The NFL playoffs began this weekend. The eloquently worded
College Football Playoff National Championship Game will follow soon after.
This time of year, America’s captivation with foosball reaches a fever pitch.
Perhaps the reason American football appeals so greatly to
Americans is that even avid fans watch the game without truly understanding
what is occurring on and off the field to cause one team to win and one team to
lose. If you just muttered under your breath, “he’s not talking about me, I’m
not like those morons,” then you may want to stop reading and take a long look
at the other aspects of your life you feel pretty confident about.
I suggest not
understanding the game is part of its appeal because the American is generally
not interested in digging to the roots of reality, but prefers to focus on the
illusion they have decided is life. Football fits neatly in this paradigm. When
a mass shooting occurs, the American says, “that person not a good person.” When
there is traffic on his commute, he says, “the other people driving are not
driving good enough.” When his team loses a game of foosball, he says, “The man
that throw the foosball not throw the foosball good enough,” or “when we run
the foosball we get tackled. When they run the foosball they not get tackled.”
This inherent lack of understanding is exacerbated when the
game is watched on television (the way most fans consume it), as a significant
portion of the game frequently occurs outside what the television cameras capture.
It is akin to reading a novel, covering part of every page with your palm
except for the final paragraph, and then either declaring the ending was
terrible or that you saw it coming all along.
However, this does not stop the American fan from convincing
himself he knows how and why plays work and don’t work, and why one team was
defeated and another emerged victorious. If the American is certain of
anything, it is that he is right, and his way is best, and foosball has become
one of his favorite outlets for him to assert this sentiment.
So being that I am American, I have thought up two of my own
scenario-based strategies for the game. If they were employed, I am 100%
certain they would improve a team’s odds of winning.
The first strategy involves an
end-of-half situation that comes up with surprising regularity. The offense is
near the end zone, say inside the 15-yard-line. There is 10 seconds left on the
game clock, just enough time to run two plays. The offense is out of timeouts. On
the first play, they will take a shot at the end zone with a pass. If the pass
falls incomplete, they will kick a field goal to end the half.
What should the defense do? They
should play press man coverage, assigning a linebacker or safety to every
eligible receiver, running back, and tight end. The rest of the available
defenders should spy and contain the quarterback. When the ball is snapped,
every receiver should be tackled and held to the ground for several seconds
until the quarterback is forced to throw the ball away or take a sack.
The result of the play would be a
defensive penalty, which would give the offense half the distance to the goal
line and an automatic first down. And they would have just enough time left on
the game clock to kick a field goal before halftime, which of course is exactly
what they would have done if the defense had stopped them without committing a
penalty too.
The second scenario involves a team
with a large lead in the second half. Let’s say a team is up two touchdowns to
begin the fourth quarter. They have just been pinned inside their 10-yard line
by a punt, and now go out on the field on offense.
They should run the ball, run the
play clock down under five seconds, have a player false start, repeat. Since
the game clock does not stop for penalties until two minutes are left in the
game, they could likely run a few minutes off the clock by repeatedly false
starting until the other team caught on and used a timeout.
Even if the defense called a timeout
immediately after each run it wouldn’t matter. The important part would be that
the defense used up their timeouts.
Then let’s say they punt they ball
away and the other team is able to score quickly, or even returns the punt for
a touchdown. Now the team with the lead gets the ball again, this time up seven points with about 10 minutes left in the game. This time the defense is out of timeouts.
They run the ball, false start,
repeat, until the game clock hits the two-minute mark. Now it is second and
long with two minutes left in the game. Two more running plays and a punt
should leave about 25-30 seconds left on the clock. Barring a long punt return,
that puts the team behind seven about 40 yards from the end zone with no
timeouts and very little time left in the game. It is highly unlikely they
will score a touchdown and tie the game.
If the offense had an even
larger lead, this scenario becomes even more effective and could be utilized
even earlier in the game. A two-touchdown lead to start the fourth
quarter is only the bare minimum. Three-touchdown lead to start the fourth? Unless
the team that is behind manages to recover onside kicks, forget about it, game
over.
In fact, teams with three-touchdown
or larger leads would be wise to use this strategy as early as the beginning of
the third quarter. Once they forced the other team to use their timeouts, they could salt away the entire third and fourth quarters in only
two possessions.
Would these strategies work? Yes.
Could they be eliminated with a few simple tweaks in the rules? Yes. But for
now, they’re out there, just waiting for some bold team to seize them.
So if your team blows a big lead
this playoff season, or gives up a late first half touchdown, instead of the
old go-to grunting and moaning, why not try a new complaint? “Coach not tells
the ones without the ball to tackle the other ones without the ball,” or “coach
not make yellow flag fly over and over and over and over” would really impress
your friends!
