One thing sports fandom constantly reveals is how confident we get with very limited information.
Football is the clearest example. A QB throws an interception and it's instantly "his fault," even though the receiver might've run the wrong option, slipped, or adjusted the route. A DB looks like he blew coverage, but in reality he could be exactly where he's coached to be and someone else missed their assignment. From the broadcast angle, it all looks simple. On the field, it's layered decisions, trust, and timing we can't see.
We call this armchair quarterbacking, but at a deeper level it's about mistaking outcomes for understanding. Seeing what happened isn't the same as knowing why it happened.
Sports should be the easiest place to learn this lesson because the stakes are low. Being wrong costs nothing. It's a safe environment to practice humility about what we don't know. Instead, we often double down on certainty.
That's not really a football problem it's a human one. And if we struggle to recognize hidden complexity in something as trivial as a game, it's worth thinking about how that mindset carries over into areas where the consequences actually matter.
Football is the clearest example. A QB throws an interception and it's instantly "his fault," even though the receiver might've run the wrong option, slipped, or adjusted the route. A DB looks like he blew coverage, but in reality he could be exactly where he's coached to be and someone else missed their assignment. From the broadcast angle, it all looks simple. On the field, it's layered decisions, trust, and timing we can't see.
We call this armchair quarterbacking, but at a deeper level it's about mistaking outcomes for understanding. Seeing what happened isn't the same as knowing why it happened.
Sports should be the easiest place to learn this lesson because the stakes are low. Being wrong costs nothing. It's a safe environment to practice humility about what we don't know. Instead, we often double down on certainty.
That's not really a football problem it's a human one. And if we struggle to recognize hidden complexity in something as trivial as a game, it's worth thinking about how that mindset carries over into areas where the consequences actually matter.
