“For too long, watching football has been sort of like visiting an unfamiliar city ... It’s not until you start learning the language and recognizing certain neighborhood landmarks that you feel acclimated and comfortable. And then the fun can really begin.”
I’d heard a lot about Pat Kirwan’s “Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look” over the years, with many describing it as a must-read for any self-respecting football fan and others considering it something of a bible for those perpetually relegated to the stands.
In my experience, the game moves too fast for the common fan, who is too often too drunk to truly comprehend what he is seeing. But Kirwan comes across as genuinely interested in making the game more accessible and interactive for football aficianados.
Kirwan tackles previously unexplored areas such as how much input a quarterback has into whittling down the playbook until it becomes a gameplan; what a typical week looks like for an NFL team; what truly goes on at halftime; why nose tackles need to be a certain height; and why Ronnie Lott is responsible for the poor state of tackling in the game (equated to the impact Michael Jordan had on the poor state of fundamentals in basketball). The author examines how the best coaches are capable of mixing and matching defensive principles, the different styles of punters, how football intelligence (FBI) and varying learning methods can affect how quickly a playbook is grasped, the prevalence of option-routes, viewing the field in quadrants, and the connection between enormous playbooks and concussions.
Much of the book reads as a treatise of Kirwan’s personal beliefs on the game, but given his lengthy background in football in a variety of capacities, his thoughts are weighted with much more credence than your average writer. Generally, Kirwan is a proponent of more surprise onsides kicks and Madden NFL, which he says has vastly increased the knowledge base of the common fan; he’s a proponent of kicking to Devin Hester (duh, right?) and the phasing out of the traditional fullback in the context of how it impacts special-teams prowess. He’s a proponent of a “sudden-death fifth quarter,” an overtime approach that essentially just continues the fourth quarter, as well as larger rosters; he’s an opponent of lazy broadcasters and the slow pace of technology adoption in the game. He preaches the importance of special teams in a league where a quarter of the games are decided by three points or less, as well as offering advice that fantasy football players need to root their decisions in “football reality,” and “the same goes for gathering material about draft prospects.”
From a personnel and evaluation standpoint, Kirwan is a staunch supporter of the coach having the final word on football decisions, in part because too many general managers “come up from the financial end of the business and have little football sense.” Or, as he puts it even more succinctly, “If a general manager thinks like a fan, talks like a fan, and acts like a fan, he’s going to be sitting with one in the stands soon enough.”
Behind the president, coach and general manager, Kirwan identifies the directors of the college scouting and pro personnel departments as “two of the most vital and underappreciated parts of any franchise.” In addition to all of the other charts and diagrams he shares in the book, he offered up some of his own metrics: the Explosion Number and the Production Ratio. He logically explains the reliance on measurables, then delves into how differing organization philosophies result in disparities in how those measurables are actually used. In terms of scouting, he brings up how the draftability of prospects is assessed, and exactly what scouts are taking into account when breaking down someone’s film.
Kirwan also served up some memorable quotes on a number of key topics related to the game:
On coaching approaches:
“Football, like baseball, is all about forecasting. Coaches build their entire game plan around tendencies—what their opponent’s track record suggests they might do in a certain situation.”
“There are a ton of guys in the NFL with brains but not the physical skills to play the game. They’re called coaches.”
“It’s a simple but vital formula: roster depth combined with good coaching.”
On players vs. scheme:
“Or as Marty Schottenheimer used to say, ‘When you’re in trouble, think players, not plays.’”
“It’s not the scheme as much as it’s the players in it.”
On running backs:
“Backs used to get paid based on their track record. In today’s NFL, teams pay strictly on the basis of what a player projects to do. And to be honest, that’s the smart way of doing things.”
“Backs get tackled more than anyone else on the field, so a lot of teams like to find guys who enjoy the position’s inherent violence. Teams know those guys are going to have short careers, but they’re going to be very effective when they’re out there.
“Walter Payton was the king of violent backs. He knew when he had nowhere left to go that it was time to explode into the tackler, and he looked forward to it.”
On injuries and the medical edge:
“The teams that are best able to identify, treat, and withstand injuries have the opportunity to obtain a rare but substantial edge: the medical competitive advantage.”
On blitzing and pass-rushing:
“Every defense is built on simple math—they all want to have one more defender than the other team has blockers.”
“A pass rusher may get 500 chances to rush the quarterback over the course of the season; if he manages 10 sacks, he’s a star. A pass blocker also gets 500 chances to protect the quarterback; if he gives up 10 sacks, he’s going to be replaced.”
“Nowadays, [blitzing is] not about creating chaos. It’s about creating confusion.”
Closer to home, he shared some revealing—though still disappointing—insights into just what the hell Miami was thinking when they took undersized quarterback Pat White in the second round of the 2009 NFL Draft (he also offered some revealing play-calling choices that Bill Parcells used to get away with that only serve now to point up how outdated his conservative style is today). Kirwan used the opportunity to launch into an assessment of the Wildcat as a viable offensive approach, and how other teams might have used it better to take pressure off of young quarterbacks. “The Wildcat has its place,” he wrote, “but it will always be a far better counterpunch than punch.”
Perhaps most interestingly, Kirwan takes a well-informed stab at predicting the future of football, such as more no-huddle offenses, cushioned fields, a five-yard graphic stripe to show where illegal contact happens, more fan interactivity at the stadium, virtual technology, animated playbooks, and even 17-game season with international games. He also predicted the rise of situational pass-blocking specialists and dramatic changes in uniforms. “Someday soon,” he wrote, “you’ll see football players in lightweight body armor that looks like something Batman would wear.” He even advocated for the creation of marketing opportunities for selling coaches’ tapes online to fund medical benefits for retired players—as good an idea as I’ve heard in this area.
The most disappointing aspect of the version of the book I got was the DVD. Here was a great opportunity for Kirwan to walk through some actual game footage to visually expand on and demonstrate some of the many points he made throughout the book. Instead, the portions of the DVD I saw basically showed him standing in front of a chalkboard, reiterating and rehashing most of what was shared in the book itself.
Despite this missed opportunity, “Take Your Eye Off the Ball” was comprehensive enough to be informative, without becoming overly analytical to the point of losing the common fan. Kirwan’s to-the-point narrative style is easy to read, digest and understand, and I defy any football fan to read it without learning quite a bit. And when a book can deliver that on a subject you’ve been spending hours and hours a week on for 30 years, you know it has to be considered a success.
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