On January 6, 2007, the Dallas Cowboys appeared on the verge of defeating the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks in a National Football League wild-card playoff game.1 A victory by Dallas would solidify claims that the Cowboys, led by veteran coach Bill Parcells and Pro Bowl quarterback Tony Romo, were once again an NFL team to be reckoned with.
With 1:19 left in the contest, Seattle led 21–20. But Dallas had possession of the football on the Seattle 2-yard line with fourth down and one yard to go for a first down. Veteran placekicker Martin Gramatica entered the game for what should have been an easy field-goal conversion. Quarterback Tony Romo, a darling of the fans and media, who had replaced the injured Drew Bledsoe earlier in the season and had performed brilliantly as Bledsoe's replacement, positioned himself to hold the ball for the kick. It appeared that another chapter was about to be written in the history of the Dallas Cowboys.
But then, after what appeared to be a good snap of the football from the center, the unthinkable occurred. Dallas holder Romo fumbled the ball. After retrieving the football, he scrambled for the end zone, but he was tackled at the 2-yard line, short of a first down. Seattle took over possession of the ball. Seattle eventually turned the ball over to Dallas at the 50-yard line, where Romo heaved a desperate last attempt toward the end zone. The attempt was unsuccessful. Dallas had not only lost but had also been eliminated from the playoffs. In a single play the Cowboys’ fortunes had suffered a dramatic reversal.2
Following the game, Romo was distraught. “I know how hard everyone in the locker room worked to get themselves into position to win that game today and for it to end like that, and for me to be the cause is very tough to swallow right now,” he said. “I take responsibility for messing up at the end there. That's my fault. I cost the Dallas Cowboys a playoff win, and that's going to sit with me a long time.” Romo added, “I don't know if I have ever felt this low.”3
Whether Romo actually should have shouldered so much responsibility for the Dallas loss is open to debate. But of the numerous ways that one may become the “goat” of a game of football, fumbling the ball is surely one of the most poignant. When the ball is in your hands and all eyes are trained on you, a fumble frequently results not only in a lost opportunity but also in a significant loss of momentum. The fumble is a mistake that can be very costly to the team as a whole.4
That being said, in this chapter I want to highlight the fact that not all fumbles are alike. There are numerous contributing causes of fumbles. There are also various outcomes of fumbles, linked to different ways of responding to them. I argue that it is instructive to examine these differences, not only because of what they teach us about the game of football, but also because of how they illuminate the larger game of life. Among other things, these significant differences can teach us important lessons about contingency, responsibility, humility, courage, solidarity, redemption, and grace. In reflecting on the game of football, we may also be led to contemplate a philosophical theme that has continuing relevance as well as ancient roots: the fragility of the good life.5
It should not be too difficult for us to make connections between football and life. “Fumbling the ball” is a locution that has crossed over into everyday parlance. We all know what it is like, in a symbolic sense, to fumble the ball. Indeed, I want to claim that, due to their symbolic link with our own life experiences, sporting events such as football games have a representative function. They are psychodramas as well as athletic contests. When players and fans participate in or observe sporting events such as football games, they are not simply in a state of forgetfulness about their lives. Instead, they bring with them an awareness of their own histories. This backdrop of meaning adds poignancy to the events on the playing fields. At the same time, sporting events can illuminate our own lives.
This interplay between sport and life in our imaginations is illustrated in a novel entitled Number 6 Fumbles, by Rachel Solar-Tuttle. As the book opens, college coed Rebecca Lowe is attending a football game between her own University of Pennsylvania and Ivy League foe Cornell.
