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Choose Your Own Adventure
By Dagger | October 29, 2008
Remember these?? Man, those were the days. Don’t tell me I’m the only one that used to read these books. Back in elementary school “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and Matt Christopher stories like “The Kid Who Only Hit Homers” and “The Reluctant Pitcher” were my thing. I think if you weren’t smart enough to read/follow a Hardy Boys book…you went ahead and grabbed a Matt Christopher book about Hockey or Baseball or something. And if you were feeling really lazy, you’d grab a Choose Your Own Adventure. Fantastic concept. A book that encourages you to skim around and jump from section to section without having to read the entire thing.
Anyways…I’m sure you remember part of the books that may have gone a little something like this:
“You finally escape the frigid air and blowing winds by ducking inside of an empty cave. As you walk deeper into the darkness in front of you, you notice that there are 2 tunnels up ahead. Do you take Tunnel 1 or Tunnel 2? If you want to take Tunnel 1….turn to page 98. For Tunnel 2….turn to page 9.”
You get the idea. I was reminded of these books as I watched Najeh Davenport return kicks this past weekend.
You have the ball in your hands. Great field position is only one slick move away. Fame and fortune will be heaped upon you. Which path do you take? A, B, or C ? Choose wisely.
Najeh chooses route B and falls into a pit of molten lava. The End. You see how much room is on the outside??
Let’s try one more….maybe the next one will have a happier ending.
Choose your own adventure, Najeh. Is it gonna be A, B, or C ??
For a brief moment it looks like Najeh MIGHT try option C but alas, he cuts back into traffic and falls down onto a pile of blockers. Option B once again proves to end in failure. The End.
Hopefully these screens have shown you that with a quicker return man some of the seams here can be taken advantage of. No use having a Kick Returner who plows ahead into the nearest mass of humanity as if he was trying to bust a TD at the goalline. A guy with speed would capitalize on the rare occasion our blockers provide a lane. I guess what we really need is a return man who can choose his own adventure wisely. Hey, Najeh, it could have been worse….your bad decision making could have ended like this:
(and FYI, I was one of those kids who used to skip ahead to each option and read which one sounded better before making my ultimate decision. A cheater, I know.)
Topics: Steelers | 8 Comments »
October 29th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
MMM… Matt Christopher. My favorite was “The Fox Steals Home”. I think these are some of the favorites of a few Steelers:
Nate Washington – “The Kid Who Only Hit Homers”
Mewelde Moore – “Undercover Tailback”
Limas Sweed – “Catch That Pass”
Willie Colon – “The Counterfeit Tackle”
Ben Roethlisberger – “The Reluctant Pitcher”
Santonio Holmes – “Football Fugitive” (or maybe “Challenge at Second Base”? No, maybe not)
Bryant McFadden – “No Arm in Left Field”…?
Alright, I’m done.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
While you were wasting time with Choose Your Own Adventure, I was prepping myself for our future wars against robots by reading “Robo Force” adventures, such as “The Maxx Steele Trap.”
October 29th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
BadMa’afala–
haha those are GREAT
October 29th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Dagger, I did the same thing with those books, but the best endings always seemed to be the ones where you died or were abducted by aliens.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Fantastic post…. I know it has a lot of Humor in it, but putting it aside i think it could be done more often…. not only on returns but on pass plays, run plays, coverage, whatever…
Funny and didatic… heheh
October 29th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
On the first return, there’s an unblocked Giant just waiting for Davenport to try “C”. He may have gained a few more yards by going that route, but I’d rather have my returner run towards the coverage that’s being blocked rather than the coverage that isn’t. As for “A,” he would’ve had to go horizontally from one set of numbers to the other. Even reasonably quick and speedy guys usually don’t do well going horizontally like that. (See: Randle El)
For the second return, you’ll notice that there was a Giants’ player streaking in unblocked that again made “C” a bad choice — he’s at the 32, and Davenport presumably saw him coming in untouched.
I agree that the Steelers’ choice of personnel for their return teams is bizarre, but I don’t think Davenport’s decision-making was as bad on these plays as you’re making them out to be.
Also, the Goosebumps “choose your own adventure”s were the best. :)
October 29th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Jeremy-
but you’re operating under the assumption that the Kick Returner can’t beat one tackler in the open field.
A shifty return man will see the lane outside with one defender and will go that way as opposed to running up into a brick wall if he is confident that he can beat 1 guy.
these are only stills, but in the video it’s really obvious how his lack of speed impacts his decision making and the return unit as a whole.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
There’s a funny book that parodies CYOA books and being a late-twenties/early-thirties man.
“You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero!: Book One in the Just Make a Choice! Series” by Bob Powers
Find it at your favorite online bookseller, available in paperback.
(Not including the link so as to limit the spaminess of this comment. Though I’m in no way associated with it.)
-Cheers