The Curious Case of Matthew Leinart

If I may take a diversion to talk about something that has nothing to do with Japan or anything geeky, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite things in the world: football. Football is a great, incredibly tactically interesting sport. Anyone who has listened to me talk about this before knows that I'm a huge Cardinals fan. The Cardinals moved into town when I was 3, so they were starting up just as I was actually being old enough to remember things. They were so terrible in my formative years that I actually grew more and more fond of them stubbornly defending them to others, trying to explain to others why they should be supportive of the new home team.


Well, flash forward almost 20 years, and here we are. The Cardinals are the two-time defending NFC West champions and two years removed from a Super Bowl appearance, which they were two minutes away from winning (you may have guessed, but this post is sponsored by the number 2). And, as usual, entering this season, they're being written off. Many different factors have caused the write off, so I'll take a brief look at them, from (in my mind) least important to most important.

1. Anquan Boldin traded to the Ravens: we traded our 2nd round pick in 2003 to the Ravens for a 3rd rounder and a swap of our 5th rounder for the Ravens 4th rounder . It seems pretty astonishing that that was all the Cardinals could net, given that the Lions got a first rounder and third rounder for Roy Williams, but them's the breaks. I don't think this one's a huge deal; Doucet was pretty clearly drafted to replace Boldin, and the Cardinals are rich in receivers (especially with Stephen Williams looking unbelievable in camp and the preseason, even with the first team. Not bad for an undrafted rookie. And even if he doesn't work out, at his highest he's our fourth receiver and an upgrade over Jerehme Urban). That being said, Boldin was a great receiver, had the respect of the clubhouse, and always gave his all on every play, and it's hard to replace that. I think the'yll be okay, though.
2. Antrel Rolle signed a free agent contract with the Giants: the Cardinals moved quickly to replace him by trading for Kerry Rhodes. Rolle was a fun player; he clearly wasn't worth his top 10 draft pick status as a cornerback or safety, but he was a solid player who was explosive if he managed to get his hands on the ball. That being said, he was inconsistent in tackling and Rhodes should be better at that area. This may be about a wash, although I'd lean towards a very slight downgrade.
3. Karlos Dansby signed a free agent contract with the Dolphins: this looked like a big deal earlier in the summer, with the Cardinals not having much to fall back on after Dansby left. This looked even more huge when Gerald Hayes went down with an injury that will keep him out a couple of weeks in the regular season. The Cardinals have done a solid job replacing him, though. Paris Lenon, while unspectacular, has been very solid in preseason, and Daryl Washington, the second round draft pick out of TCU has been a monster in the preseason as well, which gives hope that there's some depth there, especially until Hayes returns.
   
4. Kurt Warner retired: this is, of course, the big one. Having QB questions are the surest way for a good team to be not-so-good. Since 2007, Kurt Warner has been playing at a near-Pro Bowl level for the Cardinals and helping the newest incarnation of The Greatest Show on Turf. He's gone now, and left in the wings was the presumed starter in waiting Matt Leinart, the #10 overall draft pick in 2006. Or so we thought.

See, that last point is where this entire train of thought began. In 2006, the Cardinals had a similar situation to what they have now. They had a erratic, disliked quarterback starting with a hot backup waiting in the wings. I am, of course talking about when Matt "the savior" Leinart replaced Kurt Warner to save our 2006 season. Matt played pretty well, throwing for 2500ish yards in his 11 games, including a 400 yard game in Minnesota and a great debut on Monday Night against the undefeated Bears (lost in the "The Bears are who we thought they were!" rant was just how well Leinart played in that game. Seriously, look it up).

In the 2006-2007 offseason, Dennis Green was fired and replaced with Ken Whisenhunt, the ex-Steeler's offensive coordinator. Whisenhunt had Leinart as the starter and Warner as the backup, and the first few weeks of the regular season, Warner would come in for things like two minute drills in areas where he was clearly better. Still, both quarterbacks played pretty well, and the Cardinals got off to a very nice start. Leinart broke his collarbone and was out for the year, and Warner led the Cardinals for the rest of the year, when they finished 8-8, a much better season than they had had in a while.

