#Like... showing Wilson experiencing things from his perspective for starters

[teardropwolf]

"Oh, thank goodness!"

"...You know, being in your body has its uses. I was able to catch bunnies and grass gekkos with ease."

"Yeah? That isn't really anything new, though. We've experimented this plenty of times before."

"Yes, well... It allowed me to experience what you experience... ... All of it."

"...Oh..."

[junker-town]

Marshawn Lynch left his mark on the Seahawks in his brief return

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Marshawn Lynch gave the Seahawks a spark on the field, and some wise departing words for the younger generation of players.

When the Seahawks needed him most, Marshawn Lynch was more than happy to come out of retirement. The 33-year-old running back rejoined the team after it lost starter Chris Carson and backup C.J. Prosise to season-ending injuries in the same game, severely crippling one of the league’s top rushing attacks.

His return in Week 17 against the 49ers was a big morale boost for Seattle, even if he wasn’t an open-field monster like he was in previous years. The Seahawks used him sparingly at first, primarily in short-yardage situations, and found some success there. Mostly, though, Lynch was a veteran presence who was easy to rally behind, even if the Seahawks would ultimately come up short against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in the Divisional Round.

Lynch didn’t confirm he’s staying retired, but if he does, he’d hardly be departing in a foul mood. The Seahawks gave it their all against Green Bay, and were all happy to have Lynch for a three-game stretch, including two playoff games.

Let’s take a look at what Lynch did on the field, what his teammates said about him, and the departing wisdom he left behind.

Lynch was a trusty goal-line back in his return

Before his return, the last time Lynch played in an NFL game was on Oct. 14, 2018 (against the Seahawks!), when he was on the Raiders. Few expected him to come back from that layoff and immediately rush for 100 yards in a game. In fact, he didn’t eclipse 100 total yards in the three games he played, but he did still manage to score four touchdowns.

The first came against the 49ers, Lynch’s first touchdown since September 2018. And it was a beauty:

If Lynch was absent some of the quickness that made his running extra lethal, he still had an abundance of that “throw your whole damn body at a pile and see what happens” style. As usual when near the goal line, Lynch got in, over one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL.

That touchdown sparked a comeback that faltered only in the final seconds on the back of a strong defensive stop from San Francisco.

Lynch also gave the Seahawks a go-ahead touchdown in the Wild Card Round against the Eagles:

The play above is vintage Lynch. He made a cut inside, which caused the first defender to tackle him low, a fool’s errand. The second defender collided with him full force and actually pushed him back, but Lynch spun around the whole thing and tumbled into the end zone.

He had a pair of touchdowns, both in the second half, in the 28-23 loss to the Packers.

The first was old-school power running — initiating contact at the goal line. He still hit the first player with the same power he showed in his heyday. A couple Packers defenders weren’t enough to stop him there.

Just like they weren’t enough to stop him the second time ‘round, either.

While not quite as impressive as his other three touchdowns, this one was important in getting the Seahawks back in the game. Lynch still made his way through two or three Packers players on his way to the end zone, making it a one-score game in the process. What’s most notable about the two touchdowns against the Packers is that Lynch was running out of the shotgun, but didn’t look slowed by it.

With these scores, Lynch increased his rushing touchdown total in the playoffs to 12, putting him in a tie for fourth place on the all-time list alongside John Riggins and Terrell Davis.

Lynch left his teammates with some wisdom

On the field as well as off, Seahawks players were very happy to have Lynch back in the building.

After the game, quarterback Russell Wilson and head coach Pete Carroll were effusive in praise for Lynch and how he helped those around him. Wilson in particular highlighted Lynch’s willingness to help rookie Travis Homer, the only other healthy running back on the roster. They weren’t the only ones to speak highly of Lynch.

“He’s just the ultimate teammate,” linebacker K.J. Wright said of Lynch shortly after his return. “Cool dude. Just ballin’. So, I’m glad to have him back.”

That speaks to the larger-than-football person that Lynch is. Everybody in the locker room respected the player Lynch was in his first run with the Seahawks, during which he ran for 1,000-plus yards four times, compiling 57 rushing touchdowns and helping them to victory in Super Bowl XLVIII.

His return wasn’t simply an attempt to earn a Super Bowl ring or get a paycheck. Lynch came back because of the bond he has with his teammates and the Seahawks organization. Having been retired (twice) for a time, he’s had some time to experience life on the other side of football and with that came some important wisdom: protect your future.

A lot of professional athletes struggle with money problems after their playing careers end. A decade ago, Sports Illustrated reported that around 78 percent of NFL players ended up with financial troubles after leaving the league — that number may not be accurate as of today, but it still looms large.

