Category: Fordham Ram Writing

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in November 2019.

Fordham Squash opened its season at the Vassar Round Robin this past weekend. The team made the 85-minute trek to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. to compete in the tournament, which the team swept last year en route to its best season in many years.

This year’s team was able to achieve similar success.

The Rams took on Vassar College, the host school, and Lafayette College on Saturday and easily won both matches. Fordham started slow against Vassar, dropping the first two individual matches. However, after dropping the first set in his match, junior Griffin Fitzgerald got Fordham on the board with a four-set win over Milinid Joshi. After that, Fordham didn’t drop any other individual matches en route to a 7–2 victory. 

“I was very impressed with my team this weekend,” Fitzgerald said. “I expected our first two matches to be wins, and my team delivered.”

With two wins already under their belt, the Rams headed into Sunday looking to make it a clean sweep on the weekend against Northeastern. The final match of the weekend would also be a rematch of last year’s Chaffee Cup final, where the Rams emerged victorious after a hard-fought contest. Sunday’s meeting of the two teams wouldn’t be nearly as close, even though it started inauspiciously for Fordham.

Fordham once again fell behind after senior William Douglass and sophomore Patrick Rodden both lost their individual contests to start the match. Fitzgerald would be tasked once more with turning the tide of the match, but he fell behind two sets to one to Alexander Swenson. But, once again, he dug deep and pulled out the final two sets, 11–8 and 11–6, to win his match three sets to two and give his team momentum. After his thrilling victory, the rest of his team followed suit and the end result was a blowout 7–2 win that moved Sahel Anwar’s team to 3–0. 

Fitzgerald cited several reasons for his come-from-behind win on Sunday.

“First, I lost last year in five [sets] to Northeastern and refused to allow that to happen again. Second, Will Douglass coached me between games and told me to ‘keep it simple’ and that helped me to focus on my game instead of my opponents and eventually gain control of the match. Third, as a new co-captain I had an extra drive to win and show my team, and especially the freshmen, how to win a tight match.”

Fitzgerald’s performance in his tight matches turned the overall contests between Northeastern and Vassar into runaways. This weekend was also defined by extended runs of dominance from Fordham’s best players; the Rams took seven straight matches to end their meeting with Vassar, eight straight against Lafayette and seven straight over Northeastern. These performances showcased the depth of the Rams and that depth should bode well for the team as the season progresses.

Fordham is next in action this weekend; the Rams will play Johns Hopkins on Friday afternoon before competing in the Navy Round Robin from Nov. 8–Nov. 10.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

Major League Baseball’s (MLB) umpires are under more scrutiny than ever, and rightfully so.

The improved technology and proliferation of instant replay over the past decade have exposed flaws in some of baseball’s most important arbiters. While a review/challenge system has alleviated some of these around the bases, it has not improved things behind the plate.

After the 2018 season, Boston University researcher Mark T. Williams and a group of graduate students found that home plate umpires missed 34,294 ball/strike calls at home plate over the course of the season. This averages out to 14 per game, which does not seem significant, but bear with me.

According to Baseball-Reference, there were 3.9 pitches per plate appearance last season and 76.1 plate appearances per game. Multiply these two numbers and round the product up to the next whole number and you get 297 pitches per game. About 150 of these are not put in play by the batter, meaning that they are judgment calls from the umpire. Divide 14 by 150, and you find that umpires were incorrect on 9.3% of pitches last season and over one pitch per inning. Again, this does not seem significant, but, depending on that one pitch, it could be make-or-break in the outcome of a game. See: 2019 World Series, Game Five.

With the Nationals trying to rally while down 4–1 against Astros ace Gerrit Cole, home plate umpire Lance Barksdale had what can be described charitably as one of the worst innings of his career. First, with two outs and the bases empty, he called ball four on a pitch to Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman that was over the outside corner of the plate. In the next at-bat to center fielder Victor Robles, Barksdale was in the same spot, and Cole threw a pitch further outside than the one to Zimmerman. Barksdale called strike three, ending the inning and robbing Washington of the chance to get the tying run to the plate. Even though three rights make a left, two wrongs don’t make a right. This case was no different.

The inning before, Barksdale should have called strike three on Astros outfielder Michael Brantley, on a 2–2 pitch that was solidly over the inside corner. He didn’t, and afterwards, mild-mannered Nationals skipper Davey Martinez kindly asked Barksdale to “wake up” because this was, you know, Game Five of the World Series.

