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The Sports Footage You Won't See Today On TV
Hugh Pickens writes "As sports nerds settle in today after Thanksgiving dinner for NFL and college football Reed Albergotti writes that there is some footage you will never see as he argues that the most-watched game in the US is probably the least understood. During every NFL game there are cameras hovering over the field, lashed to the goalposts and pointed at the coaches, but you will never see a shot of the entire field and what all 22 players do on every play which is considered proprietary information available only to teams and coaches. For decades, NFL TV broadcasts have relied most heavily on one view: the shot from a sideline camera that follows the progress of the ball. Anyone who wants to analyze the game, however, prefers to see the pulled-back camera angle known as the "All 22." While this shot makes the players look like stick figures, it allows students of the game to see things that are invisible to TV watchers: like what routes the receivers ran, how the defense aligned itself and who made blocks past the line of scrimmage and gives fans a 'bird's eye view' of the game to dissect team strategies, performances, and keys to success. Without the expanded frame, fans often have no idea why many plays turn out the way they do, or if the TV analysts are giving them correct information."
How do they keep the 50,000 fans who attended the game from seeing the full 20?
Reasons for not showing it on TV are poor at best.
All 3 comments so far are AC whining about a football article on his precious slashdot. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's really that easy.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
John Madden said once that the TV people wanted their coverage to look more like his video game, and the video game people wanted the game to look more like TV coverage. This led to the use of the wire-suspended camera for most kicking plays.
The same thing happens in rugby. Don't know if it's for the same reasons though. The whole field shot is something that I'd very much like to see from time to time.
I said - don't look Ethel!..., but it was too late..., she'd already looked.
ESPN's daytime SportsCenter block has a system they call ESPN Axis which is based on a 3D composite taken by multiple cameras that the TV crew that does the game doesn't have time to compute, these things show up on Monday and Tuesday based on when the computers finish the rendering.
When broadcasting a chess match, the camera should only zoom in on the piece the player is actually touching at the moment. Allowing a bird's eye view of the board will expose the various strategies the player uses and is considered proprietary information by the player and his or her team.
Well, it is Thanksgiving, so I guess it's forgivable. And I heard the Packers scored lots of home runs today.
I can say, with no reservation whatsoever, that I don't care about this article in any way, shape or form.
You at least cared enough to post this.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
In baseball, the only thing deemed important to cover is the ball. There may not be as much politics associated with it but you don't really get to see the shifts; what the pitcher and catcher do on most plays, etc.. If you aren't in the ball park seeing it in person, its a pretty intellectually dull sport.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
I'm Canadian, Thanksgiving was last month!
Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
...this one has to be the single least important.
Don't leave us in suspense, any grand slams?
Learn to love Alaska
seems to me like a perfect opportunity to 'crowd source' the information. sorry, couldn't help myself...
I guess you've never heard of Penn State football! It takes a lot of skill to avoid being raped by Jerry Sandusky.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Isn't this also the same game where the players stop playing the game during commercials? Yeah, paint me surprised.
I will stick to watching a really tough hitting football game where the althetisism of the players is second to none.
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Well, one big difference is that video gamers don't generally get millions of dollars in tax money to build enormous facilities to play video games in.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Just to piss you off.
You know what you should do? You should give it a clever name like "handegg" and then pat yourself on the back for being so amazingly observant.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
They lost them in the wickets during a power-play caused by a penalty kick, if only they had done a better job protecting the blern.
It isn't called "football" (that is a different game, where the foot is used most of the time to move the ball), it is called "american football". The first word of this should explain everything...
wot no sig
The rules are arbitrarily created to make for the best viewing experience. There's also a zillion of them.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Am I that old? Since when could someone be a "sports nerd"? That's like saying you're an "MMA nerd" because you know the best way to kick someone in the face while they're trying to tackle you.
Just to piss you off.
You know what you should do? You should give it a clever name like "handegg" and then pat yourself on the back for being so amazingly observant.
Come on mods, this is the funniest comment in this topic now, and it will be the funniest when the last post is added. +1 Funny
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a writer for the WSJ is giving opinions on viewing NFL games??
