Football or Football or Futbol or Soccer or..

[Waratah]

I love most sports and I certainly enjoy American football(we call it gridiron in Australia). Its only been in the last few years that we get to watch it on free to air TV(superbowl at least the last 20 years). I get to watch 2 games a week.

With the first picture I knew it was the Dallas cowboys and the player was a quarterback. Since I had to google from there I will not be able to give the answer.

[pocaracas]

Can I necro this thing? It's just because of this new forum area thingy.... I wont repeat it.... soon.

Football.... a few years ago, I got a lesson on football from an australian guy.
I then tried to find out if he was right... and yeah!

So, as you all know, football was invented in England. What you may not know is that it's name refers to how the game is played: on foot and with a ball. As opposed to playing on horse back, like the english aristocracy did with their polo and other such sports... horseball, they must have called it!


So yeah... being from Portugal, Europe, association football is the standard football around here. We have such teams as "Benfica", "Sporting", "Porto".
We've given the world such players as Eusébio, Figo, Rui Costa or the more recent Cristiano Ronaldo.

I'm with LP... the income each player gets just for playing a game at "pro" level is ludicrous and just makes them look bad when they fail to produce a proper score. Sometimes, I'd think even I could do better than them.
When I realized just how much money one of those guys gathered, I stopped watching. Nowadays, I only watch sports at social events... and I'm the one guy who knows none of the players and has to keep asking questions.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Cows win, COWS WIN!

[c172]

I wish I liked pointy ball. I'm an American and just feel like I should like it. But there are so. Many. Rules. Plus, I find it funny that more points are scored by running the ball, not kicking it with...well...your foot. I might like it better if a TD were worth only 1 point, but gave the team the privilege of, say, a 9-point goal kick (those are done with...you guessed it...the foot) from 25 yards out. So, 1+9=10. And then maybe provisions for a drop kick in the run of play (without a required TD first) being worth 5 points if through the posts (and maybe even one or two points if it instead hits the endzone.

Also, enough tackling is enough. No pinning down. And only go after who is running the ball.

I also don't like the padding, helmets, or pants that are worn in pointyball. I like NFL jerseys, but I'd rather see them with shorts and no helmet or pads.

Soccer, though, I love. Sounders, Thorns (women), SDSU (m/w). I like to read about the various leagues as well, since some don't get any coverage in the USA.

[Tonus]

Is american "football" also infected with that disgusting disease called hooliganism?

On the part of the players, yes. Fans are noisy and occasionally do dangerous and stupid things, but it's usually notable when they do. Although the fans in some of our northeastern cities (Philly, Boston, New York) pride themselves in being particularly obnoxious, they don't really hold a candle to some of the crazy shit I've seen soccer fans do.

If Alex Rodriguez was a soccer player, they'd probably have fished his corpse out of a lake years ago.

[CleanShavenJesus]

Cows win, COWS WIN!

To be fair, the Giants really defeated themselves.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Cows win, COWS WIN!

To be fair, the Giants really defeated themselves.

Offense sells tickets, Defense wins games. Cowboys got 6 turnovers, 3 of them forced. I had David Wilson on my fantasy team,-2.30 points.

[CleanShavenJesus]

To be fair, the Giants really defeated themselves.

Offense sells tickets, Defense wins games. Cowboys got 6 turnovers, 3 of them forced. I had David Wilson on my fantasy team,-2.30 points.

3 of them forced, as in the other 3 were caused by them just being shitty. Don't pat yourself on the back too much. Dallas still sucks, and is not making the playoffs.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Offense sells tickets, Defense wins games. Cowboys got 6 turnovers, 3 of them forced. I had David Wilson on my fantasy team,-2.30 points.

3 of them forced, as in the other 3 were caused by them just being shitty. Don't pat yourself on the back too much. Dallas still sucks, and is not making the playoffs.

I'm afraid I don't have enough evidence to make any claims about play-offs one way or the other Unless, records are evidence. If that's the case, Dallas looks to be more favorable than NY at the moment. I'm starting D. Wilson again this weekend. I hope he can hold on to the ball!

[Tiberius]

I've watched American Football and I think the game is great; I can definitely see why it is so popular and I like it. My girlfriend is from Boston so I naturally support the New England Patriots (who won against the New York Jets last night, go Pats!). I know their quarterback is Tom Brady (and until very recently, they also had Tim Tebow) but other than that I don't know anyone.

The only thing I dislike about American Football is the word "football", because having watched the game, I still don't understand how it can be justified. I mean, granted the ball can be kicked at some points, but usually only in the 4th play and after a touchdown. A more accurate name might be "American Rugby" as the games are quite similar.

Edit: I should also add, I love the fact that in the professional games, pretty much every decision by the ref is made by going back and looking at slo-mo replays to make sure the decision is correct. In English football (soccer) there have been a number of controversies in recent years over goals that were disallowed despite replays showing them to be actual goals.