In 2008, Leinart was the expected starter, but he played very mediocrely in the preseason, while Warner played great and earned the starter role. The next two years are history, as Warner led the Cardinals to back-to-back division titles and four playoff wins. Leinart played poorly, but not abysmally in his appearances, but starting games and coming in as a substitute are completely different animals.

Regardless, 2010 hit, and Leinart was expected to be the starter. Everything coming out of Glendale was positive; his work ethic had improved, the team believed in him, etc.

There's just one tiny little problem: he played efficiently in his first two preseason games, but the first team offense didn't manage a first down in his 5 possessions. He wasn't helped by the offensive line (terrible) and running game (worse), but Ken Whisenhunt, stressing he had made no final decision, named Anderson the starter for the third (and eventually fourth) preseason game. By all statistical measurements, Anderson had been playing worse than Leinart, but he had managed to move the team a bit. Still, though, Leinart had something like an 85% completion rate compared to Anderson's 50%, and Leinart hadn't thrown any interceptions.

This all made me wonder, what had changed? It's not like Leinart not having the world's greatest arm strength was a huge secret. I suppose it's possible that Leinart didn't look like the team believed in him or act like a leader, but this would have manifested itself earlier. In fact, all the shots I heard coming at Matt Leinart were from outside the organization or people who thought they had inside connections, for instance, Cris Carter, who said that Larry Fitzgerald blamed Leinart for the injury, which Fitz denied, (even though it was pretty clear that the pass wasn't that bad and rule changes forcing defensive backs to hit lower is what really caused it).

Really, the only reason this all surprised me was that it looked like nothing had changed. At first I thought this just might be a mind game thing: Whisenhunt was trying to get Leinart pissed off so that he'd play more pissed off with an attitude, or that he was just trying to see how Leinart would respond. There was one last hope I had grabbed onto, though. I'll express it as a fake Onion article:

Ken Whisenhunt Still Can't Believe You Thought He'd Start Derek Anderson

(Phoenix, AZ) "Oh man, you really believed that?" said Ken Whisenhunt, gasping for air between bursts of racous laughter, moments after naming Matt Leinart the starter for the 2010 season. "I mean, you seriously, actually believed we'd start Derek Anderson? No way. Absolutely no way. You're killing me here."

"I mean, he couldn't cut it for the Browns. What made you think he'd be here?"

The newly reinstated starter for the Cardinals also seemed quite relieved. "You know, I was pretty worried, but I could only do what I'm in control. I had to go out and play my best and show my coach and teammates that I'd do what it takes. I mean--okay, I can't do this with a straight face anymore. I can't believe you thought we were serious. Coach Whiz and I came up with this in Flagstaff on the movie day. We thought it'd be a great bonding experience to watch our team rally around me as all the media attacked me. I'd like to thank Jay Glazer and Adam Schefter for playing along, as well as the Raiders, Giants, and Bills for being involved in the "trade rumors". But seriously, you thought we'd start Derek Anderson?"

When asked about whether all the other media was in on it, Leinart couldn't help himself, "Nah, but you know they love any opportunity to ruin someone else to make a name. I mean, a couple of them were in on it, but Cris Carter? Turns out he's just a douchebag."

The new backup was gracious in handling the news. "Man, they sure got me. I mean, I was surprised when I found out they were naming me the starter anyway. Matt had played pretty well, And I did go 2-17 in a game last year. Man, I can't believe I ever believed this."

Ironically enough, Mike Wise of the Washington Post, who had been suspended for fabricating a news story on Twitter, was one of the few people not in on the joke.




Whisenhunt seems like the kind of person who would try to outsmart everyone by doing this. I mean, as I've stated before, we haven't found out anything new about Leinart, and they did refuse to go after a real veteran QB in the offseason (McNabb, anyone?). It seems like they should be as confident with him now as they were before. Sadly, at least in my opinion (believing that Leinart can be a decent QB in the NFL), I'm pretty sure this is all authentic, or Leinart is a fantastic actor. I'm not sure I've seen a player look more unhappy when playing. I watched parts of the Redskins/Cardinals game last night and saw a disengaged teammate with no interest in playing or interacting with the team. And the final dirt on Leinart's grave? He was asked after the game whether the Cardinals had given him permission to seek a trade. His response? "I have no idea. I don't really pay much attention."