Barksdale’s foibles, though, have less to do with one umpire doing a bad job and more to do with a larger discussion of automated umpiring, or so-called “robo umps,” behind the plate.

These were instituted in the Atlantic League this past summer, and they weren’t perfect. The automated strike zone was bigger than the human one, and it took hitters, catchers and pitchers a full summer to adjust to this system. It may not be ready for the bright lights, and MLB will want to get rid of the glitches before it brings such a big change to the big leagues. However, once the kinks are worked out, robo umps will be the future of baseball, despite the fact that actual human umpires will never go for such a thing.

Will robo umps remove certain aspects of the game, like arguments between the home plate umpire and opposing managers? Yes, and this is a good thing. Robo umps, like them or not, have an impartiality that is sometimes lacking with human umpires. One early-season example from this year went against the Astros. In an April game against the Rangers, Houston manager A.J. Hinch argued home plate umpire Ron Kulpa’s strike zone. Kulpa told Hinch, as shown on the broadcast, “I can do anything I want.” Hinch and hitting coach Alex Cintron were both ejected as a result of the incident.

This unchecked power has also manifested in other ways. In June, Padres third baseman Manny Machado was suspended for making contact in a heated argument with umpire Bill Welke. The suspension was decried in a truly ridiculous statement that claimed Machado had “no regard for anyone’s safety” and that “violence in the workplace” is not tolerated. The statement closed with this question: “Is this truly what MLB wants to teach our youth?” First of all, this is absurd. Machado is a $300 million superstar who knows exactly what he can and can’t get away with. Second of all, baseball’s umpires have not exactly been exemplary citizens, as longtime ump Rob Drake showed last week.

Drake, during Game One of the World Series, tweeted that he was planning to buy an AR-15 because “if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVIL WAR!” The tweet was bonkers, but more than that, it was disturbing. Drake quickly apologized, but, again, the guy calling balls and strikes just threatened a Civil War because of a completely legitimate congressional investigation. Drake, believe it or not, is a well-respected umpire, who worked many postseason games earlier in the decade. And sadly, he’s part of the problem.

We, as Americans, have begun to come around on automation. It isn’t perfect, but we can see that, sometimes, it does a better job than we are capable of. Heck, even legitimate Democratic primary contender Andrew Yang is basing much of his campaign off this idea.

America has come to its senses on automation in other areas. Baseball should do the same so that we never see something like Sunday’s seventh inning again.

Editor’s Note: an earlier version of this article misstated and underestimated the percentage of wrong ball/strike calls from home plate umpires.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

Fordham Women’s Basketball has a nearly impossible act to follow.

For the first time since 2014, the Rams will enter the season as defending Atlantic 10 champions. Last year’s team made the NCAA Tournament before ultimately losing 70–49 in the first round to Syracuse.

There were some significant losses for head coach Stephanie Gaitley’s team from last year to this one. Lauren Holden, Mary Goulding and Columbia transfer Alexa Giuliano are all gone from one of the most successful teams in the school’s history. Holden and Goulding were starters on last year’s team, and Goulding was named the the Atlantic 10 Tournament’s most outstanding player after averaging over 20 points and nearly seven rebounds over the course of three games. Holden started 117 games over her four years as a Ram, and Giuliano came over for a grad year after spending her first three collegiate years at Columbia. Gaitley and her staff will miss the off-court presence and leadership that all three provided.

This year’s team is on the younger side, with only one impending departure in Syracuse grad transfer Isis Young. With Holden and Goulding gone, junior Bre Cavanaugh figures to assume a larger on- and off-court role for the Rams. Precedent has shown that Cavanaugh should be able to handle this responsibility — since arriving at Rose Hill, Cavanaugh has made it to the A-10 first team twice. Cavanaugh also made the A-10 Tournament team with Goulding after leading the Rams in scoring over the three games. Cavanaugh should be the offensive leader of the team; last year, she scored at least 10 points in all but three of Fordham’s 34 games.

While the team is younger, it brings back many pieces from last year’s title run. Sophomore Kaitlin Downey will be a starter for the Rams and was named a captain by Gaitley and her staff after improving in all facets of her game over the course of last season. Junior Kendell Heremaia is back as well, and she, too, will be a captain along with Downey and Cavanaugh.