It's the Penn/Cornell game and we're sitting above the fifty-yard line up on the second tier with all the Sigma Chi brothers and everyone has their screwdrivers in their Hood orange-juice containers as usual and it's cold. This one player, Number 6, fumbles the ball, and I see it tumble on the field like a dropped baby and I hear the blur of the announcer and the Sigma Chi guys getting up and slapping their thighs and swearing, but what I feel is not anger but sadness, I mean, thinking of this guy who fumbled. Were his parents watching him today? Will his girlfriend comfort him tonight? Will he try to work a calculus problem and keep thinking back to this moment?6
Rebecca's thoughts then turn to her telephone conversation with her mother that morning. Her mother had called into question Rebecca's savvy in scholarly matters. The conversation had lasted a mere five minutes, but when it ended, Rebecca was exhausted and let out a scream. Rebecca continues: “Thinking about this and about Number 6 fumbling the ball suddenly makes me feel some generic negative way I can't quite pin down, except to show that I need to be somewhere else.”7 In the course of the book it becomes clear that the author of Number 6 Fumbles connects Rebecca's negative feelings to her fears that the fumble on the football field might become an apt symbol for her own life. In reciprocal fashion, Rebecca's sense of her own life also clearly colors her sympathetic response to player number 6. Rebecca's reactions display her gnawing awareness of the fragility of the good life.
Rebecca's experience is surely not unique. We too can relate in some way to the player on the field who fumbles the ball. We know that we too are capable of fumbling the ball. Indeed, we have all fumbled the ball, and we have faced the sometimes painful, sometimes comical consequences. Sometimes our fumbles are public events, and we feel the weight of public censure. At times we have also known what it is like to experience redemption, through our own efforts, through luck, and through something like acts of grace.8
In part 1 of this chapter I examine further the significance, literal and symbolic, of fumbling the ball and outline some of the contributing factors to fumbles. I locate these factors in the game of football and then discuss their analogues in the game of life. While I cannot offer an exhaustive list of such factors in either football or life in general, I hope that by discussing a range of such factors I can make a convincing case for the need for discrimination in our responses to fumbling the ball, whether as fumblers or as observers. In part 2, I discuss some possible outcomes and responses to fumbling the ball, both on and off the playing field.
Part 1: Fumbling the Ball
Hard Knocks
In the novel Number 6 Fumbles, few details are given about the causes of the fumble. The text merely says that number 6 fumbled the ball. This leaves the cause of the fumble open to speculation. We are told that some of the fans reacted in anger; later, when Rebecca meets number 6, he acknowledges that he made a mistake.9
But not all fumbles are alike. Surely football players can be more or less culpable for fumbling the ball. As a result, our responses should be discriminating and measured. For example, when a ball carrier is blindsided by a defensive player who attempts to strip the ball away while two other tacklers are hanging on to him, or when a receiver has caught a pass a moment before being crunched between two bone-jarring tacklers, holding on to the ball could be considered an act of athletic supererogation—an act above and beyond the call of duty.
While it is true that in a sense the fumbler is responsible for fumbling the ball in such cases, we ought not to hold him responsible in the same way that we would in different circumstances. Perhaps the opposing team recovers the football and the fumble becomes a very costly mistake. Still, we may have some sympathy for the offensive player who fumbles the ball in circumstances such as I have described. There are mitigating, exculpatory factors at play. The player has taken reasonable precautions against fumbling, but in spite of this, the hard blows have knocked the ball free. Bone-jarring tackles or strategic maneuvers by the defense are in the realm of contingencies over which one has little or no control. In such cases the fumble is attributable at least as much to the skill of the tackler(s) and to physics as to culpability on the part of the fumbler.
Often in life we find that “the ball is in our hands.” On many occasions, we are entrusted with opportunities and responsibilities that affect our own and others’ lives in more or less significant ways. As a result, we may feel (and others may concur) that at times we have dropped the ball and in doing so have let others down. As a result, our self-concept and our sense of well-being may be shaken. But there may have been contingent factors at play over which we had little control that should mitigate harsh assessments of blame.
Imagine a father who works hard on a construction site to help support his family. There is an announcement that there will be cutbacks at the job site. On the day that cutbacks are announced, the father receives a pink slip. The father has been responsible in the performance of his job-related duties. He has shown up for work on time and worked diligently and skillfully. He did need two weeks off at one point because of a back injury, which he had incurred on the job site. As a result, his bosses are concerned that he is injury prone and thus conclude that he is expendable.
