Narrativium and the NFL
Discworld wizards ponder Roundworld and its seeming lack of narrativium.
Earlier this summer, I wrote a couple of pieces about the reasons the NFL has become the dominant professional sports league in North America. There are plenty of factors that have gone into the NFL’s rise, and I covered many of them, but upon further reflection, there’s another one that can be added. That reason is football’s superior use of narrativium.*
*Narrativium is a concept pioneered by British author Terry Pratchett in his Discworld fantasy series. Basically, it’s an element in that alternate universe that ensures everything happens the way it should in stories. Pratchett’s “Witches Abroad” used this as a central theme, with a villain using narrative casuality to her own ends. As Pratchett also writes, our world (”Roundworld”) lacks narrativium, and instead runs on the laws of physics. However, as Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen wrote in The Science of Discworld (cover pictured above), “Narrativium is powerful stuff. We have always had a drive to paint stories on to the Universe. When humans first looked at the stars, which are great flaming suns an unimaginable distance away, they saw in amongst them giant bulls, dragons, and local heroes. This human trait doesn’t affect what the rules say — not much, anyway — but it does determine which rules we are willing to contemplate in the first place. Moreover, the rules of the universe have to be able to produce everything that we humans observe, which introduce a kind of narrative imperative into science, too.” How does this fit into football? Read on and find out!
One of the great reasons for watching sports is to follow the stories. It’s not always about just the news, the statistics or the facts; those are still important, and they give us foundations for the stories, but what really matters is the context. For example, there’s a considerable difference between a touchdown scored on the last play of a game to give a team a come-from-behind victory and a touchdown scored in the third quarter when they’re already leading by 21, even if the touchdowns came on identical routes run by the same receiver and were thrown by the same quarterback.
Stories play a prominent role in all sports, and they’re often what we remember down the road. For example, there are many more people who can tell you about Barry Bonds’ inability to throw out Sid Bream than any other throw he ever made from the outfield. There has been more ink spent on Mario Chalmers’ miraculous shot to send Kansas-Memphis to overtime than any other shot he’s ever taken. Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal transcended soccer to become one of the most infamous sporting moments of all time. All of these events, and most of the other sporting moments that have earned their place in our memories, have done so thanks to the power of stories. However, football uses the structure of stories perhaps better than any other sport, and in my mind, that’s a huge part of what makes it so successful. Let’s look at some elements of story structure and how they fit into football.
Conflict:
This is perhaps the most important aspect of stories. Sometimes the conflict is deeply internal and personal, sometimes it’s a full-out battle against overwhelming external enemies, but it always tends to be there. There has to be some sort of clash to develop the story’s action, and these conflicts are generally subdivided into four overarching categories. Each of them fits in with football, as related below.
Man versus man: This is the basic one, and it shows up in almost every sport to some degree. However, what differentiates football is the vast number of man versus man conflicts involved, often at the same time. On every play, you have 11 offensive players (12 in Canadian football) trying to accomplish a goal, and another 11 defensive players attempting to stop them. In baseball, by contrast, the primary man versus man conflict is a pitcher’s battle with a hitter. Other players do become involved as well off hits or steals, but their actions tend to be secondary to the main conflict.
In football, there are usually at least 11 different battles on any given play. You have defensive linemen and linebackers dueling with the offensive line, receivers trying to get open against cornerbacks and quarterbacks searching for holes in the secondary, just to name a few. Sometimes, you’ll even see one player engage in multiple battles on the same play; for example, a defensive end who bulls his way past an offensive tackle, spins off a blocking running back and brings down the quarterback.
What works so well in football for man versus man conflict is that it tends to be the same battles that go on all day long. The linemen struggle against the same figures on the opposite line, the running backs have to deal with the same defensive tackles and linebackers and the wide receivers are often covered by the same cornerbacks and safeties. These battles extend to the sideline as well, with head coach pitted against head coach and offensive coordinators pitted against their defensive counterparts. These conflicts are exceedingly personal, and they’re repeated far more frequently than in baseball. For example, a Albert Pujols – Tim Lincecum matchup could be fun to write a story about, but Pujols will only be batting against Lincecum one-ninth of the time.
By contrast, it’s easy to write a good story about the five sacks the Bengals’ Antwan Odom put up against the Packers, with four coming against Daryn Colledge, or Rex Ryan’s coaching performance against Bill Belichick’s Patriots. Those battles happen in other sports as well, with scorers like Kobe Bryant against defenders like Shane Battier or the likes of Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez going up against Rio Ferdinand, but what makes them so unique in football is the sheer amount of matchups and battles worth covering. Basketball, soccer and hockey often see substantial rotations in defensive assignments and different clashes based on how the game goes, and only a few of those clashes are continuous enough and meaningful enough to earn a story. In football, almost every personnel clash could be turned into a story.
