I spent my lunch hour listening to co-workers second guess the Panthers offensive play-calling in yesterday’s Super Bowl. I don’t like second-guessers, for a couple of reasons.
- Once a game is over, it’s easy to say the team that lost should have done something different. Feel free to advance any theory you want since there’s no way to wind back the clock and falsify it. It’s like taking a test when you already know the answers. It gives you an opportunity to make yourself sound smarter than the people who had to take the test without knowing the answers.
- What are the odds that someone with his fat ass parked on a sofa watching the game really came up with a better play-calling strategy than the coaching staff of a team with 17 wins and 1 loss?
Second guessing is how teams prepare for the next play, the next game, and the next season.
A little further up the food chain, second guessing is called analysis.
Bottom line: If you’re an amateur, you second guess; if you’re a professional, you analyze. More importantly, in the second instance, you get paid for second guessing!