Every champion needs a rival
60 comments
·July 30, 2025lordnacho
tunesmith
It's just that they take turns. The top rivals in darts, or pool, or any other turn-taking game is the same way. They have to react to what their rival left them.
lordnacho
> there are people on both teams who really are tackling those guys.
This is the critical distinction.
Peyton isn't deciding the defense when Brady is on offense. Brady isn't reacting to whatever Peyton left on the pool table or the dart board.
cjpearson
It basically comes down to the face that the quarterback position has an outsized importance in the game and those players become the face of their franchises. They are often credited with wins and losses despite those being a team stat.
Some of the players do find this fan/media obsession strange. They may be asked about playing against QB X and reply that they're actually playing against the opposing defense.
There are rivalries between players who are on the field at the same time, but they're less prominent. Those between a wide receiver and cornerback are probably the most common. Throughout the game they are racing, pushing and deceiving each other and fighting over the ball and it can become heated.
However, it's also possible to have a competitive rivalry without directly facing each other on the field. In individual sports like golf this is the only way. But in other sports players can also compete with each other on some individual aspect. In baseball, the 1998 HR chase and Dimaggio brothers are some prominent examples. In Brady's case he had a strong desire to be number one. The threat of Peyton winning MVPs over him, having better statistics than him or Peyton's team winning over his was a strong motivator for Brady to protect his status.
ccppurcell
Yeah I came to make the same comment. But Messi and Ronaldo didnt play each other that many times in the grand scheme of their careers. A big part of the comparison is statistical. Trophies, records and so on. Tennis might be a better comparison because to win a grand slam, Sampras really had to beat Agassi.
iainmerrick
I don’t disagree with your general point, but Messi and Ronaldo absolutely have played directly against each other a decent number of times — a quick google suggests 30 head-to-heads in the “clasico”, supposed to be one of football’s biggest rivalries.
furyofantares
Quarterbacks start with the ball ~at the start of almost every play and one of the two quarterbacks is in possession of the football for the majority of the game. They are BY FAR the most important individuals in the game. Receivers, tight ends, and running backs get some attention too because they are also individually fairly involved, but plays are split between ~5 of them.
I think much of the same is true of pitchers in baseball as of quarterbacks in football, except pitchers only play something like 1 in 6 games, and these days it's very rare for them to pitch a complete game.
hangonhn
Wow. That's such an interesting observation. Two major uniquely American sports have this pattern: QBs in football and pitchers in baseball. I wonder if it is just a coincidence of history. I guess cricket has the same pattern as well?
dylan604
If you think that's interesting, did you ever consider that baseball is the only sport where the defense has the ball?
bbarnett
But the goal is to use your defense (bat) to prevent the offense throwing the missile at you, and blowing up your home(plate).
Ah, politics. It's all perspective.
leosanchez
Cricket?
gerad
Goalies in hockey, and whoever the best player is on the team in basketball. ;-)
dylan604
It's about stats, not head-to-head play against the rival. Each week the teams are not playing against each other, but the rivalry still exists. Also, these come into play with fantasy leagues. You want your player to have a good week while the others have bad weeks. That Ronaldo v Messi you used as an example also doesn't happen on a weekly basis. Maybe a couple of times a year at best, yet they are still rivals. I'm also confused on when you would have sen Ronaldo track back to be competing for the same ball that Messi would have been playing.
pimlottc
A rival isn't the same thing as an enemy. Rivals are equals that compete for the same goal (e.g a championship). They do not have to compete head-to-head.
For example, academic rivals compete in the classroom to have a better GPA, business rivals compete to win more customers and sales, etc.
amradio1989
Its not really dissimilar to sports like golf, gymnastics, track and field (the high jump), etc. I certainly believe there can be rivals in those sports, so I don't see why we'd exclude football QBs from this conversation.
