Questions and Observations for American Football Fans

[arewethereyet]

Moderator Notice
Merged football threads, again.  Only three more months of this folks. Threw a couple more in here to tidy things up a bit and stickied this thread.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Growing up as a kid, and in my teens, most of the time I would see the quarterbacks be up under center on most plays. But like all of life, things change, and I began to notice more shotgun formations on more plays. Anyone else notice this? 

But this season, with both college and NFL, I have noticed more getting back to under center. 

It has to be a taste in long term philosophy for me. I've never been that fond of the shotgun. I've always been more of a running game fan. 

I like pocket quarterbacks far more than scramblers. It just seems more risky in shotgun.

Either way, both under center and shotgun have their advantages and disadvantages. I've just been more of a running game fan.

Again - if you could take these random thoughts of yours and find an existing thread where they fit (as opposed to creating a new thread for each and every brain fart), that’d be just peachy.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

I stickied the thread under 'Sports and Fitness'. I don't have high hopes but thought I'd give it a shot.

[Spongebob]

Yes, anyone who pays attention to football notices the trends. Trends in both offense and defense change all the time. Both shotgun and under center offer advantage and disadvantage and are used for specific types of plays. None of this is difficult to understand.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

One major thing gridiron has over Australian rules football. Here the guys don't wear any padding except a cup. Why yes, there are a lot of injuries, especially concussions which often lead to brain injury over a long period.

Below a link to a 'best of' clip. Here it's blokes marking (catching) the ball. If the ball is not touched by another player, that's a free kick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huIVv7znGSw

The clip under this link is 'biggest hits'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGLyCDzYUtg

[Spongebob]

I'm not sure all the gear worn by American Football players helps that much. We still have lots of concussions and all sorts of injuries. Sometimes I think all the pads do is give players the false sense of security that they can treat their bodies like missiles and survive. And despite years of training and added rules and penalties, players still dive head first at another player, often injuring themselves and/or the other player. The combination of this inherently violent sport with new rules intended to protect certain players makes for some very contradictory penalties. I saw a roughing the QB penalty yesterday called against a Tampa Bay player who bumped into the Saints QB with about the same force you might bump into a stranger at the grocery and say "scuze me" while he was currently having his head ripped off by a lineman. No call on the lineman.