The other wrinkle football adds to the age-old theme of man-versus-man conflict is the importance of the team. In most sports, superb individual play can win the day at times. There’s nothing a baseball defence can do about a home run, or a basketball defence about an incredible off-balance three-pointer. Even when individual play isn’t enough to win, stars can still make their presence felt; see Joe Mauer’s batting performance for the Minnesota Twins this year or Danny Granger’s 26 points per night for the non-playoff Indiana Pacers. In football, though, it often doesn’t matter how good your quarterback’s arm is if his line lets him get continually sacked before he can get a pass off, or if his receivers run the wrong routes. Even great running backs aren’t going to get too far without blocking. A wide receiver can be among the best in the league, but he won’t put up many stats if his quarterback can’t get him the ball; see Steve Smith’s lack of performance in Week One thanks to quarterback Jake Delhomme’s poor play, or Terrell Owens‘ lack of a reception this week, which was partly thanks to coverage, partly thanks to quarterback Trent Edwards and partly thanks to the Bills’ offensive scheme. This brings a neat touch to the individual battles, as they combine to form a larger narrative framework.
Man versus himself: Internal conflict also comes into play in football, especially when considering confidence. The aforementioned Delhomme may have the physical tools to be a successful NFL quarterback, but a lack of confidence and an inability to make the right reads has hurt him drastically so far this year. Another interesting internal conflict is the case of Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell, who’s one of the most imposing physical specimens in the league at quarterback and has a rocket arm, but frequently struggles with accuracy and completed only seven of his 24 passes this week against Kansas City.
Man versus nature: The elements arguably play a stronger role in football than any other sport. There are no rain delays here; teams play through downpours, blizzards, brutal winds, banks of fog and ice-coated fields. Tthe weather often comes into play, and it can be a decisive factor.
Man versus society: A societal conflict can often be found in football as well. One of the chief societal conflicts is those trying to make it despite not fitting the physical stereotypes for their position. Over time, many of these players have come in from the CFL, like Warren Moon in an age when the common perception was that black players couldn’t play quarterback, or Doug Flutie, who was widely considered too small for the position. Over time, the NFL’s evolved to be somewhat more unconventional, but there’s still certain stereotypes about what a player for each position should look like. For example, consider this year’s draft, when Matthew Stafford, Mark Sanchez and Josh Freeman were all selected in the first round, but Graham Harrell went undrafted despite superior college stats thanks to his 6′2” height and the label of “system quarterback”.
The CFL may not provide as much of an oasis of unconventionality as it once did, unfortunately; there are still some unusual personnel moves in the league, such as the B.C. Lions using Korey Banks as a combination of a linebacker and a defensive back, but Harrell hasn’t taken a snap in a game since signing with Saskatchewan earlier this year, despite the struggles of Darian Durant and Steven Jyles. It’s not just quarterbacks either; smaller running backs/kick returners like Darren Sproles and Stefan Logan have faced uphill struggles just to crack NFL rosters despite their obvious talent. The society conflict also comes in with regards to status on the team, something Stefan Fatsis did a great job of capturing in his fantastic book, A Few Seconds Of Panic. Late-round draft picks and undrafted free agents face an uphill struggle gaining the respect of their teammates and coaches and surviving roster cuts. Some always do, but they have to win their societal battle to do so.
Characters:
A key factor in both football and stories is the characters involved. Now, all sports have their own supply of characters, so football can’t claim a monopoly here. However, the time factor I discussed earlier this year does help football in the character department. Because there’s only one game a week, most of the pieces written (or discussed on the radio, or filmed for television) about football aren’t specifically game coverage. Writers need to find other angles, so you see a lot of features on different players, analysis of individuals’ performances and stories on certain players or coaches’ matchups for the coming week, These are less common in baseball, basketball and hockey because of the sheer numbers of games involved.
Football’s popularity also helps with this; enough people care about the sport that most media organizations cover practices and file stories on the local team every day during the season and frequently during the offseason. Given the number of days without games during the season and the intense media coverage of the NFL, more probably gets written about NFL players than athletes in other sports. Now, NFL rosters are also larger, so this focus is somewhat diluted, but the stars (quarterbacks, featured running backs, outstanding wide receivers or defensive linemen) absorb a lot of the coverage. Thus, we get a good idea of their personalities, we get more details of what they’re like and we can slot them into the various character roles required for a good story.