Lynch’s full quote about his parting message to his teammates is below.

Marshawn Lynch goes on at length about his advice for young players. The gist: “Take care of your chicken.” Chicken = money pic.twitter.com/dydj7NB0d8

— Joe Fann (@Joe_Fann) January 13, 2020

It’s a vulnerable time for a lot of these young dudes. They need to be taking care of their chicken right, you feel me? If it was me, or if I had an opportunity to let these little young (players) know something, I’d say ‘take care of your money, African, cause that (expletive) don’t last forever.’ Now I’ve been on the other side of retirement and it’s good when you get over there and you can do what the (expletive) you want to, so I’ll tell y’all right now while y’all in it, take care of your bread so when you’re done, you go ahead and take care of yourself. So while y’all at it right now, take care of y’all’s bodies, take care of y’all’s chicken, take care of y’all’s mentals. Because look, we ain’t lasting that long. I had a couple players that I played with that they’re no longer here. They’re no longer. So start taking care of y’all mentals, y’all bodies and y’all chicken, so when you’re ready to walk away, you walk away and you can be able to do what you want to do.

When Lynch was contemplating retirement in February 2016, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported that Lynch hadn’t spent a dime of his actual playing money and was living off of endorsements. It’s safe to say that he takes financial issues seriously, and given the respect that locker room has for him, his wise words likely found its mark.

Together through it all. pic.twitter.com/0xE6ujpYRm

— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) January 13, 2020

And it’s not just a message that’s important for the young guys to hear, either. Veteran linebacker Bobby Wagner was grateful to hear what he had to say and spoke on Lynch’s growing perspective as someone who has lived the post-NFL life.

“It was amazing to have him back,” Wagner said after the team’s loss to the Packers. “He came back and you could just tell he’s experienced a lot since he left. He’s traveled a lot and obviously playing for different organizations and things. And he came back and his willingness to want to share that information with young guys and myself, it was something that everyone in that room is forever going to remember because he shared a lot of things people can take and use, not just football, but in life.

“We really grateful for him coming back and giving us everything he had. It was fun to watch him again, watch him run people over and extend to the goal line. It was special,” Wagner said.

Though Seattle didn’t accomplish its goal of winning a championship, it was indeed fun to have Beast Mode back in action again, if only for three games.

[thebethbits]

where is art?

Institutional critique is a movement that centers on highlighting the social and cultural circumstances, as well as surroundings, of the way art is presented in our society. It focuses on how the “site”, the position or place where you see a piece of art, can influence or impact the meaning of it. The way artists create pieces that fit within the institutional critique umbrella, according to writers Rebecca Seiferle and Lewis Church of The Art Story, is to create “site specific installations that emphasized the indeterminate and the temporal to question the financial, social, and cultural structure of the art world, and the systems of aesthetic evaluation that world employed.” (Seiferle)

Art historians have divided two main generations that have influenced and provided conceptual work under the label of institutional critique. The first having its origins in the 1960s and 70s, where they focused on museums and galleries as organizations, systems, companies that have their own interests and motivations. The second generation, associated with those in the late 1980s continuing to today, takes this focus and expands on it, taking on the addition of the relationship between the artist and the institution, as well as the meanings behind their motivations, both political, financial, and otherwise. (Seiferle)

Fred Wilson, a conceptual artist and trustee of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York city, is a current player in the realm of institutional critique. Much of his work revolves around the idea of self-awareness, for the problems and issues museums participate in when presenting their pieces of art. Wilson views museums as an idea, and that his place within it is “to be a kind of moral rudder in certain ways. To sort of think about why the institution is there, and what it does for the society, and just give the big picture as well as the specific picture of the museum.” (Whitney Stories)

Wilson is a key member of the current generation of artists who contribute to the institutional critique movement, like John Knight, Louise Lawler, Andrea Fraser, Carey Young, Renée Green, Amalia Mesa-Bains, and Barbara Bloom, who are more comfortable within the classification than their previous generation members. Their viewpoints center on how meaning within art throughout history, but especially now within conceptual art, constantly toes and crosses the line between art and politics, across the many different platforms and avenues of art. They argue that this isn’t something easy for museums to sell to their paying attendees, and sometimes it is about pointing out the flaws in the system that museums and galleries may profit from.

