Tag: aaron

Judging the Value of a Low Anxiety Leader

Corey ScheinerLeave a comment
Anxiety Girl
Anxiety Girl – Able to jump to the worst conclusion in a single bound. lol

We all get “anxiety,” right? Interview comes up, a promising second date, or maybe it’s the dentist’s office. Just like any other emotion it has a real purpose – anxiety’s being partially “You need to put your attention here now.” Just like how fear is motivating or laughing supresses the release of stress hormones.

And just like almost anything, too much of one emotion can get the best of you. Heartbreak? Exhaustion? Sorrow? Gluttony? Pride? Wrath?…

Seemingly unrelated, modern media has become a barbell mentality – Do you lean way left or do you lean way right. When was the last time CNN made a legitimate point on a potential benefit of a right-leaning theory? Fox News – to the left. The answer is always somewhere in the middle but we don’t want to admit that because it hurts our ego and we think it hurts our credibility.

No, it enhances it. A goal of TimeToSchein is to use contrarian thinking to limit our subconscious biases and help shift thought back toward a bell curve mentality.

Because fear drives the barbell and fear drives your attention.

And Fear:Anxiety::Peanut Butter:Jelly.

The cultural significance of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World (live)” was amplified by the time of its release: 1967 – President’s assassination still fresh in America’s mind, Vietnam War internal strife, only a few years removed from the Cuban Missle Crisis.

It didn’t matter whether you were a hippie or a cop. There was a national overload of anxiety. Both sides would have agreed, “Yeah we can use a bit of a cease fire.”

What a wonderful world.

There are countless reasons why you can dislike Obama or still hate the ideologies either George Bush brought to the White House.

But I’m anti-anxiety. America’s levels are too high at least partially due to the immediate access we have to global information paired with the connection negativity and fear has to clicks and attention.

When I started this article, I intended to connect this to how Aaron Judge’s calm and stability is disproportionately more beneficial to the New York Yankees than it would to the average-market team. Even if he goes 0-9, 6K and the Yankees get swept, there’s a signal to the fact quiet leaders succeed at a higher rate in high-anxiety New York City. Derek Jeter, Joe Torre, and yes, Eli Manning. That was to be paralleled with how America would disproportionately benefit from, right now, a low-anxiety leader.

Personally, I struggle with the fresh baked fear and anxiety modern news and my President’s unpredictability tend to throw at me on a daily basis. The only thing that helps me is to talk it out.

Because what we have is a high-anxiety leader. And you can’t predict the waves, but you can learn how to surf.

So this article isn’t about how Aaron Judge will be fine. And how his misleading strikeouts in this ALCS have come on pitches gravely low considering his 6’7″ frame. Or how our President is X-adjective.

This article is instead my personal attempt to limit the anxiety my president tends to throw at me on a daily basis. And maybe conscious attempts to see a wonderful world can help. We still have hamburgers and ice cream, we don’t have to worry about polio, we have a GPS on our computer-phones, and we know the eclipse is not God’s attempt at punishment. As much as I’d love to connect our president to the hurricanes and wildfires, there’s science now.

So in 2017, the year of anxiety, what is the value of negating or limiting the overloaded emotions with which a person, team, or country are dealing?

To me, that’s for the leader to decide.

 

If healthy, RGIII will be the best quarterback in the league by 2015

Corey ScheinerLeave a comment

It started with Michael Vick. A revolutionary quarterback who forced defenses to sacrifice a defender for a spy. A quarterback who can turn a broken play into a 20 yard run.

Sounds enticing, but Vick never was a great quarterback, just one that makes magic with his feet. Vick didn’t throw to a 60% completion percentage until his eighth year in the league and probably won’t win a Super Bowl. And we all know about his turnover rate.

But imagine Peyton Manning with Vick’s legs. Picture Aaron Rodgers en route to a game-winning 78-yard touchdown run after his third and fourth options were covered.

In his rookie season, the Washington Redskins’ Robert Griffin III averaged fewer interceptions per pass than every other starting quarterback (five int. in 258 attempts; 1.3%) and threw to a 65.6% completion rate. For their careers, Manning sits at 65.2% and Rodgers at 65.7%.

Griffin’s numbers
Vick’s numbers
Peyton’s numbers
Rodgers’ numbers

In his seven full seasons as a starter, Vick eclipsed RGIII’s 2012 total of 3200 passing yards only once (2011) and only twice rushed for more yards than Griffin’s 2012 tally of 815.

But it was Griffin’s 4.41 dash in the ’12 combine that foreshadowed his dazzling ground work during the regular season. Like Vick, Griffin can break out for 13 fantasy points on one play (below). Unlike Vick, it seems Griffin can protect the football and throw accurately.

