The premise of Bill Simmons most recent column is this: Bill Simmons sends an email 25 years into the past to the eighth grade Bill Simmons. This reeks of deadline floundering. I almost didn’t click through. But Simmons actually has a thesis. For sports fans, life is good, as evidenced by the things we complain about. For example:

ESPN’s Web site doesn’t put all the baseball and basketball box scores on one page like a newspaper does, so every night, you have to click on each individual game to see the scores. You will complain about this….

Sometimes on Sundays, when you’re checking your up-to-the-minute fantasy scores on whatever Web site you’re using, so many people are checking at the same time that the site will load slowly. You will complain about this….

I once participated in a fantasy baseball league in which the commissioner heroically typed stats into a spreadsheet from the pages of USA Today every week. We almost had to throw out the first three weeks of the season because our guy used an AVERAGE function to calculate staff ERA instead of entering individual innings pitched and earned runs.

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Gregg Easterbrook made an observation in his November 6 column that got me thinking. Here’s Easterbrook:

The Colts ran early, hoping to wear New England down. On most passing plays, Peyton Manning was in the shotgun spread; on most rushing plays, under center. This cue seemed so obvious and basic that I assumed the Colts had in store lots of passing plays with Manning under center. Instead, through most of the contest, whether Manning was in the shotgun or under center told you what the action would be. Umm … don’t expect New England to miss this kind of thing.

I’ve played a lot of flag football in my time. Most flag football games redound with goofy plays. You’re in the huddle and someone says, I’ll be quarterback and I’ll roll right and throw a lateral back to Lyle on the left sideline and then Lyle looks for Slim deep on the stop and go.

But I’ve also played many games with quarterbacks (and they always have to be quarterback) who care only about execution. Every play is a square out or square in. Always 15 yards. The idea is, if the quarterback and receiver execute, the defense doesn’t matter.

I hate playing with those guys.

Now back to the NFL. Why was Indianapolis so unimaginative? Perhaps Dungy is an execution guy. He’s going up against the best team in football. So he tells himself that New England is too good to be fooled. Instead of adjustments he focuses his team on execution.

I don’t know about Dungy, but I’m convinced that many coaches fit this mold. Think Jim Mora. The more important the game, the more condensed the game plan. Keep it simple. Win with better execution. Then lose.

This is not the Bill Belichick way. He is Mr. Fun.

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