Sometimes you get a spark that needs to turn into something more. That spark came courtesy of the tweet from a familiar face in Matt Warren, as seen below. Numerous calls of “psycho” this week have surrounded quarterback Josh Allen as he reinforces his affinity for contact, including grinning wider than the Cheshire Cat after getting into the mix of things. Matt Warren’s take? Josh Allen calling his shot when it comes to contact isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I liked the notion and figured if you liked his two
cents, perhaps you’d like about a buck fifty or so from me.
On the notion of being deliberate…
Before we go too much further, here’s the tweet that sparked the whole thing.
I want to get one point out of the way immediately and it’s possibly the best counterargument to the whole article. Yes, the entire point of a slide is to avoid contact entirely. Avoiding contact entirely is always superior to having an impact. The same thing applies to running out of bounds. No contact is ideal!
That said, there’s only way to avoid contact entirely. Slide sooooo early that there’s zero risk of getting hit at all. Sometimes that’s the right all. All you need is the first down to secure the win by running the clock our? Get down right after you get it. How often is that the case? Sometimes. But we’re going to talk about those other times.
Those other times competitive players are likely going to try to squeak out every yard they can and we’re going to cheer them on for that attitude. Sliding could still avoid contact, but it opens up the risk of getting hit. The primary reason I agree with Matt’s take is that you open yourself up to heightened risk of bad outcome due to one factor. Elevation.
When you slide, by default you’re the lowest person on the ground with the most exposed part of you being your head. That’s not a great outcome if it gets hit and we’ve all seen enough of those to be worried about it.
But how is barreling into the defender actually BETTER? Well first, Allen is a pretty tall guy. By being upright longer he’s far less likely to take a shot to the head. He’s not passive about the hits either. He squares up. Why is THAT good though, Skare?
As a big guy, people are gonna tackle him low which risks knee injuries. By squaring up and dropping the shoulder he can lessen the risk of that as well. In simple terms, Allen is doing his best to dictate the outcome and take the hit to his shoulder, perhaps the area of the body best suited for it.
Yeah, but why should we trust your opinion?
I dunno. Maybe you shouldn’t. On the other hand, I do have some experience falling and choosing how to fall. Long time readers might recall my experience with judo and professional wrestling. Both, for obvious reasons, taught me quite a bit about falling and the benefit picking your spot.
From judo, we were taught falling before anything else (more on muscle memory in a moment). We were taught not to improvise. So much so that the advice from Dr. Ashida if you were tossed into the air was this: Choose to fall well so you can live to fight another day. Don’t do anything unexpected. Shift your attention toward the fall and the fall only.
From learning wrasslin’ it was quickly apparent that surprises are not welcome. That’s not to say every move in every match is scripted. Only that there are rules and formulas to make sure both parties know what to expect. Once you introduce chaos, injury risk skyrockets.
I haven’t been in a ring in over 20 years. I still have shoulder tightness from not planning a leg drop well and landing poorly. Chaos is your enemy when gravity and collisions are in play.
That shoulder could be a lot worse though if it weren’t for my next point; muscle memory and practice. Not quite ten years ago my family and I were going around town. Everyone else was riding bikes while I jogged so our dog could come with us. He’s a little doxie. A large dog had gotten loose in the neighborhood, thought our doxie looked like a chew toy and went through the back of my legs out of nowhere to get to him. Chaos had found me.
I can’t thank Dr. Ashida enough for making sure I fell. Over. And over. And over. And over. He knew that when chaos came at us, our practice would come in and it did. I braced myself correctly and avoided anything worse than a couple scrapes from the concrete. No wrist pain. No elbow injury. No aggravation of my old shoulder injury. No concussion.
Which brings me to my final point. When I fell I did what came naturally to me. Yes, “nature” in this case was in large part nature of a rehearsed variety, but not trying to break a habit was critical. This works as long as you have an effective habit. Allen’s tendencies have not led to a greater injury risk for him (knocking on wood). His habits are working.
Allen is choosing his spots and reducing the chaos. Allen is leaning into habits he’s shown to be effective. I’m not about to change that.
And if you don’t trust me, let’s end with a quick look at Allen and his habits to see if what I’m saying makes sense…