If Griffin can somehow extract enough passing potential to work up to Manning or Rodgers’ level, then his edge in the footrace department would put him at a separate level of any quarterback in NFL history.

Before we get gung-ho, we must acknowledge health when evaluating RGIII’s style of play. If he wants to remain in the league, he needs to become a pass-first quarterback who can dive into the arsenal if needed, not the other way around.

Picture this scenario – it happened week 13 against the New York Giants.

Redskins up a point with four minutes to go in the fourth quarter. The Redskins have the ball and the Giants have two timeouts.

In this situation most offenses run the ball to eat up clock. The defense knows, so late-game situations such as these usually result in a three-and-out and a punt with two minutes or so left.

But with RGIII you don’t hand the ball off, you run the option. The defense now has to worry about a separate threat with a proportion of attention on each. What is usually a gimme three-and-out is now a mind game between Griffin and the defense.

In that game, the Giants couldn’t stop the combination of Griffin and rookie running back Alfred Morris, the Redskins ran out the clock, and took a must-win away from the defending Super Bowl Champions.

Griffin’s unique late-game threat will lead to more wins such as these.

Take this likeable fella and evaluate his numbers. In four years compare his passing numbers the elite ones and his running numbers to Vick’s. If he keeps pace with those guys like he did this season, you could be watching the greatest quarterback of all time.

But let’s get that knee back in order first.

Jets/Giants, & why Tom Coughlin will be fired before my January 31st birthday

Corey ScheinerLeave a comment
The Jets and Giants will face off this Saturday in an essential Christmas Eve matchup

Ironically on the week Aaron Rodgers wins the AP Athlete of the Year, he loses a football game for the first time in a calendar year. If you picked that to happen on the same week the Colts win their first game, then hats off to you. I still don’t believe you, but hats off. The National Football League has now owned the third Male Athlete of the Year in the last five years (Drew Brees – 2010; Tom Brady -2007).

But if you picked  the forgotten NFC East team to manhandle the Gotham Giants, then I believe you. The Giants have had problems with playing down to their opponent’s level all season. In week 5, they lost to the then 1-3 Seattle Seahawks. In Week 13, they nearly handed the Packers their first loss of the season. The following week, they beat their division rival Dallas Cowboys on their own last second field goal.

As logic follows, they then get slaughtered by the now 5-9 Washington Redskins, at home, in a must-win situation. Since it’s against my morals to root for a Philadelphia based team, the Giants must beat the Jets and the Cowboys to make the playoffs.

Against my better judgement, I believe the Giants will do so. Mark Sanchez can’t throw the ball, which fits perfectly into the Giants’ “Everything but Secondary” defensive strategy. Eli Manning is the most underrated quarterback in the league, and the offense will be fine assuming his wide receivers can catch the ball.

Looking at passer rating alone, Mark Sanchez is 36th out of the 42 active quarterbacks listed on pro-footballrefernce.com. I still have no clue what passer rating is, but it’s omni-presently used in today’s stats-driven sports world, enough for me to safely assume it’s an accurate statistic.

The Giants defense will show up, and with that boost of confidence beat the Jets on Saturday. The Giants usually play well against the Cowboys, and will win a close one in the Meadowlands next week.

But…even if they make the playoffs, they’re not going anywhere. The Giants’ secondary has so many holes, they have zero running game, and assuming Eli Manning can’t put up 49 points, the Giants will get romped in the first round of the playoffs if they’re lucky enough to get there – which brings me to my central argument.

Tom Coughlin will not be the Giants’ coach next season. Remember, Coughlin was on the Hot Seat four years ago when his team started 0-2. Granted, they went on to win the Super Bowl, but it was because he changed his coaching style. Players complained Coughlin was too tough. For example, if you weren’t wearing the right socks on the team plane, you were reprimanded. Coughlin softened up, and it was just what the doctor ordered.

Skip forward to today, and he’s lost his team. It’s the same story every year – start strong, end lethargic. Under Coughlin, the Giants are 47-17 in the first half of the year, then boast a ghastly 25-37 record in the latter half. He’s also tied for the fifth longest tenured coach in the NFL. It’s been a nice run, but it’s time.

The Giants are so used to flunking late in the year it’s ingrained in their heads. “Okay, were down again…same story different week. This sucks.” They set themselves up for failure. They need a new attitude, new mindset, and with that will come a new head coach.

I turn 22 on January 31st. Preparing for the Super Bowl would be the ideal present, but a new face to my favorite football franchise will be a nice consolation prize.