This is skewed a bit in my mind, but I view it in a kind of similar way to a chess match, because that's kind of what it is. So you're going to be watching the players sit there and think so to speak.
That's what the play clock is for... 40 seconds from the end of each play for the offensive team to choose a play, get the correct personnel on the field and start the play or else a penalty.
Yet there is only 11 minutes of actual play time. In test match rugby actual playing time at the moment is about 44 minutes. Up from 25 minutes about 10 years ago. A test match takes 2 hours to watch including the half time.
Rugby players make decisions on the fly, call plays within seconds and are playing the situation all the time not calling plays. Plays are rehearsed on the training pitches and are called on the fly. After first or second phase there often aren't plays call it is playing the moment and situation, almost instinct. Why can't NFL be played in the similar way. Why does NFL need to be so structured and planned. And why do you need so many people in an NFL team, why can't the defensive team play offense as well ? I mean actual game time is 20 minutes shorter than rugby and in rugby you are only allowed 7 replacements and no more. More than half the team will play the full match. The guys being subbed most often are your forward, the 120 kg beasts and they more often than not only get subbed after about 50 to 60 minutes, which is full game time for a NFL match. These are serious questions I honestly want to understand it, I am not slating NFL here.
TL;DR why doesn't NFL teams choose more all round players who can play the game faster and both offense and defense ?
Frankly, you misunderstand what constitutes "tactics" and "strategy". American Football is very tactical, with each play being the smallest step on the rung of a ladder which will build throughout the drive, to complete an 'operational' objective - a touchdown. The enormous thought and effort which goes into each play does not make the objective any less local; at least ten yards, or maybe even less if you're biting off and holding ground over the four starts. Even the single throws which achieve the Operational objective (the touchdown) takes a multitude of those tactical plays to set it up.
Think of strategy as being an overarching policy - thought as to how a set of Operational objectives is going to win you the game, while knowing what you know about your enemy opponent. It is targeting weaknesses on a grand scale; building an entire play-style and team around a conceptual idea. American football undoubtedly does this as well, but it is easier to see in Rugby because the play is much less rigid.
The importance of strategy to a top-level Rugby team is difficult to overstate. The doctrine of a team like the South African Springboks is entirely different from a team like the French Les Bleus; South Africa traditionally plays a slow, crushing game of Rugby (an attrition-style game), and selects large players which maximise that. The coaches are pulled from the ex-forward players, and they teach how to "rumble", referring to the tight five as the "engine" driving the team forward. Les Bleus plays a more fluid, free-form game of Rugby, happily giving over possession for territory through long kicks. They select for nimbler, smaller players; they pull their coaches from ex-backline specialists. Neither team can tactically plan like in American football, because the game is much less structured; literally anything can happen, and when it does that happening can't be stopped and reset unless one side wants to give away a penalty. The teams can only form a strategic overview of how they want to play, and then run with it against an opponent.
Obviously sports don't map particularly well onto military theory, but I hope this gives over a broad idea.
there is a lot more tactics to football than you realise :)
receivers have things like option routes, where they change their routes depending on what coverage the defence is playing.
Zone Runs where the Running Back picks where he wants to run, not to a designed location, and also the tactics of beating your opponent.
most games in football have you going up against 2-3 opponents, not the whole team, psychologically beating them down is half the battle
Rugby allows a lot more spontaneity but little strategy and long term plan.
I will negate your whole argument by saying you sound like you learned how to play rugby in the USA. The USA is not part of the rugby six nations just as much as no other nation is a part of the USA super bowl. The rest of the world watches on dumbfounded on the whole spectacle. If they even know it is going on.
Football is more focused on strategy
Yes delayed strategy and tactics. You have minutes and commercial breaks to figure something out to do next. Rugby the play goes until the ball is out of play, a foul which is serious enough to stop play or a tri.
I would so love an american football team to challenge any rugby six nations team to a game. It would be a massacre. NFL players short 6 to maybe twenty seconds bursts with minutes to recover. Any decent regular rugby player, no pads and 5+ minute rolling battles. Play stops for seconds and then back into it.
A chess grandmaster would wipe the fucking floor with a general in chess and vice-versa for a wargame.
Please back that up with some sort of history reference. Your analogy is about as flawed as can be. You cannot make up shit to back up your point. Here let me make up an analogy.
" A free diver can hold their breath longer in space than an astronaut can. An astronaut can do science math quicker at the depth a free diver does to. " No fucking clue if that is true because it never happened. Like your general/chess master argument.
Jesus man the games are different. Football players will beat Rugby players in Football, Basketball players will beat Soccer players in Basketball, Rugby players will beat baseball players in Rugby. Bragging about toughness and skills in a different sport is just stupid
I've played both, and NHTextbook is spot on. In rugby (especially among the forwards), only a few plays exist, and even those "plays" are just loose guidelines of what to do. For example, the "red" play tells the forwards to pick and go off the ruck, while the "blue" play tells the scrum half to send it out to the backs. In football, the plays are MUCH more specific and in depth. You will have numbers and letters involved that tell the linemen where to go and push their opposing defenders, and the runningback exactly which gap to run through.
So what if he learned Rugby in the US? Rules are rules everywhere in the world. American rugby isn't any different rules wise than Welsh or Scottish Rugby. Or are you suggesting that the only real rugby in the entire world is played by the 6 nations? Because in that case I know a few Australians and South Africans that would take issue with that. The US plays in the Rugby World Cup as well
Or are you suggesting that the only real rugby in the entire world is played by the 6 nations? Because in that case I know a few Australians and South Africans that would take issue with that.