Oof. I don't suppose I'll ever understand the football reasons why Leinart is on the way out (if I had to guess, I'd say there's some issue with him and Whisenhunt). Maybe detalis will emerge later on that really explain it, but I don't think there's enough here (and trust me, I've been looking) to logically explain what's gone on. Nothing about him says future Hall of Famer, but he's a fairly smart, safe quarterback, and all told, I'd rather that than someone like Derek Anderson.


What's that? He's our QB now?


#^%$.

Postmortem: Final Fantasy V

Well, beating this game got delayed by everything under the sun, but I finally finished it up last night. I remember this being one of my least favorite FF games. I remember being entirely unimpressed by the stories and characters, although I found the Job System pretty cool and fun.

Well, my impression wasn't all that bad, although I'm pretty sure I underestimated the stories and characters.

Let's get to it!

Good:

• First and foremost, the Job System is one of my favorite systems they've put in a numerical FF game. It has the potential problem (if you think of it as a problem) that all characters are basically interchangable, but it has a lot of fun customization, and you get benefits at the end of the game for basically every class you master. Plus, the classes give a nice variety, although since the melee classes scale better with gear, and you get a lot of good gear at the end of the game from the 12 Legendary Weapons, the melee seem to have an edge.
  
• How awesome is Galuf's sacrifice?
  
• The characters are deeper than I gave them credit for. Galuf's the best character, but the others are at least likable.
• The story at least has one decent twist.

Bad:

• So as much as I said the characters are deeper than I gave them credit for, it's still not the deepest bunch in the world. There are five playable characters in the whole game, which is fine if they're developed well. We learn some information about them that we didn't know before, but very little actual development happens.
• The story's pretty much straightforward. We find out that ExDeath is causing the crystals to shatter. And then, uh, well, we have to stop ExDeath.
• The biggest weakness, in my opinion, of this game is ExDeath. After he gets unleashed, he basically is the evil villain who could finish you off a bunch of times but doesn't. He doesn't have any emotional complexity to him whatsoever (and unlike Kefka, he isn't funny enough to make up for it). He doesn't seem to have much in the way of tribulations; he just kind of ignores the heroes and lets them power up, despite his frequent run-ins with them. Other games do it, but they tend to give reasons why they aren't killing the party (Sephiroth and Cloud with The Reunion, for instance; Ultimeccia never really gets a chance; Kuja has uses for Zidane, etc).

My kneejerk reaction: This is going to move ahead of IV. This will probably still be ahead of X, but I can't see it leaping any of the others. I really like VI-IX, and as much as I liked this more than I remembered, I didn't like it more than I remembered liking those other ones. Solid game, though.

Up Next: Final Fantasy VI

Postmortem: Final Fantasy IV

I just finished Final Fantasy IV. This was one of the first Final Fantasies I ever played (although that was in the FFII version for me), and being as such, I have some pretty good memories of it. Let's go into it:


Good

• This is an unbelievably solid foundation. It's got great framework.
• Rydia's theme is one of my favorite pieces of character music in the entire FF series. The score is strong on the whole, although it's still relatively weak for a FF game.
• Rydia's my favorite character in this game, although Cecil is pretty likable too. She's not hugely developed, although she at least has some inferred dveelopment with respect to forgiving Cecil. Then again, none of the characters are really that well developed.
• The story has nothing particularly objectionable. It's mostly straightforward, but most of the games are. It does have one huge twist, and it's a decent twist (with the Kluya/Golbez/Cecil stuff). Nothing spectacular, but plenty to build from
• It pulls the trick of "the final boss.isn't the person you've been fighting the whole game" without making it seem as if it's a "Hi, I'm the final boss. Let's fight!". I enjoy that trick, as long as it doesn't come from absolutely nowhere.
  

Bad

• Edward. I have some serious complaints about this game, but none registers louder than Edward. He's a useless party member that's basically there to annoy you. I don't think doing this is funny or makes for a good game. I equate this to how much I hate TV Shows that have downright unlikable characters. I don't think it adds anything.
• The level pacing in this game. I feel like most games are best done where the game should be "decently challenging" if you don't go out of your away to avoid or to have lots of random battles. To get it less than decently challenging, you need to do a pretty good chunk more than that. Say what you will, but at some point, it's just not possible to beat the game if the boss's attack one-shots three of your characters, like I did the first time I fought Zeromus. It just was kind of not fun.
  
