Could some-one please explain American football to me! (page 2)

NewLight2

Well I don't understand it either. To me it looks like:

Line up in line
Kick ball
Catch ball
Everyone on field piles on top of you

Then you start the process all over again!

Just my view.

NewLight2

ps Vikings suck 0 loosers all of them - Randy Moss included!!!

FlyingHighNow

Zep:It's almost exactly like rugby, but with pansy-ass pads!

Pansy-ass pads? I'd say it's evidence that someone cares enough about these athelites to keep them healthy enough to play for several years. As it is, they still get hurt all the time anyway. I'd say pads are not a matter of pansiness, but rather it's evidence of someone using his brain for something other than a target.

funkyderek

I saw the movie Jerry Maguire, in which Cuba Gooding Jr. played an American football player. To get noticed, he had to put his heart in the game and do something really spectacular. This was to be a big turning point - in his career and in the plot of the movie. After playing in a mediocre manner up till that point, he was going to do something amazing that would make him a star. So he stood at one end of the football field and when one of the other players on the team threw the ball right to him, he caught it. And that was it. And he still managed to damn near kill himself doing it.

It seems like a big girl's version of rugby.

confusedjw

LOL@ FD

mtbatoon

I'm sorry but American football is a great game in itself and though it uses the same shaped ball as rugby the two should never be equated the same. I don't know as much as I'd like about the game but try looking at it like this. In games like rugby and football the two teams are like a couple of swordsmen with thrust, parry and counter thrust. The flow of the game is continual and dictated by the players on the pitch.

Now American Football. Think of it more like two generals (the coaches) at war, they command the troupes and pick and change to suit the situation. Instead of the continual flow of melee it takes place over a series of smaller battles.

That's my take on it anyway. I came up with the analogy on Wednesday night watching the England v Holland. Anyone else who watched it will know why I was making up analogies. Thanks Sven for sharing another training session with us.

LittleToe

Oh, and in rugby the same players get to be defense and offense, instead of just playing half a game

Angharad

Oh, and in rugby the same players get to be defense and offense, instead of just playing half a game

And they play for more that 5 seconds and run further than 3 yards at a time, before stopping for a rest

LittleToe

LOL @ Ang

It is, however, still a game where men get to play with their oddly shaped balls

Big Tex

Too bad I can't post the audio, as George Carlin's voice inflection is brilliant:

Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing baseball and football:

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park.The baseball park!
Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.

In football you wear a helmet.
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who's up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error. Whoops!

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog... we play no matter what!
In baseball, if it rains, we don't go out to play. Oh no, it's raining! We can't come out to play!

Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.
Football has the two minute warning.

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - we might have extra innings!
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

funkyderek

That's probably hilarious, Big Tex, but on this side of the pond we don't understand baseball either. It's a bit like cricket but for pansies, right?

Could some-one please explain American football to me!

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