John Dewey, who wrote about the experience of art and the spaces that art is experienced in back in the early twentieth century, has a lot of ideas that still have weight and cohesion in today’s current art world. He believes that “art” is not the piece of work itself, but the product of the work and the experience one gets when interacting with it. He supports the unity of all different types of the worlds of art, whether that be traditional drawn or painted pieces, or things like music, or dance, or others. He believes that art shouldn’t be elevated into places like museums, because there they become separated from us, and the experience we have living alongside them is lost. (Art As Experience) 

Traditional galleries and museums have many advantages. One being that they bring the world’s art and histories close to home. For those who cannot travel and go directly to cultures and various cities themselves, museums especially can bring the world close to home, for a substantially smaller price tag. In this way, museums create spaces that exist to chip away at the myths of things we create when we cannot see or experience for ourselves, histories we have not lived. It helps deny inaccuracies that may have taken commonplace meaning in our society. It widens perspectives. 

But there are also many drawbacks to these spaces, as well. The biggest and most problematic of them is the fact that not all of these pieces have been acquired in an honest, or correct way. Many of the pieces being present in museum spaces, majorly, are the product of imperialism, or the loot of wars, or capitalistic decisions, among others reasons. In some ways art can become seen as pieces of stolen history that were taken, unjustly, and should be returned. Another drawback is the monetary value we place on the experience of going to places like museums or galleries. Some are free admission, on specific days or between specific hours, but most, overall, are pay to enter. Like this, we gate keep those who are not in the financial situation to be able to support extracurricular expenditures like visiting museums. This is a drawback, even if it is meant in the best interest of supporting the museum’s well-being, because it keeps those who may really benefit from the experience out.

A picture I took at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which shows Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, presented amongst the humanistic architecture surrounding it, that was expertly planned and carried out. It shows mastery in both sculpture and atmosphere cultivation, an aesthetic that fits well into the idea we usually hold when we think of museums.

Personally, I love the idea of having a space dedicated specifically to the interaction and communication between people and art. Museums and galleries have the purpose of perspective given in them. You go, and visit, and if you are willing, you can come away a little different. It is a place that focuses on worldwide influences, and culture, and their specific ideals, how they differ from our own. A place like this takes us out of the routine of our daily lives and puts us into a new environment, invites us into a new mindspace, invites a different way of looking at the world around us, the world we live in. 

Dewey’s idea that putting art into a space like this does separate and remove it from daily life, puts it on a pedestal, almost, is correct. It’s difficult not to think of art and not see pristinely painted walls, art in extravagant frames. It’s difficult not to see the price of museum tickets and exclusive memberships and overpriced café goods. In this way, a space like this becomes a privilege, the ability to go, to see these pieces, is one that some of us can’t afford. Is that really the idea of the spaces that we want to show, to cultivate? That not everyone is invited in?

It is easy to see all of this, and the rest of the political and elitist parts of the situation, and say that we should try to “fix the art world”. Like it’s easily done in a day. Like it isn’t such an incredibly interwoven part of our own. Like it’s its own special, separated piece of our society, one that can survive on its own, looked over by those with deep pockets and stay untouched by the people in our society that are only looking out for their own best interests, instead of the many, instead of the communities that these museums and galleries are situated in. Like it isn’t, in a way, an environment that is almost primed for the taking, instead of the back and forth, the take and the give. 

Institutional critique, and the conceptual art within it, is an amazing presence who is taking this problem to task. It is the conversation starter, the questions that are posed because they have to be asked. It is the first step that makes others inspired, want to be involved, to become the next generation. It is the road that we will go down to a better world of art interaction and learning. It is the solution in progress.

If it were up to me, I’d try and make museums and galleries more approachable to those of all situations. Come in anytime, donate if you can. Maybe, if support is a big issue in the location of certain museums, we could put on raffles or tiers of donations to encourage donations like this, but in a way where don’t let it become a barrier. 

In another way, I’d ask more questions specifically to the audience that museums aren’t reaching. I’d ask: what are you looking for? How do you get inspiration, and how do you believe we could model our museum experience to help you reach that? How do we convince a technological world that history and abstraction in art is important? How do say to people that it is in the willingness to try and understand that makes the experience of museums? That it is the interaction, the attempt at commonality amongst so many differences? That we have always been history repeating itself, building upon the ruins of our pasts and continuing the traditions, and how important it is to remember them? To continue them? To say their names?

Works Cited

“Art As Experience: Book Club #2 | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios.” YouTube, uploaded by The Art Assignment, 14 May, 2015. URL.

“Whitney Stories: Fred Wilson.” YouTube, uploaded by Whitney Museum of American Art, 12 Dec. 2013, URL.

Seiferle, Rebecca and Lewis Church. “Institutional Critique Movement Overview and Analysis". The Art Story. The Art Story Foundation. 15 Jun. 2017. URL.