The father feels that he has let his family down. He has “dropped the ball.” He engages in self-recriminations. If only he had worked harder, or longer, or had not been injured, he might have retained his job. We can understand this response. At the same time we would want him to realize, after the initial shock has worn off, that there were mitigating factors that call for compassion. He had worked hard. He was not culpable for the injury he had sustained. A number of jobs were going to be cut in any case. He had experienced a bad break, or one of the “hard knocks” of life. Perhaps he was even treated unjustly.
Of course, an important issue remains in play. What will the father do now in an attempt to recover? As I will show later, there can be a variety of responses at this point, some of which involve expressions of solidarity from other individuals. In some cases help comes from unlikely sources. For the moment, however, I turn to another factor that is often implicated in fumbling the ball: a breakdown in communication.
A Failure to Communicate
Sometimes the responsibility for fumbling the ball in football is justly allocated among a number of individuals. A primary example of this occurs where miscommunication results in a fumble. For example, lack of clear communication may foul up a snap from the center. While at times the fault may lie principally with one individual, on some occasions it seems plausible to attribute shared responsibility to the center and the quarterback. If there is sloppiness in executing the snap from the center owing to miscommunication, this may be attributable to a failure to pay attention or distractedness, weariness, nervousness, or other factors, perhaps compounded by the noise of the fans. Both the quarterback and the center may contribute to the confusion. In some cases, we may even call into question who has actually fumbled the ball. Again, unless we hold unrealistic expectations of perfection from athletes, we may feel some sympathy for these all-too-human foibles. This example also calls attention to the importance in football of focus, concentration, and attention to detail.
As human beings, we exist in a web of connections with other people. As a result of this interdependence, good communication and mutual understanding play important roles in the quality of our relationships and in our own happiness. It comes as no surprise, then, that miscommunication is frequently implicated in fumbling the ball in our daily lives. As in the game of football, the background noise (both literal and figurative) of bustling life in the twenty-first century can complicate matters.
Picture the following. A mother and father are speaking with each other over a cell phone. The topic of the conversation is who is to pick up Johnny from Pop Warner football practice and at what time, and who will be responsible for picking up Angela from her soccer game. Both mother and father are distracted at the time of the conversation. The mother is driving nervously in heavy traffic en route to a meeting with her boss and a discussion about a possible promotion. The father is standing in line in a hot and crowded grocery store with pushy patrons who seem to be about to break out into a wrestling match. In the confusion, each parent understands that the other has agreed to pick up Angela. As a result, both fumble the ball, and after a lengthy wait, Angela winds up having to get a ride home from her soccer coach.
This is not to say that one should have no empathy for the parents’ plight in cases such as this. Parents, in particular, will understand such scenarios. But as in the game of football, so too in the game of life, playing well requires concentration and attentiveness.
These cases illustrate how easy it is to fumble the ball. Indeed, some people, in football or in life, seem to have a propensity to fumble.10 But in some cases there are clearer signs of personal culpability and even self-destruction than in others.
Taking Care of the Ball
During Super Bowl XXVII, Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Leon Lett recovered a fumble and appeared to be on his way to running the ball in for a touchdown. But instead of simply charging into the end zone, Lett actually slowed down and taunted the Buffalo Bills’ Don Beebe with the ball. As a result, Beebe was able to knock the ball out of Lett's hands. Dallas still won the game but lost opportunities to set records for most points and biggest victory margin in a Super Bowl game.11
In a case like this we have reason to be less sympathetic to the fumbler. Having just recovered a fumble himself, Lett had not, with due humility, taken note of how easily and quickly one's fortunes can be reversed. This incident is an example of poor sportsmanship encompassing a kind of nonchalance that led to fumbling the ball. It is perhaps at times when things seem easy enough—after, as in the case of Leon Lett, the ball seems to fall into our hands—that we need to be vigilant against complacency, lest we fumble the ball.
