time. This is, of course, impossible; just take a look at how badly it can go.

Botched snap 0:49

Early snap 0:03

[d] Target RF

Bad snaps are not always (some would say not even often) the center's fault. Quarterbacks share a great deal of responsibility in the exchange, after all. Sometimes they get "the count" wrong, and other times they have slippery fingers. For all of that, this basic back-and-forth between centers and quarterbacks is...the easy part. There is more.

There is nothing—nothing— more brutal than the long snap. 

This is where the center, facing a defense just itching to break through and block the kick, must prepare to be pushed, jarred, and head-smashed, even as he propels the ball fifteen yards back to a precise target about "number-high" in front of the punter's chest. Just try it sometime. Take a tennis ball, just to be sure of your grip, and see if you can place it backwards, between your legs, against a target (say, the garage or a backyard fence) even ten yards away. Just try. This ain't easy, people. 

Long snap synapses 5:16 

(just take a quick look at the first minute or so)

[e] Vital link RF

The center, in short, is the vital link between the head coach's decision to punt and the punter's execution of the command. Everything depends on the way that he propels the ball backward toward the guy with the powerful leg. Heaven, earth, and man hang in the balance for those brief and breathless seconds. Just think about that. Everything depends on the ability of the center to make a successful long snap. 

There is only one more thing missing.

He is going to be pummeled by the D-line as soon as he lets go of the ball. What you have missed in the practice videos so far is any sense of what happens to the center once he releases that ball and sends it flying backwards toward his target. Imagine the little example above—you with a tennis ball and a target ten or so yards away. Now imagine that the moment it leaves your hands...your playing partner whacks you hard on the head with a tennis racket. Your aim must be perfect, you will surely suffer, and after the game no one will remember anything about you...unless you are off-target. They remember that.

That is the life of the center. 
That is life at the center.

And you can't spell (neural) synapse without s-n-a-p. 

See you tomorrow.

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

[f] Butts-eye view RF

The Cortex Chronicles (1d)—Punting and Thinking (Twice)

One year ago on Round and Square (8 September 2011)—Displays of Authenticity: Iowa Corn Trophy
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"

[a] Coach K(ongzi) RF

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal 

So now that we have thought about the cultural rules of American tackle football (punting) and the nuances of brain chemistry...not to mention trolley cars with at least one zombie reference, we are ready to bring things back to coaching, decision-making, and keeping one's job in the tumultuous world of big-time, television-centered, gridiron warfare. It all swirls around the crucial question for the times in which we live:

Should more coaches go for it on fourth down?

[b] Falsifiable Encounter RF

If you thought I was just playing with the seriousness of the times in which we do live, you were mistaken. This question, by extension, is far more relevant to everyone from Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao to Angela Merckel and Barack Obama than you might have guessed. I'm just going to point that out "this once." It's your job to fill in the rest. Just remember that we're not "playing" here on Round and Square. 

As odd as it might sound, this stuff matters.

Don't forget that this series deals with the human frontal cortex and "its" adventures with life out there in the real world, even if that world is one-hundred yards long and has big white stripes across every five yards of terrain. I left you in a sort of hanging punt yesterday when I told the trolley car story and then pretty much just said "g'night." What I fell asleep pondering was the issue I hoped you had caught from the Fable of the Trolley Punts. Is there any similarity—even if quite distant—between the decision-making required in these very different situations? Is deciding to hit a button and switch tracks anything like deciding to go for it on fourth-and-three from your own thirty-nine?

One of the great coaches of all time was considering this very question while in the midst of conversation with one of his "players" on a cool autumn day in 500 BCE.* The underling had a story to tell, and he wanted the "coach's" reaction. Here is how it went in the abbreviated world of classical Chinese narrative form.
*The calendrical particulars are purely imaginary...but still within twenty years (and six months) on either side.

          Ch'i Wen-tzu always thought three times before taking action. When the 
          Master was told of this, he commented, 'Twice is quite enough."[1]

[c] Disciple smack-down RF

You may or may not know that The Analects is (are) filled with little put-downs such as this. Confucius seemingly enjoyed letting his assistant coaches and players posture a bit before tamping down their little interpretive insurrections. Still, this may be the best decision-making advice ever given in the ancient world. My own untested theory is that Confucius had a cognitive science lab in the back room of his teaching center, off in the thick woods outside of Qufu (and beyond).

His lab results have been disseminated widely.

Ever hear of a little test called the SAT (or ACT or GRE or MCAT or LSAT or GMT)? I thought so. Have you ever heard the consistently offered advice to test-takers that, while they should never just react quickly—or "emotionally"—to questions, they should almost never scratch out answers and go with something else once they have committed (and don't rush an answer in the first place). Have you ever heard that? I thought so. Why not? Well, as that ancient Chinese professor of Neurobiology and Cognitive Science might have said, your first think-through may-or-may not be tinged with limbic strains. A second thought will likely put it squarely into the ol' frontal cortex, where to the best of your ability (this varies significantly across the population) you will make a careful decision. Mark your test here. A third thought will only muddy the biochemical waters.* Twice is quite enough; just answer the darned question and move on to the next one.
*Again, this is meant to be a literary play upon things that a cognitive science would describe differently.