• The interface in the PSX version of the game is pretty annoying. The memo save is kind of cool, but it's only there because their access of the memory cards is pathetically slow. The worst thing, though, is if you accidentally start a new game from the load screen, you have to wait 20 minutes before you can get into a fight and die, and you have no way to get back. Combine that with the memo save getting cleared if you restart the Playstation, and, well, that's a nasty combo, since you can't simply restart, because you might lose your save.
  
• The characters are pretty stale. They're all kind of black and white (besides Kain, but he's always being controlled when evil) and don't really develop at all. The only real development is Cecil becoming a Paladin, and there's never really any "hard" choices characters have to make. They're just mostly a boring cast of characters. Edge has to be about the least cool ninja I've ever seen.
• The interface needs some help; it could do more things to tell you what different items do. Minor quibble here.
  
• Oh, and Edward.
  

My first impression: I feel like this is going to end up near the bottom of the pile. I like FFVIII far more than most people, which means it's likely to end up in front of FFIV. the rest mostly take the framework that this game built and better it. That's not an insult to this game; it's more of a compliment to the rest..

Up next: FFV.

Final Fantasy Run

As people may or may not be aware, I'm doing a massive replay of the Final Fantasy games. By this, I'm defining as:

Final Fantasy IV - X, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Chrono Trigger (it's that good).

Notable exceptions: Final Fantasy I-III (just a different style of game, and III wasn't released for the PS), Chrono Cross because it never happened.

Maybes: Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2.


After I finish each game, I'll be writing up an entry with my thoughts on it. What I liked, what I didn't like, how it compares with my impression from memory, where I think it'll rank in the overall hierarchy when I'm finished.

Since I just finished FFIV, a postmortem for that will follow shortly.

Follow-up on last night's post

This is going to be a very short post, but it's going to chronicle a thought I've been having:

What if we're presented a lot of the scenes out of order or completely out of the context that we think it is. For instance, we see Kinzo scenes at the beginning of every arc, but we also know Kinzo is dead at the beginning of every arc. I know I wondered yesterday about whether we could trust anything that we're shown without Battler in the frame, so this post may not be saying much, but what if, for instance, all of the scenes we see with Kinzo without a definite time context happen, they just happen way in the past.

Now, of course, this doesn't resolve everything. What happens in Arc 4 for the first twilight obviously doesn't get solved by this. Natsuhi also has some 'splaining to do, given that obviously her "you have the one-winged eagle engraved on your heart" conversation couldn't have happened with the real Kinzo, since Eva putting the paper on the door gives context to when that conversation must have occurred. However, it seems resaonable that the sequence at the start of the series with Nanjo, Genji, and Kinzo could have happened earlier.

Six questions that bother me most heading into Chiru

As I mentioned before, I think really deeply about things that often don't merit it. Anime is one of those things, but this post is going to be about an anime that deserves these sorts of deep thoughts. I am, of course, talking about Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, the nomencalture successor of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai. I've been following the anime for a while. A few episodes before the anime ended (which it did this morning), I was reading the visual novel, but I've still been following along with the anime.

Firstly, the VN is clearly better than the anime adaptation. The anime had to fit itself into a window of time not nearly large enough for what had to get done. I thought for the most part, the first three arcs of the anime held up pretty well. The last arc was enjoyable, but it had such a large number of cuts that I'm really glad I read the VN. At least most of what they cut wasn't terribly important (except the last episode).


All of these thoughts are framed in context of the VN (unless otherwise stated). I'm not protecting from spoilers, so enter at your own risk.


1. Why is the epitaph even important?

It's cool. It gives some mystery to the in-game characters, beyond just the meta-game characters. But what's the point? It's set up to be something really important, but it's essentially ignored from everything we see. The characters in game ignore it (except for arc 3, which I have no idea is true or not). There's a cursory effort spent solving it, but nobody really spends much time, and in the only arc where it is solved, we see very little to give the reader any context at all in which to solve it. We know an atlas seems to be important for dissecting hte first part of the riddle. We also see Kyrie give her dissection of what the epitaph means (where she tries splitting it into first three then four parts). However, we have essentially nothing with which to solve it. Obviously, more on this will come out in Chiru.

