The Myth of the Force

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The force can have a strong influence on the weak minded.

-Old Ben Kenobi

Here's the truth: the force doesn't work.  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking: "LIAR! I've seen the force work with my own eyes.  I've played on teams where holding the force has gotten us tons of great Ds."  Be patient and I will try to explain the difference between what you've seen and what you think you've seen.

What you've seen

A team assembles on the line and is about to pull.  The puller looks around after everybody decides who their covering and says, "force home."  Then, after several defenders remind each other which way "home" is, the disc gets pulled.  The point then plays out with typical passive marking on throwers and receivers.   

Typical marking technique displayed with panache.

But, low and behold, at the non-elite level about 65% of the time, the disc gets turned over. (Notice that I did not write: the defense forces a turn.  I didn't write that because that only happens about 5% of the time.  The other 6o% of turns just come from offensive throwing and catching mistakes.)  The defenders feel good about themselves 65% of the time because they have done they're job.  They didn't allow the offense to score.  And, unfortunately, because of human nature, they create a narrative about what happened when they were on defense.

This narrative goes something like this: whenever we're on defense and there is a turn, then it was because our defense did something right; and whenever the offense scores on us, then it was because we either got unlucky or because the defense "broke down."  The trouble with this narrative is that it doesn't accurately describe what happened.  

But, it doesn't make anybody feel good to say: whenever we're on defense and there is a turn, then it was probably a random occurence; and whenever the offense scores on us, then it was probably a random occurence.

Sadly, the second narrative is much closer to what is really happening.  But, let's leave this alone for now.  Instead, we'll focus on what results from our belief in the first narrative, which is a blind faith in whatever strategy the defense was engaged in when the offense turned the disc.  And, since most teams play a standard man to man defense with a force forehand, this force forehand gets credited for all of those turns.  This causes everybody to become more attatched to the force forehand defense because of it's "success".  Therefore, teams play force forehand almost exclusively on defense and cycle self-perpetuates.

The above is the myth of the force.  It is a pervasive, yet flimsy, fallacy.  We could just as easily show that having defenders who all wear red shirts causes turns because whenever all of our defenders wear red shirts the offense turns the disc 65% of the time.   Both the red shirt fallacy and the force myth are examples of specious reasoning.

What has actually happened

Let's examine the typical first throw of a point once the defense has pulled disc out of bounds and given themselves time to walk/jog down the field and setup the force on the offense.  The handler on offense sets up at the brick in the center of the field and the marker establishes a nice passive mark allowing a clear throw to the forehand side.  The defenders marking the receivers in the stack setup on the forehand side of their receivers in a passive attempt to direct their receivers to cut to the break side.  The receivers, of course, do not cooperate and immediately run past their markers to the force side for the easy catch.

If at any point during this fruitless exercise the marker on the thrower were to glance over his shoulder to check his defensive support, he would  be greated by the nauseating vision of wide open receivers with defenders trailing after them.

The field defense from the marker's point of view.

It should be obvious that no matter what the result of the initial throw is: the force has failed.  It has failed at the point of attack: the marker is allowing a free throw to the force side.  And it has failed in the field: the field defenders have provided little to no resistence to the receivers in getting to force side.  If the initial throw sails over the head of the open force-side receiver, we can all agree that the turn was caused as much by the force as it was by the red shirts worn by the defenders.

But what if the disc is miraculously d'ed by a speedy field defender.  Can this exquisite defensive result be attributed to the force?  Probably not.  As we said previously, the force allowed the thrower to make a perfectly comfortable forehand throw, so that cannot factor into the D.  What about the field defender's ability to get to the disc before the receiver?  Did the force allow him to gain that extra step?  Maybe.  But, more likely, that defender's superior speed would have shown itself without the force.  

Some might object that the true power of the force is not felt until the disc is "forced" to the open side sideline.  They might continue that when the disc is on the sideline, the force allows the defense to radically shrink the field and causes the offense to make more mistakes.  In truth, I agree with this.  

Of course, the tough thing for the forcing defense is that even bumbling offenses know that the force sideline is dangerous territory.  Even the most obtuse handler will actively work to get a break when he approaches the force sidelin, which spoils the force defense's advantage and creates a slew of positioning problems if the break is continued across the field.

Both sidelines should feel like this for offenses.

In the next post, I will explore defense beyond the constraints of the force.