Super Bowl Sunday is, of course, the great American holiday. Past years have seen inspirational performances by Joe Namath, Joe Montana, and Janet Jackson. This year pits the New Orleans Saints against the Indianapolis Colts. New Orleans, of course, is known as a city of saintly behavior, while Indianapolis’s claim to fame involves horsepower in some tangential way.
When faced with contests of ritualized violence, we like to look for the science. So check out this video of Saints quarterback Drew Brees participating in a rigorous laboratory experiment by throwing the ol’ pigskin at an archery target. Joking aside, that is some pretty sick accuracy there.
Impressive that a human arm beats a bow and arrow for accuracy (although it’s not completely clear that the distances and conditions were perfectly analogous). All in the wobble, apparently. But if I were defending my castle from the barbarian hordes or something, I’d still prefer archers over some guys throwing footballs.
I thought the video was a lot of fun to watch. I was stunned by Brees’ accuracy.
Hell some people here might have been quarterbacks.
The Cleveland Browns once had a quarterback, Frank Ryan, with a Ph.D. in math. He was a pretty good player, although not outstanding by NFL standards.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1077719/index.htm
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Not to belabor the point, but archers shooting at 20 meter shoot at a 40cm target, (1/3 the size of the one shown, and using the type of bow shown (compound – a type not allowed in Olympic competition), need to hit the inner 10-ring for a 10 (the smaller circle).
Good archers can hit 25 out of 30 regularly, with all 30 being 10’s an 9’s … again with a gold spot 1/3 the size they are showing.
Olympic archers shoot exclusively at 70 meters, and the full size target you see in the video (120 cm) with a type of bow (recurve) that is inherently more difficult to shoot with the same accuracy as a compound bow.
Actually back in the day Redskin QB Sammy Baugh did knock out a pass rusher by hitting in the face with FB.