[junker-town]

Dan Quinn’s 3-step plan that took the Falcons from 8-8 to a Super Bowl

A thorough game plan and total buy-in goes a long way toward building a winner.

Dan Quinn has had a deliberate plan to get the Falcons to a Super Bowl, and he’s executed it meticulously over his two seasons as the head coach in Atlanta. His approach yielded an 8-8 record in his first season, but 2016 has been a major turnaround for the Falcons, who will face off against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI.

The culture Quinn has established in Atlanta is the driving force behind the team’s rapid rebound.

“I think it’s his consistency of what he’s preaching day in and day out,” veteran defensive end Dwight Freeney said. “I think it’s all about the brotherhood being tight, being together. I think it’s about focusing on the day and conquering the day, competing — that’s his deal. That’s his mentality, and it never changes.”

Quinn was hired by the Falcons following a disappointing 2014 season, which culminated in a 6-10 finish and the firing of then-coach Mike Smith. Quinn inherited a defense that finished that season ranked dead last for yards allowed per game, and an offense that averaged just 23.8 points, with essentially no running game and a weak offensive line.

The Falcons hired Quinn based largely upon his success as the defensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks. In the season before he accepted the head coach job in Atlanta, Quinn oversaw the top-ranked defense in the NFL. But the defensive improvement in Atlanta hasn’t been the key reason for the team’s turnaround.

Early in Quinn’s tenure, certain aspects about his approach were evident: his emphasis on teaching, his dedication to a routine, and the sense of brotherhood he’s instilled between his players and coaches.

As the Falcons get ready for only their second Super Bowl appearance in franchise history, it’s clear that Quinn’s approach is working.

Quinn is a careful planner

Quinn told reporters on the Monday following his team’s decisive NFC Championship victory over the Green Bay Packers that he had his plan for the Super Bowl set before they even took the field on Sunday.

He was confident his team was going to win, and he wanted to be prepared.

“We did all this planning during the bye, during the playoff bye. So I didn’t share that with the staff, but I did do the planning ahead,” Quinn said. “I thought that shift had happened where this team was heading in the right area, and were making the improvements necessary to play really well.”

That’s not a departure for Quinn. His plan for each week is precise, and it’s always the same. When you show up for a postgame press conference on a Monday, you know it’s “Tell the Truth Monday.” The Falcons have Competition Wednesdays, Thursdays are all about the ball, and on Fridays, it’s a focus on finishing.

That systematic approach to preparing each week has helped players maintain focus through the end of a long season and into the postseason.

At Falcons practice, things always feel loose and fun. There’s typically music blasting, and players are dancing and laughing. When players warm up, Quinn often jumps into the line and goes through drills with them.

Dan Quinn going through drills with the Falcons during the week prior to Super Bowl LI.

It’s an easy, comfortable atmosphere, yet it’s much more structured than it feels.

Quinn and his staff are fostering an atmosphere of brotherhood — or “brothership,” as it’s come to be known within the locker room.

The “brothership” matters

What is “brothership,” exactly? It’s the rare combination of brotherhood and friendship the Falcons have developed within the locker room.

The phrase was coined by fullback Patrick DiMarco, completely by accident.

“I was actually saying the team prayer after the game, and I guess I combined brotherhood and friendship and it just developed into brothership,” DiMarco told SB Nation prior to Week 17. ”And we’ve all been riding this brothership for the last 10 weeks or so.”

Every player on every team in the NFL would probably attest to the idea of his teammates being like brothers, but in Atlanta, they live it.

Cornerback Deji Olatoye is a name you might not be familiar with on Atlanta’s roster, and that’s the reason he has a unique perspective on the Falcons’ locker room.

Olatoye is a journeyman who has spent time with four different teams since being signed by the Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted free agent following the 2014 NFL Draft. He said he’s never experienced anything like the culture Quinn has created in Atlanta.

“The difference from my experience is the brotherhood is real,” Olatoye said. “When I first got here, not many teams, you could walk into the locker room and have everybody saying ‘What’s up?’ From Matt Ryan, to Julio, to Matt Bryant.”

It’s one thing for star players to acknowledge a new teammate. It’s another thing entirely when the head coach takes the step of investing in players who may never see the field for a meaningful snap in a game.

“Everybody talked to me. I met with Q the first day I got here. There’s been teams I came in, the head coach didn’t know my name until I got (on the) active (roster),” Olatoye said. “So it’s the brotherhood, the bond they’ve built here, and they take care of it. They make sure everybody protects it. The team’s number one over everybody.”

Linebacker Paul Worrilow said this bond between players isn’t something that has come easily, but the closeness in this locker room has been worth the effort it’s taken to build.