Supposedly, it's also something that must describe how the murders must happen. The problem here is that it isn't really literally followed. The first arc is the arc that most closely follows it ,but arcs start diverging after that. The third twilight is only really observed in the first arc. The fourth arc ignores a lot of the twilight parts entirely (the head is gouged twice in the VN, for instance), and it certainly stops seeming like a "resurrection" ceremony.

Just as importantly, the epitaph being solved seems to have no bearing on the game as we understand it now. We've seen it solved once, and that didn't effect that the goal of the arc for meta-Battler was to prove the crimes could be committed by a human. As it stands now, the epitaph is a very confusing red herring: it illuminates nothing and changes nothing, but it sure is tempting to think about.

My feeling on this is that the epitaph has to be important, if only because something that has had that much time devoted to it and seems to be central to the game =has= to be important. I just don't think we have the context to understand why, yet. Maybe we'll see multiple goals for victory: not only does meta-Battler have to prove that these murders could have been carried out by a set of humans, but the epitaph has to be solved before too many (anyone?) people die, giving Ange the happy future she wants.

2.How much that we've seen can we trust?

I've wrestled with this question since the start of the series. I think I'm at the point where I have an answer to this question, but I'm not convinced of its accuracy. My feeling is that we can trust everything that in-game Battler sees/does/hears, and we can trust nothing else. This is why, in my opinion, arc 4 is such a masterful board: Battler gets two different people telling him that magic is happening, and they're people he trusts. But this is a bit of a digression, back to the main point:

I think we can eliminate the thought that everything we see is real. Obviously, if everything we see is real, there is magic, goats, and crazy shit flying all around. I'm willing to just throw that possibility out.

However, if we feel that the only thing we can trust is Battler's vision, then we're left with very little to go on. We're given a bit more in Arc 4 through phone calls and Battler's inspection of the grounds after, but we still don't have very much. I do think it's important to note, though, that before the tenth twilight, there is no occasion where Battler ever observes magic. Given that it feels like part of what the series is trying to say is that anything is possible if everyone who was there believes that it happened, then as long as Battler isn't convinced the magic happens.

The problem is, outside of the context of what in-game Battler sees, there's very little I'm willing to accept as true. I do think, though, that we can say the following (with some textual flourish!):

Everything Battler sees in-game actually happens. Otherwise, we can trust the facts as they are observed by Battler.

It's possible that we'll get more rules as this goes on, but I don't think we have much we can go on beyond that for now.

3. How do the epilogues of these games work?

I think at this point, we can clearly say that there is one beginning and all games start the same. That means everything that happens before in any arc must happen in all arcs. Thus, we get things like:

Shannon smashes the mirror before every arc. Kanon goes to school with Jessica before every arc. And, oh, yeah, Kinzo is dead at the start of every arc.

Far less clear to me, however, is what happens after the events on Rokkenjima. I'm of the opinion that there is one epilogue world that follows all the arcs, and the only parallel that happens is in the different game boards. There's some evidence backing up this theory: most notably, the events in the future shown in arc 4. In this, we find out that someone signing their name as Maria Ushimoriya has left messages in a bottle. Twice. The only problem, of course, was that these messages are contradictory. One of them details the events on Rokkenjima in Arc 1, and the other details them in Arc 2. Eva seems to survive in this future, but she only survives Arc 3 in the first four. There's also the letters (technically these were sent before the games, but) sent to fake addresses with return labels. Obviously these are important, but it's not obvious at all why.

What really happens? I have no idea. Perhaps the real future is a superposition of all of the other futures? I think not, because there seems to be a hint that Battler can change the future if he wins the game. But either all of that other stuff is a giant red herring, or it has to be important. But obviously Battler won't be able to go to 1998 and investigate, which means I can't see us getting more from the future than what we've already been given. Maybe it'll become clear once the game ends, or maybe it'll all be irrelevant. I honestly have no idea.

