In Franz Kafka’s masterpiece, The Trial, we find that Josef K. managed to get into trouble with the authorities without having done much harm. He (and we) are immersed in a dazzling absurdity of quasi-legal bureaucracy, in which Joseph is constantly lost, is not helped and is not ridiculed because he does not sufficiently respect an arbitrary and unfathomable process.
Comparing the NFL in practice with the process is of course unfair, because there is a) a set of rules and B) a vaguely consistent narrative drawn from this set of rules, and c) we certainly know what “a catch”is. But, from time to time, the rhythms and rhythms of an NFL game perfectly match the comic absurdity that has been authoritative for poor Josef K. I believe the Miami Dolphins touchdown is such a game.
A false field goal or punt on the fourth and a yard line goal immediately and wholeheartedly plunges us into the realm of the surrealist. In fact, Miami is trying to impose a whole new reality on the Bengals, who are fully aware of what’s wrong with the Dolphins taking a punt formation 50 inches from the target, but have no idea what form the madness will take. (This is how I imagine the Virtual Humans of the fumble dimension, everything that Kofie and Jon do to them in a particular episode.)
Miami’s goal was to confuse and destabilize their opponents. And it worked! Telegraphing their fake punt / field goal / regardless confused the poor Bengals so carefully that certainly-non-punting Matt Haack took a direct snap and slowed his way through the discombobulated defense for a touchdown. And then it got really silly*: the touchdown was canceled for illegal training.
* I positively refuse to say “kafkaeske”, which is a ridiculous and ugly word. Maybe Kafkaïc?
A non-punt-non-touchdown is interesting for purely semantic reasons, but what makes it even more interesting is that the training looks like … legal? So the Dolphins had a non-punt touchdown that was turned from a legally illegal formation into a non-punt touchdown; which I find absurd enough to please the imaginary version of Franz Kafka, who was great in the NFL.
The true crime of dolphins here, according to my old friend Rodger Sherman, was a failure of the trial: “linemen who wore unjustified numbers, who ended up in legitimate positions, did not declare themselves eligible.”Of course you should have it, but the fact that you need it and failure costs Miami points is naturally rewarding. Paperwork is part of every sport, but only in the NFL could it ever live so close to the surface.
Miami may have been the ones who were specifically sanctioned without doing much harm, but they’re not really the victims here, especially since they won the game 19-7. In the lawsuit, Josef K. allegedly represented the author, the audience, or perhaps both; in this case, we were deprived of the pleasure of watching the Bengals watch one of the stupidest games in recent history. On the one hand, I certainly had not done anything that would have been worthy of denying me this pleasure. At least not that I’m aware of it.
* Strictly speaking, we saw it, but the flag reduces everything to the quality of the dream, fun at the moment still irretrievably damaged by contact with raw reality.