This might offend my political connects

"When people ask me advice on how to handle a situation or just what to do, they are often surprised when they hear my response: 'What are you trying to accomplish?' There is a subtle wisdom in slowing for a moment and reflecting on what exactly you are doing"

-Patrick Chapin, Next Level Magic

Probably close to 3/4 of the D-Line's points today were off of hucks to people that either myself or MC were covering. Most if not all of them were thrown by Ben.

I think we need to step back and analyze why we go to practice. What are we trying to accomplish? If we are just trying to beat the O-line, great, we're on track. But I don't think that is what the D-line goes to practice for; that's not what gets them out of bed each day.

We go to practice for two reasons -- to make us individually better and to make the team better. At practice we have to be thinking "What am I trying to accomplish?". How much is the team really going to improve if the only way we score is by taking advantage of multiple complete mismatches that will not occur in a real game.

I am not saying that one cannot take advantage of their mismatches; that is simply ridiculous to expect someone to play ultimate to win and not do everything they can to win. What I am saying is that they can take advantage of those mismatches in ways that will improve the team. Make them cut in. Make someone else throw the huck. Perhaps we should have O-Line run zone against the defense to make them practice it.

I think we all know 2x4 can outrun me -- make him beat me on an in-cut. We don't need to watch the same play over and over again to know that certain members of the team don't have the stamina to run savage for an hour and some do.

Hell, win in a different way. We won't face teams that will let us throw multiple 50-yard backhands to wide open cutters. That cannot be the source of 3/4 of our points. We are not improving by conducting practice this way. There will be times when someone puts a good mark on our huckers and we won't have the deep shot; there will be times when a team has a ridiculous deep and we won't have the deep shot.

There is value in learning how to take advantage of mismatches. I do not think there is value in repeatedly abusing the same mismatch because that simply will not happen in a real game. If it does, I think we have done it enough to know how to execute. In practice we do not have the opportunity to adjust to take away a mismatch as we are limited by how many practice bodies we have.

This might seem like an O-Line player ranting because he keeps on losing at practice. Believe me, if O-Line kept on losing and the team kept getting better I wouldn't say a word.

But we're not.