An Ode to the Benchwarmer

by J. Brown

I feel bad for Braxton Miller. 

He's a superstar quarterblack, he gets his tuition (and maybe some other things) paid for at no expense to him, and he's arguably the most popular kid on one of the biggest college campuses in the country. If all that weren't enough, he probably has the most resume-boosting, upper crust-sounding name of any Black athlete ever. By most accounts, he should probably feel bad for me. I mean, the guy gets Twitter shout-outs from LeBron, for crying out loud. Despite all of this, I can't help but think about last year's NCAA College Football Championship and how it might have affected him.

After leading the Ohio State Buckeyes to a 12-2 record in 2013, Miller was expected to be a Heisman favorite in 2014. He had won Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year for the past two years in a row. The Buckeyes were ranked fifth in preseason polls. Things looked promising. But after Miller sustained a season-ending shoulder injury during a preseason practice, suddenly, it was all over.

As some of you know, the Buckeyes would go on to perform quite well without him. They finished the 2014 season with a 14-1 record, qualified for the first ever NCAA College Football Playoffs, and ending up winning the championship behind the heroics of Cardale Jones, who was the 3rd-string quarterback when the season started. As the confetti fell and the commentators waxed poetic about the resilience of the team and the abilities of their new undervalued leader, all I could think about was Braxton Miller. How does he feel? Sure, his team just won a national championship, but they did it without him from start to finish. They didn't even need him, and they actually fared better without him. What's worse: He was basically forgotten. I re-watched the closing moments of the championship game on YouTube, and the cameras never even showed his face during the celebration.

Was he happy about this? Did he enjoy seeing his team win it all, or was he a little bit salty that they did it with him standing on the sideline? Can star athletes truly enjoy wins that they didn't affect in any significant way?

The Lousy Taste of a Losing Team

by J. Brown

The Washington Redskins are a terrible team. Most people who follow football know this, and it's been this way for a while. After winning the Super Bowl in 1991, they've made the playoffs only five times in the past 23 years. They spend each off-season hyping their fans with buzz phrases like "potential", "improvement" and "high expectations" before inevitably trotting out another sub-par roster, year after year. The owner of the Redskins, Dan Snyder, seems more concerned with accruing revenue than with actual winning, and he hasn't shown any signs of changing his ways in the near future.

How can this be? How can this perpetually unwatchable team possibly be making Snyder money? Well, the main reason is because the NFL is a revenue-sharing league, which basically means that every team gets a share of the money the league makes as a whole. Still, Washington was the 3rd-most valuable team in the league a year ago, meaning they were somehow making more money than 29 other NFL teams. Although the specific sources of this money are unclear, it can be assumed that most of it comes from TV deals and merchandising. That means people are watching this terrible team on Sundays and wearing athletic gear with their racist name emblazoned across the front (that's a whole different story). Having lived in DC for the past five years, I can attest to the fact that the Redskins have a large contingent of faithful, die-hard fans. Why?