That leaves two spots to be filled with the absences of Goulding and Holden. Redshirt sophomore center Vilisi Tavui, who has made massive strides over the summer, is expected to take on increased responsibilities and even a starting spot, as well. As for the other spot, it could very well be filled by a freshman. First-year players Anna DeWolfe and Sarah Karpell are both expected to be part of Gaitley’s rotation, and the Fordham coach indicated that DeWolfe is the favorite to start at the point to replace Holden.

There will be an adjustment period for Fordham, and it will be challenged by a difficult out-of-conference slate. The first game of the season will be Tuesday, Nov. 5 against defending national runner-up Notre Dame at the Rose Hill Gym. The Irish should enter the game as, at minimum, a top-five team in the nation. Other noteworthy teams on the out-of-conference docket include Villanova, Penn State, Arkansas, Georgetown and Houston. There should be growing pains for the Rams as they get acclimated to a new roster and new roles, but the team should be able to identify its own strengths and weaknesses by the time it enters A-10 play, just as it did a season ago.

There are also new faces on the coaching staff, as former Fordham assistant Ang Szumilo left in April to become the new head coach at Fairleigh Dickinson. Replacing her is Candice Green, who spent the past three years as an assistant at Colgate, her alma mater. Also joining the staff as its new video coordinator is Kerri McMahan, who graduated from Saint Louis University in May and is the reigning A-10 Defensive Player of the Year.

Fordham will have to work hard to reach the heights it did last season. Certain players will need to step up and adjust to new roles in order for the team to reach its full potential. The Rams are ranked third in the Atlantic 10’s preseason poll, and the rest of the conference, namely 2019 semifinalists VCU and Dayton, will be better. But while last year’s team is not fully intact, there is plenty of talent left over — aided by the new talent of DeWolfe, Karpell and fellow freshman Eden Johnson — for this team to be in contention for another conference title.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

Fordham’s cross country teams wrapped up the regular season on Friday, Oct. 19 at the Princeton Invitational at the West Windsor Fields in Princeton, N.J. The women’s team finished tenth out of 20 teams while the men’s squad finished fifth place out of 24 participants.

Starting on the women’s side, the top finisher for the Rams was freshman Alexandra Thomas, who came in 21st with a time of 22:04.8. Fordham’s other top-30 finish came from senior Sydney Snow, who finished the 3.83-mile individual event in 22:19.7. The next finisher for Brian Horowitz’s team was freshman Taylor Mascetta. Her time of 23:02.7 was good for 72nd in the event.

There were several other competitors for the women’s team in this event. They included senior Katarzyna Krzyzanowski (86th – 23:12.4), sophomore Bridget Alex (97th – 23:16.2), freshman Sarah Rubenheimer (146th – 24:04.3), freshman Nicoleta Papavasilakas (185th – 25:32.1) and senior Germaine Harbaugh (186th – 25:38.0). All told, the women’s team finished just one point behind University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) for ninth place, and the Rams had a lower average time than the Retrievers.

Things were even better on the men’s side.

There, the Rams finished fifth out of 24 competitors and found consistency up and down the lineup. Senior Ryan Kutch was the top Fordham finisher once again with his fifth-place time of 23:49.0. For his efforts, Kutch was named the Atlantic 10’s performer of the week in Men’s Cross Country. Senior Nicholas Raefski — fresh off finishing first at the Metropolitan Championship on Oct. 11 — finished in 24th with a time of 24:39.2. Sophomore Brandon Hall was right behind him with a 35th-place time of 24:52.3. Two freshmen — John McGovern and Colin Flood — both made the top 60 and completed their 8K in just over 25 minutes.

Outside of these finishes, other competitors for the Rams included junior Christopher Strzelinski (69th – 25:15.0), freshman Jack Craven (98th – 25:33.3), freshman Ryan Fahey (122nd – 25:48.3), freshman Nicholas Lundberg (126th – 25:49.4) and senior Patrick Donohue (139th – 25:57.0).

This was the final regular-season event of 2019 for the Fordham cross country team. Now, it has bigger fish to fry. The Rams will take part in the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament on Saturday, Nov. 2 starting at 10 a.m. Kutch won the individual event last year, and will look to do so again in his final A-10 Tournament. The Rams will be ready.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

There are tough acts to follow, and then there is following a feat that no other Fordham team has achieved in recent memory. That is the task that awaits Fordham Squash this fall.