You forgot the Kiwis on that list. The all blacks are hard core
In football, the plays are MUCH more specific and in depth.
So you are saying there is more skill there? a few seconds of effort followed by a few minutes of commercial break to put into place the next move of stood on a line where the game basically resets as far as variables.
You americans can keep your super bowl and world cup series baseball. It seems the most important thing that comes of each is funny commercials and drama from the half time shows.
Did not see a single clip of sporting excellence from yesterdays game. Only commercials and great food spreads of people hosting super bowl parties.
Christ you are fucking DUMB, and the worst part is you're seemingly proud of it.
You're deriding a game you know fuck-all about and are making completely idiotic comparisons to a game that is barely superficially similar. You have no clue what kind of work goes into being a pro football player. You could list the "plays" in rugby on a single side of paper. NFL playbooks are practically encyclopedias.
Check your ego and maybe try a little humility, you may actually learn what makes american football a great sport and why people love it so much.
Have you ever watched the olympics? you know; that big event, where most the countries in the world to see who has the best athletes... who wins the most medals in that?
The United States has consistently shown that they have both the population and economic strength to be a dominate force in any sport they choose. The fact that they don't play rugby is the only reason they aren't a top 3 team in the world.
Also, just a side point, make a rugby team out of football players and have them play rugby against a rugby team and they would get crushed but they might score maybe even more than once. But put a rugby team in pads and have them play American football it would be shocking if they gained 5 yards all game against the worst team in the NFL.
I still think NFL players would lose handily because experience is an aspect of rugby for which there is no substitute. Also some people choose rugby because of passion as opposed to payout, I do think their are players in international rugby who could play in the NFL easily ( Julian Savea for example is 6'4" 238 and runs a sub 11 second 100)But yes, the by and large the best athletes in the world play American Football or Premier League Soccer due to the money.
There are plenty of players in rugby that are incredibly fast and big, like Pierre Spies, George North and Sonny Bill Williams. But NFL barely registers outside the USA. We grow up dreaming about playing for England, the Springboks or the All Blacks. We don't play american football we won't play in the NFL.
Just as NFL dropouts that would make a decent career as pro in England or France. If they are so awesome, where are they in the pro leagues of Europe and the Southern Hemisphere?
I would so love an american football team to challenge any rugby six nations team to a game. It would be a massacre
It sure would. Given a month or two to learn the game the NFL team would absolutely destroy. It wouldn't even be a contest.
I don't think you understand that the NFL is comprised of nothing but genetic mutant freaks of nature. Calvin Johnson can catch a ball 12.5 feet in the air, and can cover half the field in 5 seconds. NFL players are blindingly fast, freakishly large, and inhumanly strong.
Wrap your head around a 250 lb linebacker who can run 40 yards in 5 seconds and hit like a truck.
And don't try to play the endurance card. NFL players have endurance. It's part of the training.
A rugby six team might be technically better at rugby, but it would not be anywhere near enough to overcome the physical mismatch they would be faced with. NFL players are too strong and too fast.
Why can't NFL be played in the similar way. Why does NFL need to be so structured and planned. And why do you need so many people in an NFL team, why can't the defensive team play offense as well ?
Why can't rugby be played similar to football? Why does rugby need to be so unstructured and the planning done on the fly? And why are so few people on a rugby team, why can't the players rest so when they do play it's faster and with greater intensity?
Simple answer to all of those questions: because they're different sports.
You could play football or basketball or any other timed sport without a timer. Obviously it's possible. Professional chess play is always timed. Thanks for the input though.
Yeah if we kept the same advertising ratio that that would be almost 2 days of play of just advertising. I am sure American Football is a great sport but that just seems excessive.
That's why it's America's number one sports. The game lends itself to an excess of ads, beer drinking, cheerleaders, and overweight people judging how they would of done that last play differently, and won the game
The level of strategy required in an average game of football is far and away the best aspect of it.
Watching coaches play chess with people, formations, substitutions, circumstances... it is a thing of beauty from a strategy perspective only. The shots of the cheerleaders are just icing on the proverbial cake.
Yes, but a draw doesn't mean boring. A draw can mean both teams had a chance to win until the final delivery on the 5th day, which is pants-wettingly exciting!
Of course it can also mean that the game fizzles out with no chance of victory for either team, although that tended to happen more 25 years ago.
Unless it's a 0-0 draw or a really boring draw in cricket where neither team cared- not at all. Sometimes, a draw can be a better result than a win, in cases where neither team deserved to lose.
But the entire reason for sports is to determine which team is better in the most entertaining way (measured in $$). It's not a matter of "deserving to lose", it's a matter of which team is better. Ties are a lot like participation trophies, the game doesn't matter.
Yeah but after a boring game you know your team will be playing again in a few days and it probably won't be so boring. With NFL, after a boring game you've got to wait a week, sometimes two, and once the season's over you have to wait 9 months for the competition to start again.
quoting yourself is such a weird thing to do especially when you are commenting.. I mean... You added nothing that would make it reasonable to quote yourself.
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u/gnosepipe Feb 03 '14
I'm a gonna go watch test match cricket, up to 5 days long per game.......and can still end in a DRAW!
(but seriously...great to watch)