OK. here's the deal for those of you, including Reed Albergotti, who don't *really* watch NFL or NCAA football.
As the players line up for a play, the camera typically shows all 22 players. As the ball is snapped, the camera begins to zoom in slowly (allowing for some lead room by putting the ball in the rear third of the frame, as it relates to the direction of play) and as the play progresses it may or may not zoom in closer depending on how the play develops. The players can become so spread out during the course of action that to watch it all on a screen would not show much detail, including who has the fucking ball, or the path the ball takes through the air during a pass play. Some quarterbacks can throw the pill for 70 yards, for fucks sake. Pull the camera back to show the entire field and see how easy the game is too watch. You will lose sight of the ball, and won't be able to tell if the reciever caught the ball for a completion, or was nabbed by the defensive back for an interception. The camera operators even lose sight of the ball every once in awhile as it is.
As for being a "student" of the game, there is plenty of opportunity for those who care. Every network that broadcasts football has a staff of former coaches and players who's job it is to teach fans about how the different teams operate on the field, and how effective they are against opponents. There are hours of shows dedicated to this. The film used to dissect play often shows all 22, but it sometimes isn't necessary as some on field play isn't relevent. Sure, downfield blocking by wide receivers on run plays is important, but on a 3rd and 1 attempt, they are sometimes just going through the motions; it's basically a scrum in trying to move the ball forward a yard.
Ok, I'm done being pissed, back to the games!
I hope someone can take up this matter to defeat the nonsense. In any case, it sound ripe for a video-mounted RC helicopter project.
I am sure release of such video can make way for serious profits. On the other hand, the so called project manager is likely to attract a barrage of lawsuits as he's labeled an 'infringer' if such a term exists.
Never heard of Cheyenne Mountain?
I'm actually torn between being outraged at the petty suppression of information, and totally not giving a damn.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
So, they believe that 'Joe Pizza' and his buddies might make use of this 'wide-field vision' information: info that is totally cam'd by each and every teams staff sitting in the bleachers, etc ???? Where are their brains??? It's sorta like 'copyrighting the image of the moon!' , no?
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
Not true. There are many nerds who succumb to the indoctrination that these contests are somehow worthy of attention, and subsequently analyze them with the fascination that other nerds apply to quantum theory, Klingon literature, network engineering, or the former DC Multiverse.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Even if every single major league team in the Big 4 sports was the financial equivalent of the Yankees (which most don't even come close to), you'd be looking at less than 50 billion a year - an amount comparable to highway maintenance alone.
Countries are expensive.
Because it is descended from the same game as association football(originally called soccer by the British--the people who invented the game--it only reverted to being called football when other countries started playing it) is. The roots of american football are the rules variations that the 19th century founders of association football chose to reject.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Do you have a rule book for that?
Hurr hurr, you sure are clever! Imagine that, people having words for things!
You know, I've heard cricket doesn't actually involve any crickets! They should call it "bunch of guys standing around on a field for weeks at a time ball"! See, I'm clever too!
Yeah damn all those assholes wasting their money while actively enjoying their lives. How dare they.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
Do you hear that? That's the sound of me not giving a fuck.
Next best thing.
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I only watched a few minutes of the first video, and that was pretty pathetic. Most of those hits aren't even as bad as a home plate collision in baseball.
But more importantly, why the fuck do you consider it a selling point that people get hit hard in a sport with no padding? If you just want to watch people get career ending broken bones and possibly fatal concussions, go watch MMA or boxing. Stop pretending you care about the skill and athleticism, and accept that you'd have been happier living in Roman times.
"The only sports are motor racing, mountain climbing, and bull fighting. All the rest are games."
Translation: The only thing that are sports are the things that I like. Besides that, bull fighting is ritualized slaughter, not a sport.
Of course there are an awful lot of idiots. Makes me wish for a global pandemic of a fatal disease, it does.
Just remember that you're an idiot in somebody else's eyes, and they'd be just as happy to see you die in your pandemic.
Are you being serious? American football is descended from rugby, also invented by us...
This is Slashdot. We generally don't care about sport, but we're always up for a meta-argument.
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Despite his being a writer of some talent, Hemingway is notable to me for being someone whose opinions are almost entirely misguided.