Last year’s team was one of the best in the history of the university’s program, winning 20 games and most importantly, winning the Chaffee Cup at the Collegiate Squash Association Championships for the first time in many years. After several attempts at earning the cup, last year’s team was able to finish the job, and this year’s team will look to stay on top with the help of new additions and those returning from last year’s team.

“The boys have been training very hard this season,” head coach Sahel Anwar said. “Though we haven’t played a match, the boys look stronger from last season already. Fitness, both indoor and outdoor, has really helped us out in addition to all the on-court training.”

The Rams will not have too many losses to endure, with only three seniors having graduated after the 2018–19 season. One of them was Justin Esposito, who was one of three 20-game winners for Anwar’s team last season. The other two, junior Justin Deckoff and sophomore Jack Reed, are both back this season. The other departures from last year’s team were senior Will Beatrez, who won six of his 10 matches last season, and Will Pantle, who went 6–1 over seven matches.

“Reed has really come into the season looking strong and good shape,” Anwar said. “He was a candidate for team MVP last year, but it looks like he is the early favorite to be the MVP of the team. I expect him to continue his solid year performance into his second year.”

To replace these significant losses, several freshmen have entered the fray for the Rams. One of them is Jacob Bennett, a former Utah state champion in racquetball who stands at 6’5”. Another is Justin George, an intriguing prospect from San Jose, Calif. who has extensive experience on the club squash circuit. The third is Caleb Schumaker, who hails from Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., just a half-hour away from Fordham.

Anwar has been impressed with all three of the newcomers, but specifically cited one.

“Justin George from California has really impressed me,” he said. “He comes to practice everyday determined to train hard, and I usually find him on the courts during non-practice time hitting on the court. He is going to really help our team this year with this type of dedication.”

Besides these new players, there is also plenty of talent returning for the Rams this season. Of the seven double-digit winners in 2018–19, six are returning to a tremendously talented roster. In addition to Reed and Deckoff, junior Griffin Fitzgerald, sophomore Dylan Panichello, sophomore Patrick Rodden and junior Tommy White are returning after all of them won at least 12 games last season.

The Rams will open their season this weekend at the Vassar Round Robin tournament. It starts on Friday, Nov. 2 against Vassar and Lafayette. How the team starts its season could be a significant indicator of how its season goes, as evidenced by last year’s team sweeping the same tournament en route to its historic year.

Fordham Squash had a historic 2018–19 season, and while it may be impossible to follow up, this year’s version of the Rams will look to make its own mark and legacy.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

This past weekend, Fordham Men’s Tennis wrapped up the 2019–20 fall season with the Fordham Fall Quad, which was held on Oct. 26 at the Hawthorn/Rooney Courts. The event was initially supposed to run for two days, but a Sunday soaker denied the tournament its second day.

On Saturday, Fordham’s standouts were junior Alex Makatsaria, senior Fabian Mauritzson and junior Lutwin de Macar, all of whom won their individual matches. Makatsaria defeated Queens College’s Eduardo Marino in straight sets in round two and beat Hofstra’s Alvaro Arce Lopez-Sanchez in the third round. De Macar had similar success, defeating Queens’ Mariano Biblioni in two sets and Hofstra’s Jun Sasagawa in three sets in the third round. Finally, Mauritzson took down Queens’ Moritz Bridges in straight sets in the second round before pulling off an exciting, come-from-behind victory over Hofstra’s Yusuke Nishitani.

The men’s tennis team didn’t just have singles success, either. De Macar and Mauritzson won two doubles matches together against teams from Quesens and Hofstra, showing how they can compete with just about any level of competition. The day was incredibly encouraging for the squad, as even though the results were strictly individual, they showed that Fordham has the talent to compete in the Atlantic 10 when the team season kicks off in January.

For now, Fordham Men’s Tennis heads into the offseason on a high note. The Rams got several outstanding individual performances on the day, and the team will need those performances if it wants to carry over this success. The team will take the next couple of months to recharge and get ready for the spring slate, as this time will be valuable to the team in both respects.