Hmmm. Professor Confucius sounds like he's been thinking about punting.

And this is where the pigskin really meets the trolley car. If you recall the message from the New York Times article that began this series of posts, you will remember that truly terrible decisions (even ones merely perceived as such by majorities of fans, players, and, well, the owner) can get a coach fired. Careful decisions don't usually get them fired until lots of other stuff starts to go wrong. The football coach's frontal cortex is ever at the ready* to lead toward a punt on fourth-and-two from the fifty yard line. 
*Literary imaginative language that wouldn't appear in a neuroscience paper; get used to it. 

And here's where it gets interesting. The head coach is in charge of a whole array of assistant coaches, all of whom are linked closely to him, at least in the short-run and often much longer. They have families...and mortgages...and they don't get paid as much as he does (the world of football coaching is uni-gendered so far). He knows this. In a manner of speaking that is only relevant in the world of football coaching, making a (seemingly) rash decision to go for it when most others would say "punt" usually won't get him fired right away. The more likely short-term result is that, at the end of a mediocre season marked by losses caused by faulty decisions, several assistant coaches will lose their jobs.

[d] Vinceglorious RF

Like...five of them. Like that.

Think this is a stretch? I think not...or at least that the stretch is not worth eschewing just because death by trolley is not exactly the same thing as firing by punt. 

Let's take a break, and we'll return tomorrow for our penultimate punting post. Just so you are clear on this, though, I am saying that (at least in this little punting-post world) the head football coach is driving the trolley car (or standing on the bridge next to an out-of-shape lineman). Things can go one of two broad ways: badly...or terribly badly. This is the way that most experienced coaches think about football anyway. Soaring greatness and deft touch are great, but you channel those wary muses for little tinges of glory once a decade or so. The vast majority of the time, coaches are more like cribbage players than skateboarders. They rarely soar; they almost always try to get it right just a little more often than they get it wrong...and they try especially hard not ever to get it terribly wrong. 17-14 will do, and on to next week's game.

They are driving the trolley and kicking the ball down the field from a careening downhill car (sort of). They shout out their instructions, think twice (but we hope not thrice), close their eyes...and hope for the best.

See you tomorrow.

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

[e] Incremental RF

Notes
[1] Confucius, The Analects (New York: Penguin Classics, 1979), 79.

Bibliography
Confucius. The Analects [Translated by D.C. Lau]. New York: Penguin Classics, 1979.

The Cortex Chronicles (1c)—Punting and Trolleys

One year ago on Round and Square (7 September 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Exploding Wallet
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"

[a] Trolley Car of Death RF

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal 

We cranked right through downs and field position yesterday. Now all we have left to consider is the brain. Why and when do coaches punt? And what parts of the brain would light up in testing if coaches were wired during game-day punting decisions? Classic pictures of coaching represent a fascinating blend of emotion and steely calm. Many American football fans are so used to this that they take it for granted that the two are embodied in the very (cultural) concept of "coach."

The brain "sees" it differently. If you doubt me, you just have to think about trolley cars.

Huh? Trolley cars? You mean...like...San Francisco? What do they have to do with punting?

[b] Fun...for now RF

Well, let's see (I think I mentioned this the other day)... Just about everything. And that is why we're going to spend today's post examining the great trolley car experiments that everyone in the cognitive sciences has been talking about since, say, 1967. This will carry us far from punting for a short while, but the ethical choices and brain chemistry will teach us a bunch. 

The experiments go something like this.

In the first example, we encounter a runaway trolley car hurtling down a slope (San Francisco works well in this example). The trolley is empty, except for you, the driver. You see five people on the path, and they will be dead in seconds. There is only one thing you can do. About twenty yards from the human cluster is a switch in the tracks. Your only way of preventing the trolley from killing them will be to hit the "change track" switch on your control panel and send the trolley on a trajectory toward one man working on the unused track. There are no other choices, and time is running out. 

Five people die...or one does. What do you do? How do you react?

The second example again has a trolley car that is careening toward certain death for others. Five people are standing on the tracks in this version, too. The only difference is that there is no fork in the tracks this time. Instead, about twenty yards before the people are crushed, there is a footbridge. On it, you stand next to a very large man—a bulky one who is meaty enough to, well, stop a trolley. "All" you have to do to is push him off (he is conveniently leaning over, and just one little push will do the trick). His body will stop the trolley, and—even though he will be killed in the process—five people will be saved. No amount of personal sacrifice will work (you are a scrawny individual who will barely slow the trolley carnage). 

