The unfairness of football’s blame game

With the Minnesota Vikings losing to the Seattle Seahawks on a shanked 27-yard field goal and the Cincinnati Bengals gifting the Pittsburgh Steelers a win thanks to some inexcusable mental lapses, Wild Card weekend presented two case studies in how tempting it is for fans of losing teams to blame losses on one or two players — the team aspect of football, not to mention the game’s inherent complexities, ignored in favor of a simplified reality. Twitter was aflame with innumerable fans screaming at the likes of Blair Walsh, Jeff Locke, Adam Jones, and Vontaze Burfict, all of whom made dire late-game mistakes. Blaming losses solely on the kicker, the holder, the air-headed defender who doesn’t know when to let up: these are all longstanding football fandom traditions. Emotions frequently get the best of people, fans especially, and when that happens reason takes a backseat.

Blame is alluring, attractive. It’s a convenient way to lessen the frustration of a situation. Assigning blame removes a loss from the realm of the cosmic — my team is cursed; we will never win — into a localized, tangible point. Blame counteracts the power of team narratives, those traditions of close losses and almost-made-its passed down over the years; suddenly fault falls on one or two people, and collective rage always prefers to be directed at something specific, the machine less fulfilling and cathartic to rage against than the misfiring cog. A history of ineptitude, of forever falling short, feels less oppressive, less overwhelming, when its totality can be ignored for a moment, set aside as the spotlight of frustration shifts to a single person — someone contemptible, irredeemable. Focusing hate, simply put, works: it feels right, relieving, justifiable in how the facts — a botched play by a professional making obscene sums to avoid that exact mistake — are easy to frame in a manner that appears irrefutable, plain as day.

Fairness, however, is another question. As understandable and satisfying as the assignation of blame is on an emotional level, it doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. It is the rarest of rare games that actually, truly hinges on a single blown play. For example, a late-game missed kick is devastating, yes, but its temporal relation to the end of the game magnifies its importance. Is it really more to blame for a loss than, say, a first quarter holding penalty that ended a promising drive, or a red zone trip that resulted in three because of a squandered opportunity for seven? How reasonable is it to place the responsibility for a loss, especially in a sport as team-dependent as football, on a single player for a single flub? Opportunities are seized and dropped throughout a game; one play may stand out as the low- or highlight, but that doesn’t mean that play necessarily was the only reason for the outcome.

With this in mind, it seems a touch unfair to place the blame for Minnesota’s soul-crushing loss squarely on the shoulders (foot?) of kicker Blair Walsh. And no, this isn’t a call to shift the entirety of the blame onto holder Jeff Locke, despite what somehow still-quotable Ace Ventura: Pet Detective dialogue suggests. The duo of Walsh and Locke converted three field goals — connecting from 22, 43, and 47 yards — accounting for all of the Vikings’ points on the afternoon. Yes, that final chip-shot kick should’ve been converted, but was it more costly, more instrumental to Minnesota’s loss, than Adrian Peterson’s fumble earlier in the fourth quarter? The temptation is to blame Walsh, Locke, but is that actually fair? Or is it a copout, a lazy way of lessening the misery of defeat? Peterson is beloved in Minnesota; most Vikings fans probably couldn’t pick Walsh and Locke out of a lineup. An all-time great running back or a random kicker: if you think about it, the player who is the one of the best at his position, not only now but in history, should be the one held to the higher standard, chastised more for falling short. But it doesn’t work that way. Hating the kicker is just plain easier, more palatable.

On the other hand, looking at the Cincinnati Bengals, blaming their heartbreaking loss on the final-drive antics of Adam Jones and Vontaze Burfict seems a bit more reasonable, a smidgeon less of a stretch. Burfict and Jones didn’t whiff on a play, didn’t fail to execute their respective jobs in the same way Walsh and Locke failed to execute theirs; the two Bengals made errors in judgement, had failures of basic common sense. The Bengals-Steelers game was a brutal, contentious affair — big (and dirty) hits aplenty — and Jones and Burfict let their emotions get the best of them, unfortunately at the most inopportune time. Their pair of mistakes were easily preventable, ergo less easy to overlook and rationalize. And neither Jones nor Burfict benefits from their reputations: Jones and his past transgressions are pop-culture fodder, the sort of thing that appears on Archer; Burfict’s penchant for unsportsmanlike play and his tendency for ill-advised miscues date back to his college days at Arizona State, when despite his size and speed and on-field production he was not considered a viable draft prospect, the red flags swirling about him too numerous. For those reasons, Burfict and Jones aren’t as forgivable as Walsh and Locke. Fair? No, not really, but that’s how these things shake out.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of looking at football’s blame game, then, isn’t restricted to how blame is assigned. After all, the targets are always obvious. Players such as error-making kickers embody long-standing archetypes, inheritors of the legacies of Norwood and Anderson. No, perhaps what’s more important to consider is how forgiveness is rationed out: who gets it, who doesn’t, how long it takes, etc. Walsh and Locke seem easy to forgive, not worthy of an eternity unbridled scorn. Although they flubbed what was a routine play, it was a play conducted under extreme conditions — the temperature low and the psychological pressure ratcheted up. Burfict and Jones, on the other hand, their past behaviors forever part of their respective presents, seem less worthy of empathy. It’s hard to imagine little children writing them letters of encouragement. Pinning the loss on a player or two isn’t just, but in certain instances, those in which the variables add up in the right way, it does seem justifiable. Once the initial vitriol dies down, certain players, certain goats, appear sympathetic. Other players aren’t granted that luxury, their errors too boneheaded, their pasts unable to be ignored.

Assigning blame will never fall out of fashion, will always be a coping mechanism. For as long as heartbreaking losses are suffered, which is to say for as long as football continues to exist as an outlet for emotional investment, fans will focus their anger on certain players. The convenience and visceral satisfaction found in blaming a loss on a player or two will always carry appeal. The simplified, comforting version of events derived from reducing a sixty-minute game to one play will always have its adherents. The emotions involved are too human to disappear. But it’s worth remembering that assigning blame is a lens through which to read a game, not the text of the game itself. There’s subjectivity involved in the blame game — leeway, wiggle room, small spaces where biases and preconceptions can seep in. Playing the blame game is not fair, not entirely, but in certain instances it feels more fair than in others.