If Fordham can parlay its individual success into the spring season, the Rams should compete for an A-10 conference crown.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

The Fordham men’s cross country team won its second consecutive Metropolitan Championship on Friday in a dominant performance at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

The Rams were led by graduate student Nicholas Raefski, who won the individual championship with a time of just over 26 minutes flat. Adding to the impressive performance, two of his teammates — sophomore Brandon Hall and senior Ryan Kutch — finished right behind him in second and third, respectively. Head coach Brian Horowitz’s team extended its streak of winning the individual race to six years in a row, with six different Rams finishing first-place in the event.

“I was very happy that the team was able to come together and win the Metropolitan Championship,” Raefski said. “Coach Horowitz has done a fantastic job at preparing us and making sure we are in really good shape heading into Championship season, and it was awesome to see so many teammates run well in order for us to secure the title.”

The men’s team’s dominance didn’t stop with the top three. Freshmen John McGovern and Colin Flood each had coming-out parties of their own, finishing in fifth and sixth with respective times of 26:15.8 and 26:27.2. Such performances from first-year runners are encouraging for the team as it looks to build beyond this season. Another freshman, Nick Lundberg, finished in 11th while junior Christopher Strzelisnki finished one spot behind him in 12th. Behind these excellent finishes, Fordham coasted to a first-place finish, as the Rams completed the competition over 50 points ahead of second-place Manhattan.

“Winning was certainly nice, but it was even better having my teammates right there,” Raefski said. “Ryan, Brandon and I have been working hard all season together, so it was fantastic having them there with me. I’m really looking forward to the next couple of races with them.”

While the men’s team dominated its side of the event, the women’s team also performed admirably.

The Fordham women’s cross country team came in second of nine teams at the Metropolitan. The Rams ultimately lost out to Rutgers for the team title. Fordham got two top-five performances from senior Sydney Snow and freshman Alexandra Thomas, who finished third and fourth, respectively, in the individual contest. Senior Katarzyna Krzyzanowski and sophomore Bridget Alex both finished in the top 20 with respective times of 19:49.3 and 19:52.9.

“I was really happy with my performance,” Snow said. “It’s the highest I’ve finished in a cross country meet in college and it’s always nice to help the team in whatever way I can.”

Overall, both teams were extremely impressive, and the team seems to be finding its collective stride at just the right time as the season rolls down the stretch.

“The men’s team had an awesome day, they executed perfectly,” Snow said. “Not all of us did what we needed to on the women’s side in order to win, but we did have some great performances and a lot of personal bests which are always positives to take away.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams will be back in action on Saturday morning at the Princeton Invitational in Princeton, N.J. The event will start at 10 a.m.

“We’ve got a really young team with a lot of potential so our goal moving forward is to stay focused and keep working hard,” Snow said. “We can do a lot more, and we want everyone to know that when we compete at A-10s in November.”

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

Former Fordham offensive lineman Anthony Coyle, who played for the Rams from 2014–17, has found a new home in the game.

Coyle was drafted in the 14th round of Tuesday night’s XFL Draft by the New York Guardians. Coyle had signed with the Houston Texans coming out of Fordham in 2018, but after being cut by them later that year, he signed with the Green Bay Packers earlier this year. However, he fell victim to the league’s September cut-down, and as the Packers trimmed their roster to 53 players before the regular season, Coyle was an unfortunate casualty.

But with Coyle unable to break through in the NFL, he saw the XFL as another opportunity to play professionally. The XFL originally existed in 2001, and, despite record-shattering early ratings, fell by the wayside due to its own mistakes. In 2020, the league will be getting a reboot, and like it was nearly two decades ago, the XFL will be headed by Vince McMahon, who is most famously the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

Coyle comes to this opportunity after having an illustrious Fordham career. He was a three-time all-Patriot League selection — twice a first-teamer — and even made the freshman All-America team after the 2014 season. Just as impressively, he started all 48 games the Rams played in the four years he was a member of the football team.

Now, he gets an opportunity with the New York Guardians, who will be coached by former Giants, Bills, Steelers, Jaguars and Oilers offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride. He also coached the then-San Diego Chargers for two years from 1997–1998. In addition to getting a chance to show NFL teams what he is capable of, Coyle also will be playing close to home. He grew up in Staten Island, N.Y. and attended Tottenville High School.

