On 49ers-Ravens and Suh's stomp

For those of you not in the mood for some high-fallutin philosophical buzzwording this early in the day, Occams Razor is just a shorter way of saying, You dont need to add a bunch of extra assumptions to explain something, or shorter still, the simplest and most obvious explanation is often the truest.Thus, we bring you the 49ers loss in Baltimore, and Ndamukong Suhs version of Stomp The Yard.The 49ers lost in Baltimore Thursday because the Ravens are very good, played at home, on short rest, and are used to beating the hell out of people. And Suh stomped Green Bays Evan Dietrich-Smith because he is a dirty player who wants everyone to know it.
But lets take them in order, shall we?Sure, you could try to dissect the 49ers because thats what you like to do, but this was simple. Horizontal quarterback-plus-no-running-game-means-no-touchdowns. If theres anything else you saw, youre just repeating a version of that simple rule.Lots of teams have trouble blocking the Ravens; in fact, most teams do, and the Ravens lose when they do not because they cant terrorize offenses but because their own offense terrorizes them right back. So Anthony Davis and Chilo Rachal and Mike Iupati and Jonathan Goodwin and Joe Staley and the tight ends and running backs couldnt block the Ravens at all, and Alex Smith took a right beating.If you want to blame an individual here and there, or go into a long soliloquy about how Smith and Braylon Edwards still havent figured each other out after all this time, youre missing the picture for the signature in the corner. The 49ers are a among group of good but second-tier teams that have to punch above their collective weight to beat other good defensive teams who dont make mistakes, and thats neither an insult or a condemnation. If you take it as such, eat some turkey and enjoy your tryptophan coma. Youve lost perspective and your friends are becoming frightened for you.And Suh? He is clearly channeling his inner Young Ray Lewis, or for you wrestling fans, The Undertaker. He has the image of a dirty player for past misdemeanors, he actually likes it, and he cemented it Thursday morning with the whole nation watching. His explanation that the man upstairs knows what I did, is a silly defense, unless he meant to finish the sentence with and hed suspend my ass too.If Suh didnt want to be thought of as he is, he wouldnt have gone all Riverdance on Dietrich-Smith. Hes too smart a player and an individual not to be able to parse that out.And if he is just a guy with massive impulse control problems, his career will be short, caricatured and spent with a lot of bad teamsa sort of Albert Haynesworth for the post-Haynesworth era.Haynesworth isnt an exact parallel, of course, but Suh has reached the point where he is going to be targeted routinely by officials who have been given instructions to pay him extra heed. Thats what happens with players in all sports who cant figure out the difference between mere homicidal on-field behavior and arm-stomping.Its not more complicated than that. Suh does stupid and harmful things for effect. He has opportunities to change his behavior, and chooses not to. He is not a stupid man by any means. Thus, he must want the image he has cultivated, from players, game officials and the public, or has decided it doesnt matter.Only thats a hard way to live, especially in football, where even Darwin winces at the frontier justice that is routinely metered out from player to player.But the point remains the same. Sometimes looking for the arcane explanation is just a pointless mental exercise. Sometimes you just get beat by a better team with all the advantages. And sometimes youre a dirty player. And most of the time, its as simple as that.