So why in the world would I take his word on sports?
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is like the fourth time you've told us that.
It appears you care a great deal.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But they do get millions in tax breaks to game studios. Both actions are done in the name of the local economy.
Anyone who has watched for any length of time knows the plays anyway and knows when a given team is running one of them. Its not like the routes the receivers run are somehow more interesting than the blocks. If you watched the game with a full field view showing all of the players, you wouldn't see any close-up drama at the line of scrimmage. Football is more complicated than any one camera angle can show. If all you know about a sport is what you have seen on television, then you really don't know that much about it at all.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
They should call it "bunch of guys standing around on a field for weeks at a time ball"!
You exagerate my friend. The bunch of guys never have to stand around for more than 5 days, that's not even a whole week! And they get time off for lunch and tea.
There's been various studies that show some video games to be very useful for developing mental skills. Games are as old as humans and good for building skills, learning teamwork, and relaxing and relieving stress. Even animals play games; anyone with a cat (or better, a kitten) knows this. Video games are just the latest iteration; before them, we played social games like ball-and-stick games, or individual games like solitaire.
The problem with sports is they aren't games at all, at least not for the spectators. When you play a video game like Mahjongg for instance (one of my favorites), this is good for training your brain and building mental skills. When you play a multiplayer video game, that can help with other mental skills and teamwork. When you sit on your fat ass with a beer and watch a football game, not only are you not helping your body any (like you would if you went outside and played a physical game with your friends), you're not doing much for your mind either because you're nothing more than a spectator.
The ball was originally 12 inches long from pointy part to pointy part.
As much as I'd like to make fun of American Football some more, Wikipedia actually has a pretty good possible explanation for it ("possible", because like many historical things, it can't be known for sure as the records for many historical things are sketchy). Basically, it has nothing to do with the ball being kicked, it's about the game being played on foot, as opposed to on horseback like sports that aristocrats in Medieval times played. Basically, "football" could be any sport played by peasants, since they couldn't afford fancy horses to play totally idiotic games like tilting (jousting).
...for the no-fly zone over the superbowl.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
But at least to some extent, sex IS a "stick and ball" game.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
No, but there was a hole in one!
But more importantly, why the fuck do you consider it a selling point that people get hit hard in a sport with no padding?
Because AFL is a contact sport. The idea of a contact sport is to have a challenge between the opposing players. It is challenging other players to be as fit, as nimble and as athletic as you are. Yes, AFL has more injuries then other forms of football. That's the game that has been played here, and that's the game that will continue to be played here.
Aussie rules always ruled higher in the opinion of parents’ when compared to rugby-codes. But this opinion stands challenged, as new research has pointed out that Australian football accounts for the highest injuries as compared to all other types of football. // The aussie code seems to have topped the charts of contact sports injuries, the second place being occupied by league , the third by rugby union and the last , being soccer.
A report published today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that among Australian rules players who are 15 and above, there were 734.3 cases of hospital treatments per 100,000 participants, compared with 677.9 for rugby league. Union and Soccer were way behind to even compete – on 316.9 and 242 hospital treatments per 100,000 participants. Touch football was by far considered the safest, with 121.2 per 100,000 participants. The frequent type of injury was Fractures.
Having said that, do yourself a favour and watch the second video, it forcuses much more some amazing plays rather than big hit ups.
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I understand the point of a contact sport. But usually contact sports involve padding so that the players don't receive any permanent, life-altering injuries. I see no reason to have a contact sport without protective gear, unless the goal of the sport is to satiate fans' bloodlust.
I don't understand why the NFL isn't selling access to video libraries containing all these streams. With all the football fans, fantasy football and otherwise, obsessively analyzing the game, don't you think they could sell subscriptions? I'd buy. Give me a searchable archive. Let me find all targets at a receiver in a given year, or all fumbles of a players, or all INTs, etc.
The problem of delivering video on demand is already solved. They've got the content. It's just money in the street, waiting for them to pick up.
Rugby is descended from the same game as association football.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Err that's not Rugby. It's not even anything like Rugby. Continue rant though because other than that I can't feel it in me to contradict the rest of it.