That said, American football is altogether inferior to the real football.
temp_praneshp
Nah, soccer is real boring, would take American Football anyday.
oumua_don17
There has never been a rivalry in any sport better than that between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
charlesabarnes
This sort of competition drives every goal I have. Identify a rival to benchmark myself against and to hold myself accountable.
I am surprised to see that he turns it into a "true enemy" relationship where the other party is "taking" something for you. I think that is perfect for sport rivalries, this sort of thinking probably wouldn't be the best for most readers of this.
cadamsdotcom
Competition leads to great outcomes - in society, in business, in sports.
In sports the rules are the same for all, and opportunities are made reasonably equal because that tends to lead to the best entertainment.
The same is not true in business where unfair advantages are celebrated. Unfortunately this doesn't always lead to rivalry and often leads to monopolies which impede progress.
If business was treated more like sport, we might have a very different society!
dmvjs
i think this speaks to the power of competition but not “every” one works this way
Animats
That's why capitalism is in trouble. No rival.
Having communism around kept capitalism honest. Without competition, it turned into "Greed is good, greed works". The best years for American workers were the post WWII years, when communism looked like a real threat.
lizardking
When the rest of the industrial world is destroyed, it turns out to be a pretty good time for your workers.
lukebechtel
Wow, interesting point. Not sure I totally agree -- but it made me have the amusing thought:
"Maybe we need metacapitalism."
thinkingtoilet
I would argue the social-democracies of Europe are exactly what that is. The idea the free market can address so many things better than any other economic model, but maybe ruthless profits shouldn't drive health care.
dumama
Agreed. The market needs to be well regulated in order for it to be tuned for human well-being rather than just greed. It's clear that ruthless profits can't be your optimizing function when it comes health care, housing, education, and environment.
kryogen1c
>That's why capitalism is in trouble. No rival.
Isn't this an oxymoron? Isn't regulated free market competition a foundational principal of capitalism?
Animats
The point I'm making here was well understood in the post-WWII era. Here's the cartoon version: "Meet King Joe".[1] The more serious version, "Despotism".[2] The hard sell version, "How to lose what we have."[3] All of these were produced for industrial companies.
It's worth understanding how this was viewed by the generation that won WWII.
[1] https://archive.org/details/MeetKing1949
dzonga
wow!! thank you for bringing up these videos.
seems also then the american elite lost the way -- engaging in financial engineering rather than actual production.
schmidtleonard
Nope. Private capital allocation decisions are the foundation. It is a mistake to mix this with wishful thinking, the same flavor of mistake as claiming "socialism is about making economic decisions that reflect the will of the people rather than the will of the rich," it assumes success at the aspirational principle when that assumption is something you must avoid at all costs if you want to understand success/failure at achieving the aspirational principle. Instead, a discussion about the foundation of a system should be very carefully confined to what the system actually does: capitalism is about private capital allocation decisions, socialism is about public capital allocation decisions, and in practice everything is mixed.
Anticompetitive incentives and behavior are a natural emergent property on top of the private ownership foundation: network effects, platform effects, last mile dynamics, dumping, hell even economies of scale are intrinsically anticompetitive at the same time as they are intrinsically beneficial. Regulation to restore competition amid these natural anticompetitive tendencies can keep them in check and most people would agree this is generally a good idea -- but most people don't make the capital allocation decisions and most people don't learn about the world except through media controlled by people who do, so not only are the regulations 3 stories above the foundational principle, they are doubly insulated from effectively checking the dark forest on the second story by the very nature of the foundation itself.
You have probably heard about how misalignment emerges in socialism, because that is a story the jedi would tell you: capital allocation decisions made without skin-in-the-game accountability tend to cause malinvestment because as far as elected representatives are concerned the job is the product. Of course, a socialist government is aware of this tendency and tries to control it, just like a capitalist government is aware of anticompetitive tendencies in its own economy and tries to control them. The degree of success varies.