The intensity of the man-versus-man conflict and individual matchups involved also help with this, as does the physicality of the game. For example, consider the Shawne Merriman and Chad Ocho Cinco Twitterfight earlier this year. When these teams play, Merriman has a chance to unleash plenty of physical pain on Ocho Cinco while remaining well within the rules of the game. That can be done to a lesser degree in hockey (bodychecks), soccer (hard tackles), basketball (hard fouls) and even baseball (beanballs, spikes-up slides) , but each sport has more limiting factors; hockey’s line changes mean you may only see an adversary briefly and the other sports have plenty of rules to limit physical contact. There’s little holding back in football and certain players will be going at each other all day, so the trash talk can actually mean quite a lot.
Plot:
The final factor that helps football’s stories is the use of plot. Again, this happens in all sports, but football takes it to another level. Because of the limited number of games and the amount of time going into each matchup, we get more exposition in football than in any other sport; going into a game on Sunday, diehard fans can know everything about who’s likely to play for their team, who’s likely to suit up for the opposition and what the key matchups are likely to be. Moreover, the limited numbers of games mean that the last clash between the teams comes into play a bit more. It’s all well and good to say, for example, “The Yankees have a 6-5 record against the Red Sox this year and lost the last game between the two teams 8-4,”, but the amount of games involved in just that series (and the amounts of other games in between) minimizes the importance of the last one. By contrast, consider the Bengals’ 23-20 win over the Steelers this week. Every angle of that game is going to be analyzed and discussed in the leadup to the Nov. 15 rematch between the sides.
After the exposition, we have the rising action, with all four elements of conflict sometimes involved. Football can be great this way because so many games go down to the wire. Teams usually start somewhat cautiously, then pick up the pace and go to a more frantic level of action with their final drive before the half. Halftime adjustments further the story, building toward the inevitable climax, which in the best games comes right at the end. Then there’s the falling action and resolution, represented by the post-game press conferences and the analysis that follows.
Overall:
For an example of all these factors in action, consider yesterday’s San Francisco – Minnesota game. There’s all sorts of conflict here, including star running backs Frank Gore and Adrian Peterson’s battles against their opponents defensive lines (man versus man), quarterback Brett Favre’s struggle to restrain his gunslinging instincts (man versus himself) and prove that he can still play quarterback at age 39 (man versus society) and Shaun Hill’s drive to establish himself as an NFL quarterback, despite being passed over in the draft (man versus society). We have plenty of great characters involved, including Favre (who to some is a hero and to others is a villain), Minnesota defensive end Jared Allen and San Francisco coach Mike Singletary. There’s plenty of exposition going in, as both teams are looking to go 3-0 with a win, both running backs were coming off tremendous days and both quarterbacks have plenty of question marks hanging over their heads. In the rising action, Gore gets knocked out of the game with an injury, but Hill and rookie Glen Coffee step in and carry the 49ers to a lead. The climax comes on Favre’s unforgettable last-minute touchdown drive, which is already the most-covered play of the week. The falling action and resolution is the Vikings’ victory, and all the attention that comes with it.
Now, the difference between our world and the Discworld is that narrativium is present as an explanatory force, not a driving one. NFL games don’t always follow the laws of stories, as they would on the Disc. However, this amplifies the power of narrativium rather than detracting from it. When million-to-one shots or last-second comebacks work all the time, they’re no longer remarkable and don’t make for good stories. When they happen only from time to time, they’re far more worthy of note.
The real proof of the usage of narrativium in the NFL is the incredible success of NFL Films. Since 1962, Ed and Steve Sabol have made their reputation off their ability to tell stories. Each Game of the Week incorporates all of the above storytelling elements and comes off as a cohesive narrative, and the season, decade and greatest moments series do the same. Everything from camera angles to voiceovers to interviews is in the service of the story. Could you do this with other sports as well? Sure, and each sport has its own great games that would fit the formula very well. However, the above factors combine to make a tremendous number of NFL games and seasons into interesting stories, and that’s why NFL Films has had much more success than any similar effort by another league. Furthermore, their efforts and their success (as well as the success of the other media outlets that cover the NFL) help to market the league, which increases interest in its product, which increases the number of fans, which in turn leads to a rise in media coverage, which then develops more characters, conflicts and storylines, making the stories even better and continuing the cycle. It’s not that narrativium isn’t present in other sports, as it certainly is. What helps football is that narrativium is almost omnipresent, though, allowing for these great stories which further build interest in the game.
Raise a GlassTags: andrew bucholtz, Brett Favre, football, narrativium, nfl, NFL Films
Categories:
Daily Specials, Domestics
monchhichi
If you ever apply for a writing job, include this as a sample. Outstanding!
Sculptor?!?
Wow. Awesome article, plus a Discworld reference. Beautiful.