If you just want to watch people get career ending broken bones and possibly fatal concussions..
Aussie rules and Rugby have less injuries than American Football because you don't have padding. You learn to wrap and tackle properly.
The things that make life living are these extra "frivolities". For some people it's opera, for some people it's video games, for some people it's antique auctions, for some people it's sports.
We don't see that shot, because we don't want to watch TV like we are in the nosebleed section. Even when watching basketball, you don't always see all 10 players in action. The majority of the population wants to see the action, and see it like they are up close and personal, not watching from the blimp.
don't they use hands to carry whatever that thing they call 'ball' around? Why is it called 'football'?
Because it's the only major professional sport in the USA where the ball is *ever* allowed to touch the foot. That's how American sports are named: they go with what unique thing the ball does only a tiny fraction of the time.
Basketball gets its name because it is the only sport where the ball sometimes goes in a basket, even though 99.9% of the time it's being bounced around the court with the hands. Likewise, baseball is named after the bases, even though the ball is only very rarely actually on a base.
Don't be an idiot. It was last week.
Haha, AFL and 'really touch hitting' in the same sentance - ROTFL!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wK9zAppHc
...there is no sig...
... not just in the rules and play, but in the TV coverage.
Soccer is insanely popular the world over, and TV coverage of soccer seems to provide a wider view of the field, which is crucial. Soccer covers a lot of ground on a regular basis, where American football doesn't so much. And those long plays tend to be easier to zoom into. Zoom into a decent penetration in a soccer match, and you'll miss everything important.
And I love both. I'd love to have a wider view of football.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
There is no such thing as a "true nerd".
Gone!
They are far more important than senors, and hence why even back in the days of SDTV professional companies used big cameras.
Even once you go past cell phones, lenses are often the limiting factor. At work we have a couple of Panasonic HDC-TM900s for videoing classes and so on. Not professional cameras, but not cheap things either. About $1000 each when we got them, full 1920x1080 60p recording at 28mbps and so on. A good bit of their cost are in their Leica lenses.
Well for all that, they aren't good enough for 1080 resolution. When you downsample their video to 720p it looks flawless. You can examine it very close up and everything looks as clear and crisp as the pixels allow. The resolution is the limiting aspect, not the source. However when you view the full 1080p stream, well you can see some minor defects. It isn't huge, it still shows more detail than the downsampled 720p version, but you can see that the resolution is capable of more detail, the source is limiting it (and to a lesser extent, the compression).
To truly get 1080p it would take better lenses (and less compression).
You need a large, quality, lens if you want to get truly high resolution photos, where each pixel actually shows distinct detail.
Maybe for you, it is. For me, it's more of a "stick and hole" game.
And they don't hit as hard because they don't use padding. In American Football you have idiots running into each other full tilt because they're wearing so much padding. But in that 1/20 chance that you hit wrong you get a serious injury.
If I told you to run into a wall as hard as you could and I'd give you $10. You'd do it at a certain velocity wearing no padding. If you strapped on a helmet and shoulder pads you wouldn't hit just as hard as you had been hitting, you'd start hitting it harder. And most of the time you'd be fine, but occasionally you'd hit it wrong or have your hemet at the wrong angle and hurt yourself. Or in Football you'd hurt the other person because you were hitting that much harder.
In addition there are rules to how to tackle in Rugby (Not sure about Aussie Rules). You HAVE to wrap in a tackle. You can't just body check someone out of bounds. You also have to do something the entire game. American Football you burst for 10 seconds then rest for 60. You don't have people hitting as hard because you have to get up and ruck. You have to be there for the next play because play hasn't stopped.
I'd say almost none of these tackles are legal. You have someone picking up and dumping, body checking, leading with the head, etc. They have fewer injuries because of the laws of the game AND because they don't use padding. If they started using more padding they'd hit harder.
Instead we got /Billions/ of dollars in tax money that subsidized private industry and made it possible for us to play those very video games.
ESPN is the biggest thing keeping people from dropping cable TV from the bundle.
Actually having read through these comments and actually spent more time thinking about it today than probably ever in my life, I think Aussies just generally like a tougher game of football than most other nations. It's not about hurting the other players, it's simply about playing with all your heart. It's a cultural thing, I had a quick look around and found a few insightful comments that might make more sense.
