Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. Before today's show, two quick things. Number one, on February 13th, we are putting on a live Freakonomics radio show in Los Angeles. Come see us. As of this recording, there are some tickets left, but not many, so don't dawdle. Go to Freakonomics.com slash live shows, one word, to get tickets.

And number two, we need your voice for an episode that we are in the middle of producing.

It's about sludge, not the physical sludge that gunks up machinery and things like that.

I am talking about the administrative and bureaucratic sludge. It can

make it hard to do simple things like cancel a subscription or pick the best health care coverage

or sign up for some government service. If you have a good sludge story, for example, we want to hear it.

Use your phone to record a short voice memo

and send it to radio at freakonomics.com. Please include your name, where you live, what you do,

and tell us what's your sludge story. How did you respond to this sludge? And do you think it was

accidental sludge or intentional? Make sure you record

your voice memo in a quiet place and again send it to radio at freakonomics.com. Thanks muchly.

And now here is today's episode.

The National Football League, a phenomenally successful piece of the sports and entertainment

industry, is largely built around the forward pass.

That's when the quarterback, the star of the show, throws a ball downfield to one of his sprinting receivers

who tries to catch the ball and sprint even further down the field. This can be a very exciting

thing to watch. In recent years, the passing game has gotten even more exciting and more

sophisticated, and it has helped drive the league's massive growth.

But if you ask football fans of a certain age who they idolized when they were kids,

it probably wasn't a wide receiver or even a quarterback.

It was probably a running back.

Big opening for Tony Dorset.

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