[c] Untracked RF

Five people die...or one does. What do you do? How do you react?

Remember that these scenarios are from the late-1960s, and sophisticated experiments on brain structure and chemistry were still decades away. It was all about personal ethics. The answers are startling in their certainty (even if no one is happy to have anyone meet a thing we might call death by trolley). The whole point of the scenario is that something terrible is going to happen. You just have to decide how and to whom it happens. So here, in a nutshell, are the results. They are overwhelming in their "certainties," even though in both cases (please note this) the numbers are the same: five people die or one person dies. For both scenarios, agreement can be found between eighty and ninety percent, year after year since 1967.

Let me pause briefly and remind you of one key point. The trolley car scenarios are not mine any more than the rules of punting are. I am just retelling the story of forty-five years of experiments in the philosophy of ethics...and other stuff. The trolley car is rivaled only by zombies (this is a very long story for another time) in its ubiquity in the philosophical literature. Trolleys zoom this way and that on the pages of philosophy and cognitive science journals, killing one or many in so many growing scenarios that it makes punting decisions in organized football (remember those?) seem like Pop Warner football practices.

The trolleys aren't mine. I am just invoking them. Don't forget that.

So let's review. Scene One: You are driving the trolley. If you hit a switch, the train veers leftward and kills one, saving five. Scene Two: You are on a bridge. If you push a large man over the ledge, five will live and one will die. They are "the same" in some fairly significant ways. For a true "bottom-line" type of thinker they may seem to be the same, but the results from over four decades of testing dispute that. They are as stark as they can be for human beings making decisions. Scenario one has the overwhelming agreement of both ethicists and individuals tested. All but a few choose to switch tracks and save five by killing one. Scenario two is profoundly different. All but a few choose to let the trolley go on and kill five rather than pushing something to his death.

Why is this so? Aren't they "the same?" 

[d] Starting down RF

If you think we can solve that right here, well, you...need to read a little more philosophy. Philippa Foot, the originator of the experiment, ties this set of choices to what she calls the doctrine of double effect, the main idea being that there is a big difference between doing something that has unintended bad consequences and doing something that is an intentionally bad act. One would think that saving five and killing one would be the "right" answer. Actual human beings (with brains) happen to handle the situations very differently, though.

This has everything to do with brain chemistry, you see, and it isn't any longer a mystery to researchers. At some point around the early-1990s, neurobiologists started asking the trolley question. The difference was that they hooked the respondents up to little wires that began to tell us just a little bit about what parts of the brain were cranking into high gear...depending on the question. The results were startling. The first scenario lit up the brain's frontal cortex in the vast majority of cases. In other words, people locked into...careful reasoning. Then they hit the switch and veered leftward to kill the one guy. The opposite happened in the second scenario. The bubbling juices of emotion* in the brain's limbic system were engaged here. The second scenario overwhelmingly "moves" (I realize that this is "translational" language) to the limbic system. Respondents can't bear to push the guy over the ledge. Five die.
*Remember that this is the somewhat "literary" way I like to envision it, and is not an accurate reflection of what is happening in the brain.

[e] Emotional RF

What? Are you kidding? (I hear you cry this). You mean to tell me that I am not calmly "deciding" these matters in a "I think, therefore I am" manner? That there is possibly no great ethicist in my hairline that prevails over all the functions of brain and body (or in even more startling fashion, brain-body/heart-mind)? You mean that I think about things differently when "emotional" than I do when I reflect and ponder? You mean to say (I hear you cry) that our decision to kill one or many with a trolley car (or big guy) might well be just a little more hard-wired than many of us want to think? 

Whoa, cowboy. That's a lot of questions. For now, though, just know this. None of this precludes "culture" or nuance or individuality. Don't even try to pin that on me; think about what I do for a living. Still, the brain chemistry studies of trolley car experiments give even those of us who spend a great deal of time in the "nurture" camp reason for pause. Emotion and careful reflection are going on in our brains, even as we embody all sorts of movements, meanings, and situations.

But you are a football coach (or fan). What do trolley cars have to do with punting?

I might have mentioned this before, but let me say it again. Everything. See you tomorrow.

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

[f] Decisions RF

The Cortex Chronicles (1b)—Punting Down

One year ago on Round and Square (6 September 2011)—Styling Culture: Margins and Fonts
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Cortex Chronicles"

[a] Contact RF

Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

We covered a good deal of territory yesterday, moving the conceptual football right down the field before running out of time (and my new, self-imposed word count). That's why we're here today. It's time to see what comes next, and how the punt works in the big world of football decision-making. If you recall the New York Times article in yesterday's post, you will know that fourth down represents a choice. I underline this point for readers who are less familiar with the rules of American tackle football than shirtless males donning cheeseheads on frigid autumn afternoons in Wisconsin. 