The XFL kicks off on Saturday, Feb. 8 with all of its eight teams in action. The league has a legitimate chance to succeed, and Coyle has a legitimate chance to show both the XFL and the NFL that he can compete at the highest level.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

For the ninth time since 2000, the Washington Redskins are rearranging the deck chairs on the NFL’s equivalent of the Titanic.

Jay Gruden is out after just over five years of mediocrity and ultimate failure that yielded just one playoff appearance and 49 losses — the most of any coach in that time period. Bill Callahan, of Oakland Raiders and Nebraska Football fame, will be the team’s interim coach. At 0–5, the Redskins and owner Dan Snyder decided now was the time to make a change, as if Gruden’s firing will change the culture for one of the league’s most inept franchises.

Of course, Gruden’s dismissal will not do this. He was fired simply because someone needed to take the fall for organizational incompetence, just like Norv Turner, Steve Spurrier, Mike Shanahan and others before him. The more pressing matter for Washington now, in addition to finding a new head coach, will be to find a good match for rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins, who has only played in one NFL game but has already had a tumultuous stint in Washington.

The Redskins took Haskins with the 15th pick of this year’s draft, and he was considered by many to be the second-best quarterback in the draft, behind Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray. The problem is that, according to a recent Washington Post report, Gruden didn’t want him and, even worse, Haskins figured that out. From this point of view, the firing of Gruden may have saved Haskins’ career, which is a wild statement to make until you consider the Redskins’ record with quarterbacks as of late.

This brings us to the real point here. We may look back at this five years from now and laugh because Haskins may have turned into one of the best quarterbacks in the league. The point? Player development is non-linear, and we shouldn’t expect instant gratification from all because a select few are able to provide it.

The Washington Redskins know this all too well. In the 2012 draft, Washington took Baylor signal-caller Robert Griffin III with the second pick after the Colts took Stanford QB Andrew Luck with the first selection. Debates raged throughout the season as to who was better. Griffin was named Offensive Rookie of the Year after amassing just over 4,000 total yards and dragging the team to its first NFC East title since 1999. However, RGIII tore his ACL and LCL in Washington’s playoff loss to Seattle and was never the same.

Luck hung it up this past August after persistent injuries over the past half-decade. Both were outlasted as starters by a trio of third and fourth-round picks — Russell Wilson, Nick Foles and Kirk Cousins — and all three have been to at least one Pro Bowl.

But Griffin and Luck had instant success in the NFL before leaving us to ponder what could have been. There have been plenty of examples of late bloomers who have succeeded after initial setbacks thanks to improvements in their environment and abilities.

Rams quarterback Jared Goff had a horrific first-year under mediocre head coach Jeff Fisher. Goff took off when Sean McVay was hired — ironically, from the Redskins — before year two. While Goff appears to have taken a step back in year four, two straight playoff berths and a Super Bowl appearance didn’t seem possible at this time in 2016.

There have been plenty of others, as well. Drew Brees went 10–17 in his first two years as an NFL starter. Troy Aikman, who went on to win three Super Bowls as the Cowboys’ starting QB in the ’90s, threw more interceptions than touchdowns in the first four years of his career. And Peyton Manning, possibly the greatest statistical quarterback in the history of the league, led the league in interceptions with 28 in his 1998 rookie season.

Much of their eventual success can be owed to the environment around them: Manning, for example, got to work with renowned offensive coordinator Tom Moore for the first 12 years of his career and the two gelled after that rough rookie campaign. Aikman’s offensive coordinator, the aforementioned Norv Turner, helped guide him to three of his best years from 1991–1993. Brees, of course, revitalized his career with the help of Saints head coach Sean Payton, and the two now comprise the league’s second-longest quarterback-coach combination behind the Patriots’ Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

So what’s the point of all this? Dwayne Haskins may struggle off the bat. He’s expected to get his shot to start on Sunday against the lowly Dolphins in a game one of the teams might win. In his first career appearance against the Giants on Sept. 29, Haskins threw 17 passes. Nine were completed, five hit the ground and three were caught by players on the other team. One would hope, against one of the worst teams the league has ever seen and without the coach who didn’t want him, that there’s nowhere to go but up from here.

But if Dwayne Haskins doesn’t significantly improve, don’t freak out. Success as an NFL quarterback is not cut-and-dried, and there are plenty of ups and downs along the way. A failure in 2019 doesn’t mean he’ll be a failure for the rest of his career.