This example also has analogues in the realm of human relationships. For example, when a marriage or relationship with a significant other becomes “old hat,” it becomes all too easy to take a partner for granted. The stale routines with which one becomes comfortable replace the attentiveness that a thriving relationship requires. Complacency sets in. The relationship is permeated with a kind of carelessness. One forgets an anniversary or other significant marker of the relationship. Common courtesies and simple acts of kindness are abandoned. In these and other ways one fumbles the ball. Then, sadly, one is blindsided (though in fact the results could have been foreseen) when a partner announces his or her lack of fulfillment or, worse yet, an intent to leave the relationship. In such cases, the road to recovery from carelessness may be long and difficult.
The philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt claims that what we care about reveals much about who we are. Frankfurt writes: “A person who cares about something is guided, as his attitudes and actions are shaped, by his continuing interest in it. Insofar as he does care about certain things, this determines how he thinks it important to conduct his life. The totality of the various things that a person cares about—together with his ordering of how important to him they are—effectively specifies his answer to the question of how to live.”12 In other words, what we care about determines how we play the game of life.13 As will now become apparent, failure to play well until the end of the game may be consequential.
Hanging On in the Second Half
Finally, think about fumbling the ball when your legacy is at stake. Put yourself in the shoes of Jerome Bettis of the Pittsburgh Steelers during an NFL playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts in 2006. After a stellar career as a running back, Bettis was playing in what might well have been his last game as a professional football player. With just over a minute to go in the game, and with the Steelers leading the Colts by three points and seemingly about to put the game out of reach, Bettis fumbled the football at the Indianapolis 2-yard line. The Colts’ Nick Harper recovered the ball and headed for the opposite end zone and glory. But Pittsburgh averted a touchdown and a probable loss of the game when quarterback Ben Roethlisberger made an improbable open-field tackle.14 Having been rescued from the brink of disaster, the Steelers then went on to win the Super Bowl.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was keenly aware of the way contingencies can impinge on our lives. As a result, he pondered whether one can truly pronounce an individual happy before the individual's life is complete.15 I want to suggest that there are myriad ways that individuals can fumble the ball even in the mature stages of life and thereby alter the quality of their lives.
Think of the seasoned politician who, at the peak of her career and facing retirement, succumbs to a lobbyist's offer of payment for “special” considerations. Or consider the middle-aged man who, in a midlife crisis, engages in a sexual indiscretion that threatens to destroy a long-standing relationship. Or think of the alcoholic who, after years of sobriety, relapses under stressful conditions. Occasions for fumbling the ball—tailor-made to our personal circumstances—are present throughout our lives, and sometimes the associated costs are high.
I have outlined only a few parallels between fumbling on the football field and fumbling the ball in the game of life. To be sure, many other parallels could be drawn. When, in Number 6 Fumbles, Rebecca Lowe reacts to the misfortunes of number 6, she responds from a sense of her own life spiraling out of control and her fears of failure and humiliation.
The legendary football coach John Heisman, in whose name the Heisman trophy is awarded each year to the outstanding Division I-A college football player, reportedly said, “Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”16 While these sentiments are hyperbolic, fumbles do have consequences, both on the playing field and in the game of life. This raises a critical question. What happens after we fumble the ball? Indeed, what transpires after the fumble is revelatory and may be as important as, if not more than, the actual fumble. We may find ourselves spiraling downward into yet further complications. Or paths to redemption may open up.
Part 2: Recovering (from) a Fumble
Picking Up the Ball
The typical, almost instinctive, reaction to fumbling the football is to make an attempt to recover the ball. Were no such attempt made, we would hold the fumbler doubly accountable. We want to see the fumbler make an effort to redeem himself and reverse the team's ill fortune. In the case discussed at the beginning of this chapter, Tony Romo recovered his own fumble. He then found himself in a do-or-die situation, and he scrambled toward the end zone. But although he had recovered the football and then attempted to redeem himself, he was unable to atone for his mistake. He did receive another chance at the end of the game, but he was unable to prevail against the long odds. In the short term, all that Romo could do was to acknowledge his responsibility and express his regret.
