Football a la Aquinas

Is the end of American football to win?

It would seem that it is not:

Winning is not an absolute end.

1. Winning can in no way be certain. If winning can not be certain, then aiming for it will also be an uncertain pursuit. Winning belongs to the genus of objects which can not be reached by grasping for them, such as honor can not be reached by grasping for it. One must pursue virtue if one is to gain honor. Similarly, winning is secured not by the pursuit of it, an uncertain target, but must be secured by the pursuit of something else.

2. A team may win against a team one week and lose to the same team another week. Thus, winning seems a useless thing to keep track of.

3. There will always be a team that loses. Winning can not be the end for both teams or else the matter has moved beyond logic.

On the contrary:

Winning seems to be the end because all of the statistics of American football have to do with scoring, and the team that scores the most, wins. Winning seems to be the end because all practice and training deal with doing a better job of scoring, whether preventing the opposing team from scoring or helping one’s own team in scoring. Teams move into the playoffs and get to play more games because of winning. Players are recognized for their ability to help their team win. Winning keeps the coaches in a job and losing often gets coaches fired. The team who has won the least gets first pick in the draft, obviously to help that team improve its chances of winning by getting the best players available.


Response:

It should be said that playing to the best of one’s ability is the end of football. It is an absolute end, one that can be pursued indefinitely though it might never be perfectly attained. Regardless of winning or losing, playing to the best of one’s ability can always be pursued. In fact, it is in the pursuit of this that one is able to thereby achieve winning. But even if one is unable to win but instead loses, the goal remains the same. In fact, losing is viewed in the right way if playing to the best of one’s ability is the end of American football: first, because in the event that one loses because one did not play to the best of one’s ability, the blame is correctly placed and further motivation is gained to attain more closely to the end; second, in the event that one loses in spite of playing to the best of one’s ability, the player can be satisfied that the end was reached and the other team’s pursuit of the end caused them to win. Each player, coach, and team has unique abilities and can only be expected to manifest them in the best way possible. After that, winning will go to those who are better at winning though not necessarily better in their pursuit of the end. It is fair that some are better at winning than others because each player, coach, and team will have unique abilities and will not be equal. Winning is sought by pursuing the end, to play to the best of one’s abilities. Thus, the best team may be the one most capable of winning by the pursuit of the end, but a team will be deemed good insofar as it is able to pursue the end well.

Addendum:

Ad.1. It should be said that stats are kept only during the game. The game is a test of the abilities of each team to win, not an inclusive record of the team’s ability to pursue the end. Thus, the game is a test to see which team is better at winning by pursuing the end.

Ad.2. It should be said that practice and training deal with equipping one in order to play to the best of one’s abilities. One trains to be the best he can at winning, but one does not train to be the best at winning. Winning can not be reached by training as has been shown and with this further evidence: if a bigger, stronger, faster player tries to the ultimate of his abilities, he will win against the smaller, weaker, slower player, even if he tries to the ultimate of his abilities. The better player thus must not adjust his standard to the worse player, or he will become worse. The worse player must not adjust to the better player’s standard because it is beyond him. He must be satisfied to pursue the best of his abilities. There is, however, so many variables within a game as regarding the team, the strategies, the coach, the weather, ad infinitum that the worse player has good reason to still hope for a win in his pursuit of his ultimate abilities.

Ad.3. It should be said that teams that are the best at winning get to play more games in the playoffs because the purpose of games is to see who is the best at winning. If there are two teams who are better than most teams because their pursuit of the end can better attain winning, then a contest between the two will be a more worthwhile affair because of each team’s proficiency at pursuing its end. If both teams can pursue playing to the best of their abilities perfectly, then the game will be a demonstration of which perfection is better at winning. In this case, with the differences between players, coaches, and teams, there is no one way to be perfect at playing to the best of one’s ability. The only way to be perfect at winning is to never lose and there are perhaps an infinite amount of ways to be even that.