The Australian national character has been forged by the difficulty of subduing the land. Unlike other cultures based on a nurturing landscape that they seek to protect from others, Australian settlers experienced great hardship and had to support each other in order to survive. The battle against the elements led to the nickname of a member of Australia's working class being the 'Aussie battler'.
The need to laugh in the face of danger while battling the landscape has provoked a strange view of the world, with a distinctive upside-down sense of humour. Times of hardship or even disaster are ridiculed, and this extends to the Australian delight in dubbing a tall man "Shorty," a quiet one "Rowdy," a bald man "Curly" and a redhead "Bluey".
As well as the prevalence of the tall poppy syndrome bringing back to Earth the high fliers, the egalitarian Australian society has a traditional Australian support for the "underdog". Australians will show support for those who appear to be at a disadvantage even when the underdog is competing against fellow Australians.
This underdog attitude is most evident in sport, as sport is also a large part of Australian culture. Should an Australian be asked to choose between two unknown competitors, very often they will choose the one least likely to win, such as swimmer Eric the Eel during the 2000 Olympics. The success of Steven Bradbury in the 2002 Winter Olympics who won a skating gold medal after all his competitors crashed has coined the expression 'doing a Bradbury' which underpins the spirit of the underdog, positive thinking and never giving up.
During the 2003 Rugby World Cup, the Georgian rugby team arrived in Perth with a crowd of Perth residents welcoming them with colourful support, and a similar occurrence was noted in Townsville, Queensland where the Japanese rugby team was preferred to that of the French.
And lastly, this little gem from Wikipedia:
Australian rules football culture - Injuries, Health Issues and Prevention
Australian rules football is known for its high level of physical body contact compared to other sports such as soccer and basketball. High impact collisions can occur from any direction. Unlike gridiron, padding is not mandatory and is rarely worn. Combined with the range of activity including jumping, running, kicking, twisting and turning this means that injury rates are relatively high in comparison to other sports.
Australian rules football does not have the range or severity of health issues of American football however players have been known to die whilst playing Aussie Rules, though the most common cause is heart failure. The Victorian State Coroner reported five sudden deaths in that state among Australian rules footballers aged under 38 years between 1990-1997. Three of these deaths were attributed to Ischaemic heart disease (mean age, 31.7 years), and the other two to physical trauma.
(Emphasis mine)
Aussies have a "Harden Up" attitude when it comes to adversity. There are some hilarious comedy sketches that aussies love becuase they are so on the mark for aussie culture. A person who is seen to overcome difficult odds is generally championed. A tough guy (good or bad) can end up being an Australian Icon such as Ned Kelly who we even depicted during the opening of the Sydney Olympics in 2000!
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Nothing but net.
You know how many people the sports industry employs? Stadium personnel, travel, merchandise, retail, television, radio, newspapers, food, beverages.... it touches virtually everything in this country. I can't think of anything else as pervasive.
Although those were mostly college tackles, I saw a fair number of similar hits in high school ball - even took a few. (Obviously, the athleticism was at a lower level.) But what is often overlooked is that the bounce-off hits (aka elastic collisions with other players) are usually the least painful and least damaging hits - the painful ones occur when you hit someone and neither of you moves much, or when someone is pancaked.
You're right about the effect of pads, though - once you stop worrying about minor injuries like bruises, you end up causing a lot more big ones like broken bones.
Good point. The stick and the hole. GOOOOALL!! (She'll say something similar I assume.) XX chromosomes are delightful, when used in delight, and they have brains too, sometimes.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
I caught a game of this a couple of years back as I was channel surfing at 3 in the morning. I commented to my wife that the game looked like you threw a bunch of convicts on to a cricket field, gave them a rugby ball, and told them to make up a game as they went along. later I was very amused to discover that it was Australian football. now we are both hooked and watch via dvr whenever we can.
I think this idea should be applied to automobile safety. People are idiots on the road because they feel so safe inside their cars with high crash safety ratings. If light contact between cars were very likely to be fatal, people would be much better drivers.