Sometimes, however, fumbles have happier endings. One may recover one's own fumble and, in doing so, advance the football. This is most likely to occur when, instead of giving up on the play, one puts forth a second effort in an attempt to redeem oneself.
So too in life when we fumble the ball, we are presented with a choice. This choice represents both a test of our character and a revelation of it. We may seek to redeem ourselves in light of what we have learned from our mistakes. Or we may do things that compound our mistakes. We can also choose to do nothing. If we attempt to make amends in light of what we have learned from our mistakes, a process of redemption has already begun. If we repeat or compound our mistakes, we show that we have not learned from our previous errors. If we stand idly by, we depend on the labors of others or on luck.
Lucky Bounces
In the topsy-turvy world of football, sometimes the fumbler receives aid from the most unlikely of places. In October 1964, in a game against the Minnesota Vikings, the San Francisco 49ers fumbled the ball. The Vikings’ Jim Marshall recovered the fumble and ran sixty-six yards into the end zone. Unfortunately for Marshall, he had run in the wrong direction and thus into the wrong end zone. Thinking he had scored a touchdown, he celebrated by throwing the ball away. This resulted in a San Francisco safety. Fortunately for Marshall, the Vikings won the game in spite of his malfunctioning inner compass.17 But at the time of the fumble, the San Francisco 49ers experienced what is expressed in German by the phrase Glück im Unglück (“luck in bad luck”).
So too in life we are at times aided by an undeserved bit of luck that covers our blunders. This is illustrated by what philosophers call “moral luck.”18 “Moral luck” refers to various kinds of factors that individuals do not control but that nevertheless influence our moral assessments of these individuals. One kind of moral luck pertains to the circumstances in which one finds oneself. Thomas Nagel has us consider a truck driver who negligently fails to have his brakes checked. He then runs over a child in a situation in which his negligence is a contributing factor. He has fumbled the ball. But note that the driver has no control over whether the child runs across his path. Had the child not done so, the driver would still be negligent; we could still say that in some sense he had fumbled the ball. Yet by sheer circumstantial luck the driver's life would not be altered forever.19
Saved by Grace
Fumbling the ball is sometimes redeemed through our own effort. Luck also plays a role in covering our sins. But sometimes a path to redemption requires an act of grace—a gift bestowed at just the right moment—to which the appropriate response is one of thanks. When Jerome Bettis fumbled the ball at the 2-yard line against the Indianapolis Colts and the Colts’ Nick Harper streaked toward the opposite end zone, Bettis was redeemed by the improbable tackle made by the Steelers’ quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. It was in some respects an act of grace. To be sure, the analogy is imperfect. It is true that we would have expected Roethlisberger to make the effort. A good teammate would do so. But the point is that Bettis did not redeem himself for his own mistake. Rather, because of his teammate's effort, the Steelers advanced in the playoffs and Bettis concluded his career with a happy, storybook ending.
In the game of life, recovery after fumbling the ball is often aided by an act of grace. Redemption may involve an act of forgiveness by a significant other. It may be aided by a word of encouragement from a friend or counselor. It may come as a gracious act of timely intervention by a member of a support group. In myriad ways recovery and redemption depend on, and sometimes require, gracious acts. Those who have family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers who help redeem their mistakes would do well to consider themselves blessed. Finally, but not least of all, whether on the football field or in the game of life, those who are graced with the ability to forgive themselves have inner resources to help them come to terms with fumbling the ball.
Conclusion: Mercy for Fumblers
In the book Number 6 Fumbles, Rebecca is fraught with anxiety over the prospects of fumbling the ball. But as we have seen, one can take steps to help prevent a fumble. When we do fumble the ball, both in football and in the game of life, there are also roads to recovery. Through our own efforts, through luck, and through acts of grace, paths to redemption open up. Even then the rest of our life's adventure looms before us, but we can carry with us the lessons of the past.