“It takes work. It takes the ping pong. It takes effort outside of the building,” Worrilow said. “At least linebacker-wise, we’ve got a group text always going with jokes, anything — we’re always getting with each other that way.”

What’s remarkable is the camaraderie this team has built within an environment that emphasizes competition — not just with opponents, but against each other on the practice field.

Competition is a constant focus

This offseason, the Falcons redesigned the locker room. Lockers were narrowed and redistributed around the perimeter of the room. Ping pong tables and leather recliners now stand where lockers once divided the room, as a subtle way to encourage friendly interaction between teammates.

But there’s more to it than just that. Those ping pong tables foster the competitive spirit Quinn knew this team needed to embrace in order to win.

“Not only do they want to spend time together out of the building, but in the building too,” Quinn said. “Having that competition is something as small as ping pong, just to go battle for it.”

Kicker Matt Bryant has been in the league since 2002, and he said the ping pong tables create a departure from the standard locker room environment.

“That’s the biggest difference in 15 years,” Bryant said.

It started in the preseason, when Quinn had Navy SEALs come in and work with the team.

The SEALs put players through workouts and classroom sessions, and players saw it as a turning point.

“That was huge in setting the standard, and I think that’s kind of one of the first stepping stones, and then it’s just continuing to grow from there,” DiMarco said.

Quinn’s culture shows up in different ways, like how players have enthusiastically adopted the little mantras he gives them each week.

You’ll often see players walking around the locker room wearing shirts that represent the attitude Quinn wants to play with — sayings like “Unf*ckwitable,” or “The only fight that matters is the one you’re in.”

On the Friday before the team left for Houston, nickelback Brian Poole was at his locker wearing an “Arrive violently” shirt. He said Quinn has urged the defense to do exactly that.

“I take it personally when coach challenges us to really do anything,” Poole said. “So whatever it is, I just kind of embrace it and try to add it to my game.”

That mindset translates to the football field, too. In the playoffs, Poole stopped Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson short of a first down with a hit that had Quinn’s signature all over it.

Poole, an undrafted free agent rookie out of Florida, has earned starter-caliber snaps in the nickel role for Atlanta. The coaching staff sincerely believes that the best players should be on the field, and that’s not something every young player gets to experience.

“It’s a great feeling, just knowing that here I’ve got a fair shot at anything,” Poole said. “It ain’t really no seniority or anything like that. Coaches just give everybody opportunities and a chance to show what we can do, and really, my job is just to embrace it.”

The coaches also issue black jerseys to three players each week. Those jerseys signify that each player has embodied the competitive standard Quinn has implemented.

Worrilow was the bearer of one of those jerseys in the week following the NFC Championship win over the Green Bay Packers.

“This is the first year and team I’ve been around where they hand that out and they recognize guys, because we preach competition and how good can we get each other, and that just really lets guys be known amongst teammates who was putting in the work that week,” Worrilow said.

“Every week, every Friday you wait and see who they put up in the PowerPoint,” Worrilow continued. “So any time you get that, it means a lot, because it’s your service toward your teammates.”

“Iron sharpens iron” is a favorite saying of Quinn’s, and it’s a sentiment he encourages his players to live by.

The locker room feels different from last season. Even during Atlanta’s hot start in 2015, when the Falcons jumped out to a 6-1 record before losing six games in a row, the atmosphere wasn’t markedly different from the 2014 season.

This season, players have wholly bought into Quinn’s mentality.

DiMarco said the success the team has experienced has helped.

“As competitors, we want to win, and when you buy into something like that and the process kind of kicks in and you see results, that’s when it really starts to grow there, too,” DiMarco said.

Free safety Ricardo Allen said that perhaps the most important element of the culture in Atlanta is the accountability to teammates.

“Last year, our brotherhood wasn’t as close as it is this year, but this year, our brotherhood is so close, when things are not going right and we see things about to go wrong, I’m not scared to tell Keanu (Neal) he’s wrong,” Allen said. “Keanu’s not scared to tell me I may be wrong. (Desmond) Trufant and Rocky (Alford), they’re not scared to come and tell me, like, ‘Rico, we need you to do this.’”

The players believe the standard they hold each other to can propel them to their ultimate goal.

“If it’s not right, it’s not the standard, and we’re not scared to push that envelope,” Allen said. “We’re not scared to push that, and we don’t take it personal, because we will love each other. But we know that we’re going for it all, and if you have gray areas, it’s not going to work.”

The commitment to Quinn’s approach has gotten the Falcons this far, from a middling season one year to a Super Bowl appearance the next. The players are confident it can get them one step further: bringing the Lombardi Trophy to Atlanta for the first time ever.