When there is nothing to compare against, propaganda can hide almost any mismanagement, so I am glad that we seem to be entering a second period of genuine competition. I'm less glad that this brings with it a second period of genuine "hopefully we don't kill each other / ourselves," but so it goes.
reverendsteveii
capitalists have rivals, but capitalism does not
dylan604
So, when did communism go away?
xavdid
If you're interested in some (light) science behind rivalry and/or the Michigan/OSU rivalry, I highly recommend the documentary "Rivals: Ohio State vs. Michigan". It's a fun look into why a rivalry drives better performance.
hangonhn
Highly recommend the movie "Rush" about the F1 rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt. The movie is highly dramatized but this is one of the themes.
tsaifu
incredible movie. supposedly does james hunt dirty though
CSMastermind
Seems like he's following a ridgid structure in his blog posts (reflection, learning, application). Is this a common framework? I've seen similar things but not this specific one before.
sandspar
He's not a writer. He may have reasoned that he has lessons to share but lacks writing skills, so he relies on a framework. In art history, some of the greatest painters were people who were witnesses at the right time and place - we love their work today not for their craftsmanship but for their perspective.
insane_dreamer
Counterpoint: Federer and Nadal had a long friendship throughout their rivalry.
pedalpete
Rivalry and competition does not mean enemy.
Can you imagine what life would be like for either Federer or Nadal if the other didn't exist? It might be quite boring to play knowing you're always going to stomp every competitor.
Use your competition to make you better, not just prove how good you are.
This is the attitude we see in great competitors who get beyond their ego.
[Edit] - what I originally commented wasn't a great example, so I re-wrote it.
insane_dreamer
Did you read Tom’s post all the way through?
reverendsteveii
thesis: every champion needs a rival to draw out the best in them
antithesis: there is nothing about the existence of any other person that changes what my best is or whether I deliver it
potential synthesis: I am my own perfect rival. I am right at my skill level, my career is a perfect parallel to my own, I don't need to look outside myself for a reason to improve and I can always do a little better than I did last time.
dgfitz
actual point: if I'm the best at what I do, and nobody is pushing to become better than me, I will stagnate because nobody else has exposed a better possible pinnacle.
Iron sharpens iron.
boogieknite
the greatest i know of are interesting characters because they can invent rivals and adversity where none exists. this comes across oddly and makes for great stories about their mania for competition
dgfitz
The greatest I know of are actual paradigm-shift athletes. We must not watch the same games.
reverendsteveii
This doesn't preclude that though. Maybe it's because I'm a weightlifter and while we compete with one another we really don't, but my own numbers can be my rival. In fact, they're a much more effective rival than anyone else at the gym because they can never be permanently beaten, they can never retire, they will always demand more. If I wake up tomorrow and through some miracle I'm the best weightlifter on earth and can bench a 1000 pounds, 1005 pounds exists whether someone else can lift that much or not. If you're Tom Brady you don't need Peyton Manning in order to throw more touchdowns and fewer interceptions, you need to throw more touchdowns and fewer interceptions. If your rival has a career-ending injury does that define your pinnacle? Not if you're actually in competition with yourself it doesn't.
dgfitz
This is very simply refuted: you're not one of the 5 strongest people in the world. Brady, Manning, were the best at what they do, top 5 in the world at the time they played and to this day.
When you're not competing with yourself, it's an entire world of difference.
edit: typo
darod
2 tom brady posts on the front page in one day?
hamrocksissors
and zero peyton manning posts, interesting
pedalpete
That's not where Peyton Manning is competing!
What I find interesting about American Football is that the QBs are considered rivals, despite never being on the pitch at the same time. Messi and Ronaldo actually appear on many images contesting the same ball, Peyton and Brady you'd struggle to find pictures other than the post-match handshake.
Why isn't the rivalry considered to be between the QB and someone on the defense? There's actually two matchups in an NFL game (plus specials but whatever), the two offense versus defense pairings. It's odd to make the rivalry about two guys who aren't directly tackling each other, when there are people on both teams who really are tackling those guys.