4. Kyrie Eleison..

And now the topic turns to my favorite of the female adults in this show: Kyrie. Most notably, I want to point out a few things about Kyrie that really interest me. Notably, she has a strange habit for linking in-game Battler to magic, or she disappears in a situation where corpses are relatively easy to fake (I realize that Beato red-texted that there all unidentified corpses are confirmed, but Kyrie still has her face, which means she's not an unidentified corpse. It's a bit loopholey, but, hey, it works). In the other two arcs, she provides some of the only tangible links to magic. From my memory, the first-hand accounts of magic or Beatrice that Battler gets from anyone are something like:

1. In Arc 2, Rosa sees Maria's candy repaired. However, Maria clearly could have been deluded into thinking it was Beatrice if Rosa told her it was, even if Rosa just switched the candy.
   
2. In Arc 2, Kyrie is the one who sees Beatrice in the hall. She is the only non-furniture to actually see Beatrice.
   
3. In Arc 4, Jessica's phone call tells Battler to not try to think and to accept that it's magic.
4. In Arc 4, Kyrie's phone call tells Battler to accept that it's magic.
   

Notice the common thread? I certainly did. I'm not sure what to say about Jessica's call, but the first one is pretty easy to explain without magic, and the only other two involve Kyrie's word of mouth. Remember that there's clearly some strangeness with Battler's birth (I'll get to that in a second), and Kyrie seems like she'd have to be in the know of that somehow.

I'm not going so far as to call Kyrie a culprit, but there's some suspicion there. After all, remember that Beatrice's final mystery is "Who am I?" Does that mean that it's actually one of the 17 people on the island?

5. Rudolf's Unfortuitous Portent

One of the small details that hasn't gotten so much of a mention since arc 1 is something I'm very curious about: notably, before the first twilight in Arc 1, Rudolf tells Battler and Kyrie, acting as serious as he ever does (Battler comments on how surprising this is in the VN), that he thinks he will die that night.

I assume that this gets explained further on, probably in Arc 5, but it's the only time in the whole series that we're given a sense that someone expects this to happen (outside of furniture, obviously). I wish I had more to speculate here. I just have this feeling that this is really important.

6. Battler and his Sin

Speaking of that sin, what could it possibly be? Here's what we know:

The sin I am now demanding that you remember is not between Ushiromiya Battler and Beatrice.
Ushiromiya Battler has a sin
Due to your sin, a great many humans on this island die. No one escapes, all die.
Ushiromiya Battler's mother is Ushiromiya Asumu.
It was from Ushiromiya Asumu that Ushiromiya Battler was born

"It was from Ushiromiya Asumu that I was born" was very notably not red-textable.

You are not Ushiromiya Asumu's son

Ange speculates:


The one who is qualified to be Beato's opponent is 'Kinzo's grandson Ushiromiya Battler', and whether you are 'Asumu's son' or not is no problem. Thus, even if you are not Asumu's son, you can be Kinzo's grandson. As long as you are Rudolf's son!

This seems reasonable. Supposedly the Japanese used here is not actually gender-specific, so it could be just as accurate that these could all be replaced with "Kinzo's grandchild" instead of grandson. I've heard a lot of different theories about this: firstly, it could be that Battler is actually a girl, which makes all of the comments about him being Asumu's son obviously invalid. However, that seems kind of..sneaky to me. Not to dismiss its possibility, but it feels unlikely to me.

This leads us to the events six years ago. Supposedly Battler himself caused some sin. Maybe he accidentally killed the real Battler, and his parents made him assume his identity? I really have no idea what it could be, but it supposedly causes this all to happen. Maybe this is why whoever is really the murderer is killing. Obviously, Kyrie and Rudolf are going to be involved, since they both seem to feel they know Battler's parentage: if it's forged, they should know. My reading of this is that this has to be something Battler did, though. This makes me feel like it was just an accident, but I can't be sure. Obviously we don't have enough information yet to analyze
this, but I feel like it's important enough that it has to be pointed out.


Happy appropriate seasonal greetings, stay safe this Holiday season.

This blog

To those who don't know me: I'm Kevin. I'm a software engineer who works in the Bay Area. I tend to think really deeply about really random, unimportant things. This includes a wide-range of areas, but certainly hits things like software (I do work there, after all), sports (I'm a bad geek), anime (I'm a good geek), video games (see previous), grammar (parallelism), movies, and any wide range of topics (seriously, I'm weird).

Hope you enjoy being lost in my brain. It's a confusing, scary place.