Thank God you didn't play some others games, or we might have horseball and shuttlecockball.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
"sports nerds"?!?! Where are we that this phrase shows up on slashdot?? That's a major oxymoron.
Because it is played on foot, as opposed to polo, which is played on horseback.
"Soccer" gets its name from "association football" whereas American football et al are descended from "Rugby" rules football.
Some people here actually get outside and into the sun on occasion.
An overhead view that looks like a diagram isn't nearly as exciting as the views that do reach your TV. Also, it's much harder to follow the football because it takes up such a small portion of the screen. The 9 inch diameter football is only 5 lines on a 1080 screen that covers the full 53.3 yard field width.
The biggest advantage of the top view is that you can see how inside runs work or fail. From the side, all inside runs look suicidal.
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I'm really surprised by this article.
Not by the stuff about cameras.
I'm just surprised to learn that they still find time to show football breaks in between the adverts...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTpXymuwxNs ? :)
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
As with all evolution
shares common ancestor != descended from
Unfortunately not as accessible as many other kinds of sports.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I only watched a few minutes of the first video, and that was pretty pathetic. Most of those hits aren't even as bad as a home plate collision in baseball.
But more importantly, why the fuck do you consider it a selling point that people get hit hard in a sport with no padding? If you just want to watch people get career ending broken bones and possibly fatal concussions, go watch MMA or boxing. Stop pretending you care about the skill and athleticism, and accept that you'd have been happier living in Roman times.
Having all the padding/armour, helmets or whatever it is that American Football players wear actually makes it a lot more dangerous in the long run. The more ridiculously hard challenges you receive without immediate injury, the worse you will potentially suffer over your career.
My understanding is that there are a lot of American football players with brain damage, as their (well protected) heads get sloshed about a lot more than in a sport like AFL or rugby where an equivalent hit would probably take you out of the game and is therefore better regulated
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You are amusingly knowledgeable about 1970s gay porn.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
.and sex. Don't forget sex. Best sport there ever was, or ever will be. If done right. Warmups at dinner,
That's a neat way of describing wanking in front of the TV with a bag of crisps in your other hand.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Bull fighting is a sport in the same way that raping baby pandas is loving consensual sex.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I think the point was: it's just a game unless you can die.
And I can give the man that.
In that case, running over obstacle courses while subject to live firing ammunition, landmine-field hopping and torturing rats to death with red hot pincers are sports too.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
When did I say that american football was descended from association football? I said that american football was descended from the same game that association football was descended from.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
See "A Nice Morning Drive", by Richard Foster.
Nonsense, you're just as much using your brain watching sports as playing most video games. If you're actually interested in the sport, you're constantly planning tactics, seeing what's going on with the players' formation, anticipating what's going to happen next and so on.
Physically, neither watching sports nor playing video games involves any exercise, but then again most normal people don't spend twelve hours at a time watching football on TV.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Slashdot is "news for nerds". You're displaying typical geek closed-mindedness - this post is about footage that would allow one to be as nerdy about football as possible. That would be a great thing.
I build servers, troubleshoot networks, play video games - typically nerdy activities. But are you aware how fun it is to be a nerd about other things?
I'm a huge photography nerd - I love that a deep understanding of the physics of light and sensors, and of optics, can play as big a role in making great photographs as artistic talent.
Similarly, I'm a football nerd - the strategy and depth of the game (should you care to learn) only add to the already inherent excitement, heroism, and emotion in sports. Every game and every play matters.
This news pertains to me as much as it would to see a post on AMD's new processor architecture. Don't write anything off just because the people who beat you up in high school were into it.
WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
As much as I'd like to make fun of American Football some more, Wikipedia actually has a pretty good possible explanation for it ("possible", because like many historical things, it can't be known for sure as the records for many historical things are sketchy). Basically, it has nothing to do with the ball being kicked, it's about the game being played on foot, as opposed to on horseback like sports that aristocrats in Medieval times played. Basically, "football" could be any sport played by peasants, since they couldn't afford fancy horses to play totally idiotic games like tilting (jousting).
By that logic, you'd play handball walking on your hands, and netball with everyone in hammocks.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
My understanding is that there are a lot of American football players with brain damage, as their (well protected) heads get sloshed about...