In the game of football, the rules enshrine some leniency to those who fumble the ball. According to the rules, the ground cannot cause a fumble. Some mercy is thus provided for a player who is brought down despite his efforts. Beyond that, piling on is prohibited. Perhaps there are lessons here too for the game of life. We have all fumbled the ball, and thus we are all at times in need of mercy. Given that this is the case, it is fitting that we extend this mercy to others in a spirit of humility.
Notes
1. See “Romo's Botched Hold Grounds Cowboys, Lifts Seahawks,” ESPN.com, http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameld=270106026. Accessed 25 June 2007.
2. It is difficult to resist speculating about the ramifications of the Dallas loss. Had Romo fielded the ball cleanly, would Gramatica have successfully kicked the field goal? Would Dallas then have gone on to win the game (and perhaps further games in the playoffs)? Had Dallas defeated Seattle, would Bill Parcells still have resigned at the end of the season? “For want of a nail …”
3. “Romo's Botched Hold.”
4. The qualification of the statement is necessary since a fumble sometimes results in a net gain of yardage. There are also intentional uses of the fumble. Rule changes have reportedly curtailed this play, but in a game between the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers in 1978, quarterback Ken Stabler of the Raiders apparently intentionally fumbled the ball forward. It was eventually batted into the end zone, where the Raiders recovered it for a touchdown. The play has been referred to as the “Immaculate Deception.” During the 1984 Orange Bowl, on a play known as the “Fumblerooski,” Nebraska's All-American guard Dean Steinkuhler scored a touchdown on a play that involved a fake fumble. See “Fumble,” Wikipedia.org, 25 May 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumble. Accessed 6 June 2007.
5. See Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). . See also Jeffrey P. Fry, “Sports and ‘the Fragility of Goodness,’” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 31 (2004): 34–46.
6. Rachel Solar-Tuttle, Number 6 Fumbles (New York: Pocket Books, 2002), 2.
7. Solar-Tuttle, Number 6 Fumbles, 2–3.
8. For a treatment of some similar themes related to sports in general and life, see Jeffrey P. Fry, “Sports and Human Redemption,” Contemporary Philosophy 26, nos. 3 & 4 (2004): 50–57.
9. Solar-Tuttle, Number 6 Fumbles, 218–23.
10. Quarterback Warren Moon fumbled an NFL-leading 161 times during his career. But there is an upside to this story. He recovered fifty-six fumbles, which is also a league best. See “Records & Factbook. Individual Records: Fumbles,” NFL.com, http://www.nfl.com/history/randf/records/indiv/fumbles. Accessed 26 June 2007.
11. See “Top 10 Embarrassing Performances,” Winnipeg Sun, 3 December 2006. Available at winnipegsun.com.
12. Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 23.
13. For an approach to ethics that has caring as the centerpiece, see Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
14. For details of the fumble by Bettis, see Ed Bouchette, “Steelers/NFL: Bettis’ Mom Sought Divine Help after the Fumble,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 19 January 2006. Available at http://www.post-gazette.com.
Pittsburgh fan Terry O’Neill had a heart attack just after Bettis fumbled the ball while O’Neill watched the game from a Pittsburgh bar. O’Neill stated: “I was upset because I didn't want to see him end his career like that. A guy like that deserves better. I guess it was a little too much for me to handle.” See “Fan Had Heart Attack Seconds after Bettis Fumble,” ESPN.com, 17 January 2006, http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2295603. Accessed 6 June 2007.
15. See Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Oxford World's Classics, trans. David Ross, rev. J. L. Ackrill and J. O. Urmson ([1925] Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 11–23.
16. See John Rolfe, “Magic Words: These Quotes Will Always Stay with Me,” SI.com, 2 August 2005, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com.
17. See “Jim Marshall (American Football),” Wikipedia.org, 19 May 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Marshall_(American_football). Accessed 6 June 2007.
18. See, e.g., Daniel Stedman, ed., Moral Luck (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993).
19. See Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck,” in Stedman, Moral Luck, 57–71, esp. 59, 61.