Your Yearly Reminder That the Heisman Sucks
Kudos to Sam Bradford. He sings football electric in 99 different keys and all of them sound beautiful. His game against Texas Tech may have been one of the most effortlessly efficient pieces of cutthroat football I can remember: bottomless poise, flawless vision, and a throwing motion so compact and perfect it bordered on elegance. This is not about you though, Sam. ↵↵Nor is it about the Heisman: the Heisman is what people make it, which is an extremely superficial reading of the results of a football game, a simple recitation of stat sheet correlated with appearances on national television in victories (or perhaps valiant defeats -- also valid here). The award has in its history gone to a defensive player once, and that is the fault of the voters, sportswriters and Heisman award winners alike. Charles Woodson earned that distinction honestly, but only via his ability to return punts and kicks, too. He was not a purely defensive player, and would probably have missed the award without the double-duty effort. ↵
↵↵There are many bad things to say about an award only given to half the college football world, but there’s worse to say about an award given almost exclusively to quarterbacks and running backs. The award goes to the “most outstanding player in collegiate football,” not just the guys who get the ball. A token toward some kind of progress would be a defensive player -- a purely defensive player, mind you, not a hybrid -- winning the award for once, as any number of defenders in the past could have done. ↵
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↵This is all rehashed and reheated, but give the NFL its due: one thing its fans do a better job of on the whole is recognizing talent on the defensive side of the ball. That's largely because there's so much more of it all around, but the credit is deserved. If defense wins championships, it should win the premier award the sport has to offer once in a while. ↵
↵↵The problem isn’t with the trophy; it lies instead with the way voters evaluate and watch the game. You can’t ask for every fan to become a stat-spewing depth chart memorizing automaton ... but is it asking too much for sportswriters (people paid to watch games and evaluate them) and the players themselves to tout a phenomenon like Tennessee cornerback Eric Berry for the award once in a while? Or any of the other candidates mentioned here by Doc Saturday for the award? Is that beyond the pale to ask? (If so, I’m in the right business, because you can get paid for paying attention half the time for half the year. Up top, brah!) ↵
↵↵We have met the problem, and the problem is us. We only watch half of the game, which is why the choice for the Heisman always seems half-relevant or half-witted. Until that changes, take everything the award could be and divide it by two to get its proper value.↵
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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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