The problem is that American Football helmets do a good job of preventing most head or face injuries, but are very poor at preventing concussions.
On top of that, because the NFL takes concussions so seriously now (in large part because of the stereotyped brain damaged retired football player) players have an incentive to hide and play through minor concussive symptoms so they aren't benched. Obviously, this increases the chance of re-injury.
As an example (for the Patriots fans out there), Rob Gronkowski came as close to breaking his neck as I've ever seen. After that play he showed some wobbliness and confusion so he had to get himself checked out, but later went back into the game. In a post-game interview someone asked him about that play, his response was:
"Uh, I remember the moment and everything. And, if I didn't, I still wouldn't even say I didn't [because] I want to play this week."
It's well known that padding in sports, while originally intended as a protective measure, actually just results in harder hits and more injuries. Boxing gloves are the best example; you can't hit someone all that hard without gloves... you'll just break your hand. Strap on gloves though, and you can hit them full force, and consequently give them some nasty concussions.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
There's a book (Traffic) in which traffic engineers say the same thing.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
Most people are not as dumb as you think they are, and not as smart as they think they are.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
and I have for a long time thought about it - there is no reason at all why the NFL can't release the video (for a price of course) the day after the game. There is nothing "proprietary" about it once the game is over as every team has access to this footage, only the fans do not. As the original poster notes, a lot can be missed when just using the zoomed in sideline cameras and rarely does a broadcast use one of the high up cams.
You would think the NFL (and NHL as well) would wake up and try to take advantage of this. The cost to do so is minimal.
They should call it "bunch of guys standing around on a field for weeks at a time ball"!
You exagerate my friend. The bunch of guys never have to stand around for more than 5 days, that's not even a whole week! And they get time off for lunch and tea.
The 5 days part is only a recent change.
I am an American who played rugby in college and have had a lifetime of watching NFL football. As my rugby coach explained things, the reason you wear pads in American football but not rugby is because American football is a game of yards, whereas in rugby only the end line matters. In rugby they teach tackling by wrapping the legs and letting the ball carrier carry you backwards over your shoulder. Using this technique I was able to tackle runners much larger than I was without injury. In rugby you only try to stop the ball carrier head on if you meet him on the goal line, and that doesn't happen very often. In American football, the goal line is the first down marker which is eternally just a little distance away all the way down the field, so every tackle becomes a "stop him here, stop him now" critical moment.
Vonnegut was right: Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
Not to mention all the other times when nothing is happening. Until you've seen a game at the stadium, you don't realize just how hard the TV production team is working to fill up the dead time.
I have a friend who plays American Football. For him, the so called "padding" is not a protection, it is a weapon.
There's no "logic" behind it, it's an example of the evolution of language. If the evolution of language was logical, we wouldn't have stuff like there, they're, and their, it's and its, etc.
Obviously, handball was named the way it was for totally different reasons.
Feel free to stroke the treasury a check any time you wish.
Got Code?
This on a day when I don't have mod points!! Damn you slashgods!!
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See "A Nice Morning Drive", by Richard Foster.
And the song "Red Barchetta" by Rush, which was based on the above.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I think that says a lot. We have cattle stations here that are bigger than Texas and ice cream harder than your gridiron players. Toughen up princess, talk about sensitive.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I don't think you have a problem with players stopping during the commercials. If you look at your source at wikipedia, you will notice that all the commercials are worked in to times when the players would have stopped anyway. It sounds like you just want a game where the action doesn't break like this.
The toughness of the hits and athleticism of the players really is quite subjective. It's not like these are two clubs playing the same game that can go head to head to see who hits harder and who is more athletic. Obviously the rules of individual sports will determine what type of raw athleticism is desired in a player of that game, but I think it's hard to argue that the sheer amounts of money American football players (gridiron to some of you) earn is a huge driving factor to find athletes at the highest level possible for what they do.
AFL is Aussie Rules. But you skipped Rugby League (assuming by Rugby meant Rugby Union which seems rather likely) so the number is still three :)
Well unless you count soccer, but who does?
League, yes, my bad. that must have been why I was modded down. Totally justified, my spelling is terrible.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.