NFL shenanigans
 

ok, american football fans, i'm trying to get into this sport but i am unable to get a sense of the strategy because i don't get the fucking rules.

last night the saints are winning 15-9, they give the 2 minute warning, i'm thinking if the vikings get an interception and score & dont get their field goal blocked they could win 16-15, right? i mean the last 5 minutes of the 2nd quarter took a long-ass time to finish. but then everyone stands around, the clock goes down, they pretend to play, stop again, and with a minute to go everyone starts slapping each other like the game is over. and it is over.

what the fuck is that? could someone please explain? how does the time work here? if clock manipulation is part of the strategy, how does it work? i remember also that a little before that they had x seconds to make a play and the clock was ticking. very fucking confusing.

time manipulation is everything in the NFL as well as college. You can stop the clock by using a timeout which each team has 3 per half. You can stop the time by running out of bounds. If you attempt a pass and it is incomplete the clock stops. All changes of possession stop the clock. If you score a TD a FG or an extra point the clock stops. Actually the score was 14-9. So the strategy when behind is to try and save your timeouts until the last two minutes this way you can stop the clock to kick a FG if 3 points will win the game. Also if you have your timeouts you can pass the ball over the middle of the field knowing you can stop the clock to set up the next play. If you have no timeouts then you're limited to passing near the sidelines so your receiver can get out of bounds to stop the clock. If you make a first down or the defenders are dragging their asses getting into position the ref can stop the clock until everyone is set then start the time up. This is why at the end of the game or first half teams will not get into a huddle to call a play because it is wasting time.

football is boring

If they run the ball or the ball is caugh from a play then he clock continues to run, however if the ball touches the ground from a pass the clock is stopped

Ne'er mind. Chickas got it

the game goes against the clock.

it is similar to how in football/soccer the wining team will play a drag-ass defensive front for the last 20 minutes of a match to keep the other team from getting good scoring opprotunities.

In football, you do that with time-outs, and clock stoppage, as chickak said.

let's say you are winning the football game. 2 minutes left (by the way, when there is two minutes left in the 1st and 2nd half, there is an automatic time out, the two-minute warning) a team will ussually run the ball repeatedly, because it controls the ball, and keeps the clock ticking.

if they pass the ball they run risks of interception, but more importantly, if the ball is not caught the clock will stop, giving the defense/other team basically a free time out.

I have sene it played out where a team tries to pass instead of running it, misses the passes, and ends up punting with way to much time on the clock for the other team to go and get a field goal or touchdown.

shit, payton Manning has fucked my beloved Texans because of this exact mistake several times. stupid texans coaches.

ah many thanks.

i do get the clock stops (all those commercial breaks) but i didn't know the difference with the ball being out of bounds and running vs passing-- that's cool to know! that is what i mean by strategy... ok.

what i still don't get is how you run the clock DOWN without playing, but i guess rob will let me know in the other thread where i already asked him that. the snap clock or whatever.

thanks!

you can run the clock down by running the ball and keeping it in bounds. When the ball carrier is tackled the game clock continues to run, and the team has 40 seconds on the play clock to get the next play off. So if they are in the lead they will wait until the play clock is almost all the way down before starting the next play.

Aussie Rules is better.

Football used to be a great game. Then Pete Roselle took over and sold the game to TV which ruined it. After all TV has to sell advertising space to make money. It's even worst watching a game live as the players are basically sitting there with their hands in their pockets waiting for the 5 minutes of commercials to be over before play can start again. Then they expect you to pay from 100.00 to 800.00 dollars for a seat. Unreal. All the rule changes they've made to promote the passing game isn't as much to protect the QB as is so they can score more then have more changes of possession which gives them more 5 minute commercial timeouts. It's a shame how they've ruined the game. I've been watching football for 50 years now and I'd rather watch a soccer game any day of the week even with the pansies falling to the pitch on every tackle.

it isn't. which means I know something about you. you don't know the rules of american football.

Also if someone goes out of bounds with the ball the clock is stopped.

my ISP is a geeky, business-class, overpriced one, and it doesn't provide ESPN3, so i can't catch the good soccer games. and then univision/telemundo show too many mexican league games for my taste.


funny you should mention that, because i finally started getting interested in this game after watching friday night lights on hulu--or netflix was it? i dont know. anyway they made it look like it was serious business.

ps- i hate the greed bay fudge packers. they are really good though. but i hate them just because.

I know that jacksonville won today and how to play a half time show

This is the most common thing I hear from girls about football. How can you know that you hate a game when you don't know the rules? Funny.

Holy shit. That is a big win. Nice.

favorite team to hate.

I'm a bears fan.....though they suck.

As a Vikings fan, I hate no team with more fiery passion than the Packers.

The foot ball players and cheerleaders picked on me cause I was a band nerd. I've watched my share of games just not my thing.

You won't think football is boring if you learn the rules you band nerd! ;)

Damn jocks....I'd go to a Jaguars game if I had tickets and I am sure it would befun. I just don't like to watch it on TV. My aunt used to watch me when I was a kid. All she watched was soap operas and football. I hated her house it was crawling (literally) with roaches they had no ac. It gets miserably hot here. And she was bitchy so soap operas and football on tv give me a wierd depressed feeling. And it is SO important to everyone atround here I get sick of hearing about it sometimes.

I was an Orchestra nerd. ha!