This (the rules, not the cheeseheads) came to my attention the other day when my wife told me the story of an acquaintance, born in the former Soviet Union and living in the Connecticut, who had become quite taken with the hoopla surrounding American football—from Saturday afternoon college games to Sunday...and Monday professional contests (this was in the era before every day of the week had been overtaken by the pigskin juggernaut). In any case, he was explaining the rules to a friend who was just learning about the game after a lifetime of watching international basketball, gymnastics, skating, and, of course fútbol. The explanation went something like this:

          You have three chances to advance the ball. These are called "first down," 
          "second down," and "third down." You may run or pass, and your goal is to 
          advance at least ten yards down the field. If you are successful, you get 
          three more opportunities to go another ten yards (and so on). If not, there is 
          a thing called "the punt." If unsuccessful, third down is followed by 
          "the punt."

[b] Astute RF

This astute ethnographer of American football had just hit the interpretive nail on the head, even as he pretty much got it all wrong. Anthropology is full of such cases, and Bronislaw Malinowski is lucky that he didn't have Trobriand islanders blogging about the weakness of his explanation of the kula ring. No matter, the outside observer of American football was onto something in his error. His reasoning was inductive—a little like the classic "swans are white" error made by earlier philosophers. You see, our friend had seen so many examples of coaches calling for a punt on fourth down that he assumed that was what the rules called for. If you failed in three attempts, he reasoned (based on many hours of observation), a punt was required.

This is as fascinating as it is mistaken, because it speaks quite directly to the point of the New York Times article. Coaches don't take risks if they can avoid them. Even though they are not required to do so on fourth down, they choose to punt in an overwhelming majority of cases. Why? If you remember the article, it is because it is a lot safer to lose a game by doing what everyone else does than to lose it doing something bold, "risky," and even audacious. Barry Switzer learned this a few years back in perhaps the dumbest fourth-down decision ever made. As in war (and love), the bold borders quite closely on the idiotic. 

Fourth and one on the twenty-nine. 2:00 to go. 17-17.

[c] Returnin' RF

Intrepid coaches get fired. The nail that sticks out gets pounded down (出る釘は打たれる). 

Of course, risk-averse coaches get fired, too. The perception is that this happens less often. All I know is that risk aversion requires full "participation" of the frontal cortex. This is sometimes in direct contradiction to the brain chemistry of others who are less invested in the long-term results of the decision. If it doesn't work, and their team loses the game, they'll get on with their lives in a day or two. The focal point of their brain operations is not the frontal cortex (it is possible that full engagement with reasoning qualities would preclude the wearing of foam hats in the first place). For the passionate fan, the bubbling juices of the brain's limbic system (this is my humanistic rendering) create torrents of emotion that cause them to cry:

Go For It! 

Coaches rarely do so. Even when the ball has crossed the midfield stripe, coaches often punt, even if it only ends up netting them twenty yards or so. If you have watched football, you have seen this before. With the ball on the forty-two yard line of the opponent (only forty-two yards to glory), the call comes to punt the ball. The poor punter has very little margin for error here. The best result is a punt that rolls out of bounds on the opponent's one-yard line, pinning them so far back that now they have little room for error and a high bar for success (ninety-nine yards to glory).

This is the optimal situation. A forty-one yard net gain in turf, and a far more secure defensive position than before. Good stuff. That is the kind of decision that retains jobs.

[d] Net RF

The problem is that punters are not machines. As we discussed yesterday, things can go terribly awry. Let's imagine the same situation. The ball is on the forty-two yard line, and the punter is called back to work. The ball doesn't always trickle out of bounds at the one. Just one more oblong roll and it might traipse right into the end zone. The difference (only a few feet in a physical sense) is enormous in a cultural-rules one. If it rolls into the end zone, the opponent gets to start operations on the twenty-yard line. What has been gained in that case? Twenty-two yards, and pretty much back to where things stood on the first play of the game. Is it worth it? Is twenty-plus yards worth giving the ball to the other team and reverting to defense? Is a little swath of turf worth giving up the control you possess?

Yup. A whole bunch of coaches would say that it is. In fact, many bet their jobs on it.

So it's all about field position, then? Really? The commander (a.k.a. head coach) assesses the situation, goes back to the ol' memory bank of previous situations, and makes a decision. More often than not, the decision is a carefully guarded one that errs on the side of prudence. And you can't spell "caution" without "cortex." Well, sort of.

That is what we will consider tomorrow. 
 
Click here for the other elements of this mini-essay on punting and brain chemistry:

          1a—Punting and Strategy         1b—Punting and Downs             1c—Punting and Trolleys
          1d—Punting and Thinking         1e—Long Synapses Punts         1f—Contrapuntal

[e] Assessment RF