There have been plenty of quarterbacks, including some of the best the league has ever seen. who were doubted the same way Haskins is now. They turned out okay, and, while Haskins may not be a Hall of Famer, he can too.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in October 2019.

The ultimate distinguisher between the “haves” and “have-nots” in baseball — the playoffs — will have started by the time you read this.

Ten teams — the Nationals, Brewers, Rays, Athletics, Cardinals, Braves, Dodgers, Yankees, Twins and Astros — will compete for a championship on the national stage. Four of those ten teams won 100 games, a number that was traditionally considered a high-water mark for greatness over a six-month season. Houston and Los Angeles, in another harbinger of their dominance, won their respective divisions by ten or more games.

However, when you see such dominant play on the top end of the spectrum, you know that equal futility exists on the opposite end of the spectrum. Baseball is no different.

We say this because, for the four teams that won over 100 games, four others — the Orioles, Tigers, Royals and Marlins — lost over 100. For its part, Major League Baseball has tried to take steps to discourage “tanking,” which, in sports parlance, has come to mean the systematic or intentional losing of games in order to benefit a team’s chances of winning in the future.

One of these steps is the so-called “luxury tax,” which severely penalizes teams for spending lavishly on their players. MLB’s luxury tax threshold will climb to $210 million in 2021. Moreover, this luxury tax has absolutely no effect on the four teams I just mentioned because they possess an average payroll of just over $75 million.

But here’s the real problem with tanking: when done right, it works.

One of 2019’s 100-win teams, the Astros, lost an average of 108 games from 2011-13. The team was, to put it politely, an embarrassment. However, Houston’s saving grace during this period was having a top-two pick for five straight drafts, a feat that even the Cleveland Browns would be proud of. With these selections, Houston chose players such as Carlos Correa, George Springer and Alex Bregman. Bregman and Springer are both in the American League MVP discussion after having career years.

Other assets from outside the organization include pitchers Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole, both of whom were acquired with assets the Astros picked up in the time period in which they were tanking. One of the two right-handed hurlers will win the 2019 American League Cy Young Award.

Point being, without one of the worst three-year stretches in the history of sports, the Astros would not have put themselves in position to win their second championship in three years. Of course, we’ve also seen tanking go wrong — just look at the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, who may not win a game this season and whose best players reportedly want out of “the process.”

Why, however, would you have such a moral aversion to tanking when you see its potential?

It likely traces back to our upbringings. Whether you played a sport or not, you were always taught that winning was good and losing was bad. An “A” on your next test far exceeded an “F.”

Doing a good job was always better than doing a bad one. All of these things are true, but as we grew up, we found out that things weren’t so black and white. Ironically, the clarity between winning and losing, succeeding and failing, is a big reason why so many people, including myself, love sports. The scoreboard never, ever lies.

But sometimes in life, you have to go down to shoot back up. You have to hit rock bottom before you can hit new heights. Sports is the same way, but watching your team lose for years on end as ownership tells you to “be patient” and “look to the future” is painful. That’s why we don’t like tanking, even though it can work.

Let’s stay in baseball for another example. At the MLB trade deadline, the Arizona Diamondbacks, despite dealing star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to the St. Louis Cardinals in the offseason, were just 3.5 games out of a playoff spot at an astonishingly average 54–55. Instead of loading up for a possible run to a playoff spot, Arizona traded the hottest commodity on the market, starter Zack Greinke, to the Astros for four prospects.

Arizona’s general manager, Mike Hazen, said that his team wasn’t in a great position to win the World Series, with a 10-team playoff format, a wild card game to get through and a tough Dodgers team waiting on the other side of the one-game playoff.

On the other hand, my beloved New York Mets were behind Arizona in the standings and went in the other direction, trading two highly-regarded prospects for Blue Jays starter Marcus Stroman.

Are the Mets definitively better-positioned for the future than the Diamondbacks? They may be, but neither made the playoffs. Only one team “tried,” but both teams achieved the same result and Arizona finished just one game behind New York. And the Diamondbacks have four prospects to show for it while the Mets have a depleted farm system from a calendar year’s worth of pushing their chips to the center of baseball’s table.

So if your team is tanking, don’t sweat it. There’s a method to the madness, born out of precedent and probabilities, that makes it more likely than not that the process will pay off.