Late night bullshit: A "smart guy's" sport.
 

I had a big conversation with a baseball fan about smart guy sports.

There was really a whole table of us. I am a believer that football is a smart guy's sport. There are 22 different positions, and most of them have different variations and techniques.

There was a baseball guy at the table, and another dude argued soccer, but didn't really have a good argument for it. Someone else mentioned golf, but I think that's pretty damn simple, too.

What's the smart guy sport, to you?

I say football. Others say baseball. Thoughts?

Forumla 1 /thread

Sex

Football IMO.

Soccer and football are about equal to me in terms of tactical understanding. Football has an edge on different body types as it relates to different positions.

Baseball is third to me. It's a mathematician's sport, but not all smart guys are mathematically inclined.

Baseball is a smart guy's sport, but its smart guys behind the scenes and coaches, the ones doing the scouting reports, crunching the numbers, determining the right play in the right situations. When you see a player come up to bat they haven't seen before and the manager goes to a binder, that tells you what you need to know about baseball. The players can be dumb as bricks.

Cricket players mebe?

I would say Football, but I don't really have much experience with sports like Baseball, Basketball, Hockey. I've played soccer and you can't be a complete dumbass, but I'd definitely say Football, especially for the QB. A Quarterback probably has the most mentally challenging position of any sport.

Why the hell would a really smart guy follow sports at all?

Well given you asked this on a football forum, I can guess what the answers are going to be. Hard to say though. You can win a football game through brute force. Winning a game by physically dominating your opponent is more common in football. There are lots of little nuances in both football and baseball the average fan never picks up on.

chessboxing

I'd pay for a PPV of chessboxing.

LMAO

I would too.

How has that not taken off?

Football to me is the ultimate team sport (at least at the pro level). The kind of coordination that it involves is just insane, as opposed to sports like basketball (which I hate) or baseball (which I love). There is still a one-on-one aspect to the game, individuals making plays, but 99.9999999% of the time those highlight plays are the result of 10 guys doing something to get the 11th guy free.

In baseball, in the end it almost always boils down to the pitcher versus the batter, and then the batter/baserunner against an individual fielder. Many plays you'll have 2 guys touch the ball, sometimes 3 or more. But it's generally, talking about the defensive side of it, always about executing the same exact set of moves, dependent on the situation. It's not rocket science, and it never has been.

Basketball I won't talk about because I don't really watch it, and couldn't give it a fair summation....

I think with football, in a lot of ways you think of it as these big dumb jocks playing a game, but, especially now-a-days, there's a real chess-like quality to it. About putting guys into positions, and creating opportunities, often by setting things up early in the game that don't get exploited until (much) later. Playbooks with hundreds of plays, offenses trying to outthink defense, who try in turn to outthink them right back. It's not just about strength and speed, although they're always going to be a major part of it.

It's really cool.