Defense Loses Championships

So a guy walks into a bar........

Okay that guy was me last early winter. One night I missed my first bus home from work. I was on time. The bus driver left early. I'm against the death penalty---with the sole exception of bus drivers who leave early so they can finish their route early and light up a Marlboro red while I wait at a cold and dark bus stop for the next bus after missing theirs. We need to get medieval on their asses.

But I digress. To ease the stress of having had to wait outside my building for another half hour in the cold drizzle, I rewarded myself by grabbing a Guiness before taking my second bus home. I live five miles from my job but it takes me an hour to get to and from work. Yes, I want you to feel bad for me. Super bad.

But I digress again. Let me try to stay focused. As I walked into Vaughn's Public House on Pratt Street in beautiful, historic Hartford, CT I heard a gentleman loudly asserting, "Defense wins championships".  I knew right away he was uttering a tried and true adage from football. A first cousin of this statement is, "Pitching and defense wins in baseball". You always sound wise and insightful when you say this. There's only one problem. 

It's wrong. 

Or, at best, vastly overrated.  For example, as I eavesdropped further, I discovered this pigskin pontificator was specifically referring to the Baltimore Ravens--a team with perennially great defenses and his pick to win the 2012 Super Bowl. Hindsight is 20/20 but.......the Ravens lost in the AFC Championship Game to the Patriots--a team with a great offense and shaky defense. Patriots backup cornerback Sterling Moore tipped away a would-be winning touchdown pass in the final minute. So one could argue that offense wins championships--as long as you get JUST enough defense at the right time.

But that's only one game. But consider a fact I just unearthed thanks to my off the hook Googling skillz: over the past 45 years there's been 427 NFL playoff games. The better defensive team has won 58 percent of the time. The better offensive team has won 62 percent of the time. Ronnie Lott was a great safety for those great 49ers teams in the '80's, but would he have won all those rings without Joe Montana? A few years ago Peyton Manning's Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl with the 19th ranked defense in the NFL. Granted, they were aided by facing Rex Grossman and the Bears in the Super Bowl. In the rain of Miami. Rex always provides both his own offense and his own defense. 

But I say the verdict is in: offense wins championships. 

I know what you might be thinking, "This blog sucks! I hate sports!". Hey, thanks for stopping by. Try the veal. But the "defense wins championships" mentality seems to transcend sports--and I believe it's a harmful philosophy in many real and at times even tragic ways. 

Dieting. I say ban all diets! They are defensive to the core. That's probably why so many dieters can't stick with them: playing defense requires more energy than playing offense and it just gets too exhausting. The fault lies not so much with the dieter as the with the concept of dieting in the first place. No one should worry about subtracting calories---which actually aren't all evil---but adding nutrients. "How many points is this?". Who cares? A lot of low calorie processed food has the calories sucked out of it--right along with the nutrients. Not a trade-off that's really worth it. You can be unhealthy by consuming too many calories but you can just as easily be unhealthy by consuming too few nutrients. A lot of full calories are better than a little empty calories. You don't tend to a plant by lopping off leaves, you tend to it by watering it. Dieters are always trying to remove leaves at the expense of water!

Or let's take health care in general. It's an issue so many economists say is a looming crisis in this country. Medicare and medicaid costs are astronomical and growing all the time. People say if we don't do something, we're going to bankrupt the country worse than Paris Hilton chairing the Federal Reserve. But what is our solution? Insuring everyone and forcing them to go to the doctor even when they feel fine. "Preventative care". I am personally all for universal health care, but I have this one problem: I do disability claims for social security, so I've read pages and pages and pages and pages of medical records on patients who are chronically sick even though they go to the doctor daily. Hourly even. And  I don't just mean those salt of the earth folks who go to the ER each time they get stabbed in the neck by their baby mama or are found wandering the streets "naked and disoriented"; I'm also including people with good insurance, a primary care doctor, and at least 22 different specialists. Yet they too often remain sick despite their helicopter care. It may be due to the severity of their illness which could be due to genetics or infections or a million other things, but for many it might have more to do with their insistence on maintaining poor diet and exercise habits while hoping the doctor will take care of it for them! They believe defense wins championships--in the form of an army of defensive medicine practicing doctors. A defensive white coated human shield providing safety and security from sickness and death better than the Great Wall Of China provided security from the Mongols. And the doctors often seem to believe roughly the same thing too.