My beloved TEXANS made the Colts look terrible yesterday!!

OUr RB Foster was getting 5-9 yards every single run!

Manning looked so PISSED off in the sideline! yay!!!!

how come vikings? i thought you'd be a redskins fan. fuck, i hate that name. it's like saying "prairie niggers". still, home team, no?

i enjoyed watching the cowboys lose. ha ha! ha ha ha ha!

even though washington played like ass.

i always enjoy the cowbums losing

Re: the name REDSKINS

"winner's" make the rules right?

philipinos and Latin americans live their whole lives with names derived from a relatively tiny european nation that once had a massive fleet of ships.

My older brother is a Vikes fan...got to me very early and corrupted me.

I despise the Redskins. They're the only DC/MD based sports team I don't
like. Again, I must thank my brother for showing me the light.

The Cowboys/Redskins game was like watching a potato sack race that
went the length of a marathon run.

hahah! This Sunday the Texans will show the Skins some true Southern hostility

bytor-- i'm not ready to put down money just yet! but yeah it's nuts. and thanks again for the recommendation on high school games-- there's one near my house next week and i might go check it.

jenn-- so what goes into being a non-local fan? why is it that you like them? do they have a style of playing or something? i'm curious to know. ha ha ha @ potato sack race. yeah!

rob-- i guess so yeah but it's more a racial slur than an adjective indicating origin. anyway, fuckem. strangely enough, while some injuns take offense at the name, others favor this team just becuz.

i missed the monday night game (no cable = no espn), was it good?

i really hope i can get into this sport. the end of the world cup left me deprived.

They were one of the powerhouse teams of the seventies, despite never
having won a Super Bowl in their history. I liked that their vaunted defense
was nicknamed "The Purple People Eaters." And I just dig VIKINGS. How
mighty and horn-helmet wearing! That's a name for a football team. Not
like the Saints, or the Redskins, or Jebus help us, the Bills.

Because they've never won the big one, the fanbase can't rest on past
laurels, and are also prone to snide comments from other fans whose teams
have won the big one. That actually makes me love being a Vikings
fan more.

Also...Adrian Peterson. Purple Jesus. The most gifted running back alive.

Monday Night had TWO games (for opening week) both were deadly dull.

next week after the Redskins game, the Texans face the Cowbums! yaya!

yr right though. "redskin" is totally a racial slur. no one would name a team the chinamen, or the drunken micks, but "fighting Irish" seems OK for the nation's foremost Roman Catholic college...

Glad to see yr giving it a good shot !@#$%

American football should be taught worldwide and used by nations instead of waging actual war. Their military strategists would spend theitr time devising new offensive and defensive formations! At worst, the combatants would be crippled, but that happens regularly already in footbal and is far far better than the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands.

we could have neutral countries be the refs!


hahahah!

for real though. everything has layers. futbol/soccer seems simple but it is deceptively simple. The time and effort and care that must be taken in hours upon hours of practice to get a team to gel properly are ridiculous. It amkes sense why school soccer teams are more like a gang, always together, always kicking around a ball.

If soccer is like a gang of Amish friends working together to raise a barn, American football is like an ant colony. Each member has specific tasks and speciific rules it must live by.

and fuck baseball.

jenn-- oh i see, it's totally random. sorta. i guess word-based? chosen like a true writer. hmmm... anyway, purple is nice, ha ha. i thought the viking name was due to the norwegian ethnicity of many minnehahans. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Minnesotan )

anyway i saw the vikings game last thursday and i favored the saints-- forgive me. this is for no other reason that i think new orleans is cool as shit, plus after all the sorrow they've experienced in recent years they deserve a little consolation-- nothing to do with their winning their superbowl last year or making an easy bet.

bytor, i don't think i'm ready to enjoy visualizing a radio-described game. my uncle who is a soccer megafanatic is capable of doing that but i always had a hard time with that. then again if i had money on it i'd want to know what's going on...

rob-- the thing is with soccer the action is more continuous and slower so you can follow with your eyesight. football is very quick so it requires a dozen inspectors and cameras to figure out what's going on. but maybe i'll be able to read the field better as i learn.

also, i still don't know what players are good and what players suck and all that but i imagine i'll catch on eventually.

and also, if discussing football is going to bring jennthebenn back to "the underboard" (sy gossip basement level 3) then it's worth the effort.

It took me years to be able to "see" everything as it happens on the football field.

love that clip.

this one is sadder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcdz1IRVoM

I was watching ESPN's Outside the Lines last Sunday and one guy talking said that there is actually only 17 minutes of action in an entire game. At first I said no way then I did some simple math like each play is 10 seconds long even thought they vary from as little as 3 seconds up to say 15 seconds and each team had 60 plays so each team had the ball 10 X 60 is 600 seconds divide by 60 seconds in a minute and you got each team with 10 minutes of actual action in 1 hour long game. Yet it takes 3 1/2 hours to play on TV where do all those other minutes go?

Definitely start watching High School football live the action is more continuous, the excitement better and some games are free. Someone there always wants to showoff their knowledge so they'll explain it to you or you can just eavesdrop on their conversations with their buds.

If you are thinking of actually betting the game the golden rule is DO NOT PICK A FAVORITE TEAM. If you have a team that you favor as your team they will cloud your Judgement when evaluating them against an opponent.
Stay neutral and you'll be able to pick winners better.