But I have the answer! I hope you're sitting down for this. Let's stop practicing Ronnie Lott style care and launch Joe Montana-to-Jerry Rice West Coast Offense care! We could never eliminate sickness, but we could greatly reduce it if people ate better--especially poorer people. We already have food stamps. Some say food stamps are evil, let's get rid of them, my tax dollars getting thrown down the drain on these bums, why don't they get a jobby job?, blah, blah, blah. This writer is all for them--but let's change the rules. Apparently you can't buy alcohol, tobacco, or hot food at the deli with food stamps, but that's it. Want a huge bag of Skittles? Go nuts! Five packages of Steak Umms? This one is on Uncle Sam! And we're shocked we have a health care problem. We're basically subsidizing sickness. How about this radical thought: if you want Skittles, Triple Chocolate Chip Fudge Caramel Swirl Ice Cream, or Beef Jerky, you're on your own. If you want to snap into a Slim Jim, show the cashier the money. "Healthy Choice"? Don't even think about it. But if you want items like blueberries, broccoli, or salmon, they will be fully covered by food stamps. In fact, with these restrictions in place, I would be all for making even more people eligible for food stamps. It doesn't force anyone to eat healthy, but it steers them that way. And it would probably save money in the long run because healthier eaters will require less care--which will reduce the amount of times doctors bill Medicare or Medicaid--i.e., bill taxpayers. This idea is genius! I would also strongly favor any government program which funds gym memberships. Don't look at me like that. I've never been more serious. To me, that is preventative, offensive thinking care which might accomplish infinitely more than just forcing people to get physical exams and 38 different screenings for potential diseases before they stop by for a Triple Whopper With Cheese, fries, and a large Coke on their way home after enduring 48 minutes of teeth gnashing misery in the waiting room. 

But........it might makes too much sense to happen. Our government thinks defense wins championships! 

So does private business. Defensive minded businessmen always think cheap labor is the path to wealth. It seems that history contradicts them. Workers are also customers. Henry Ford once said he wanted to pay his workers at the Ford plant good salaries so they could buy Fords. Modern businessmen seem to have lost this farsighted view. If all businesses are racing to the bottom of the pay scale, who will have the money to buy their products or services? American business blossomed in the 20th Century with an offensive strategy: pay the middle class good salaries and benefits so sales of products and services will skyrocket. We fed the economy nutrients and good economic health was the result, today we just want to strip it of calories and a leaner but more emaciated economy is upon us. 

My fellow Americans, I'm afraid our foreign policy provides yet another sad example of the futility of defensive minded strategery. What was the lesson of the first Gulf War? Apparently it was to keep troops permanently stationed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to box in Saddam in case that jerk got the bright idea of trying to get at those oil mines in Kuwait ever again. Mission accomplished. But it was defensive thinking which caused Bin Laden to feel like we were on his turf. He himself had been banished from his homeland, the land of Mohammed himself, but GI Joe could walk through the streets of Medina any time he pleased! (Does anyone want to open a bar with me there called Funky Cold Medina's? Come on. It's even a beach town!). But what should have been the lesson of the Gulf War? I say to move forward yesterday on development of clean energy so we wouldn't have to care about an Iraqi leader invading a neighboring country any more than we cared about it before they discovered oil there or any more than we care about an African leader invading a neighboring African country. Embassies and troops? That's a Baltimore Ravens mindset and last January in Foxboro the men in black and purple were lew-zers. But clean energy is all Tom Brady---who, again, helped the Patriots defeat the Ravens last January before going home for a post-game massage from his Brazilian supermodel wife. But.....to go full steam ahead with clean energy means upsetting oil companies currently making a king's ransom off dirty energy. And it means those Daniel Plainviews, those milkshake drinkers possibly deciding to take away their political donations, which means risking losing the next election. Defense, defense, defense. But defense only loses milkshakes.

But of course this deluded defensive doctrine exists well beyond sports and politics. I'm in absolutely NO position to comment on dating. Instead of spending quality time with my adoring wife and children right now, I'm sitting home at my PC rambling incoherently on Blogger. CLEARY I am not a romantic guru. But whenever I dare browse girls' online profiles (at my age should I be saying "women's profiles"?) I'm often amazed by how many write things like, "If you're just here to play games, do NOT CONTACT ME!!!!! I am tired of two-faced men who lie!! I deserve nothing but the best and I will not settle for anything less!". And sometimes---without a shred of irony, they add: "Please do me a favor and leave your baggage at home!". 

(backs away from the computer). 

Okay, I know dating is tough---especially online dating. And especially for girls (or women) because there's always the slight chance you could run into a date raping,  serial killing American psycho, so you have to be on your guard. But how is hyper-defensiveness not going to scare guys? Even honest guys with impeccable integrity like your humble narrator? Defense loses championships!

Which is why I'm single. 

Do as I blog, not as I do. 

Who wants to get a milkshake?