Olympics

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I guess it would be a bit like basketball: other countries would participate, but the US wins every time

And isn't there a European American Football league? (Ok, that sounded a bit stupid... I doubt it's called that ) Probably not at the level as it is played in the US tho, but still...

 

Yeah, I noticed the Aussies aren't doing very well in the Olympics,

But then if they could run, they wouldn't have been Australians in the first place.

 

There was an NFL Europe, but it folder a couple of years ago. However, most of the players in NFL Europe weren't European. They were Americans who weren't quite good enough to play in the US - either young players who hoped they could improve thier play, and older players, trying to hang on for a few more years. So it turned into a de facto developmental league. Players who finished college and were close, but not quite good enough for the NFL played in that league for a few years, with the hopes of improving their game enough to get a contract with a US team. Some did, and made it to the NFL, most didn't, and washed out.

It's actually not all that different to how in the US, a lot of players on our pro soccer teams are European, but aren't quite good enough to play in Europe. Identical principle working in reverse.

As for the game being a lot like basketball, with other nations participating, but the US typically winning, I think American football would demonstrate that to an extreme. Other nations play basketball - they play in high school and college and have professional basketball leagues. I'm not aware of any other nation with even a semi-pro American football league.

 

IMO, the Canadian game is significantly different than the US game. Fewer downs, a wider and longer field, and an extended end zone allow for a much more open style of play. It gives the definition of "spread offense" (which more than half of the teams in the NFL currently run) a whole new meaning. And last I checked, Canada was not located in Europe.

Saying that they aren't that different is like saying the rules of badmitton and tennis aren't that different in that they both require you to hit something over a net.

 

No, Canadian football is very similar to the NFL. Yes, there are differences in rules, but the basic concepts, skill sets, etc. are basically the same. In fact, most of the CFL players come from the US who grew up playing US-style football but couldn't make it in the NFL - the skills are very transferable (unlike your example of tennis vs. badminton)

You had said "I'm not aware of any other nation with even a semi-pro American football league." And the last I checked, Canada wasn't located in the US either.

 

Nice to see you too Aldeth!! I agree with your comment about the perceived relative importance of the gold medal vs a grand slam title or similar. As I was watching that match, the thought did cross my mind on whether Federer would let Murray win this -- given his well known love for GB and Wimbledon -- he knows how much it would mean for GB to get the gold in this particular situation. Some, I'm sure, would say Federer would never give it to him - but I'm not so sure. Thoughts?

 

I was using the term "American" to distinguish it from soccer, because that's what most people on these boards think of when they read "football". I concede that I was imprecise with my wording. I should have used the phrase "American-style football".

That said, I still maintain that Canadian football is vastly different from the version played in the US. There's also arena league football. I've seen all three. While there are skill sets that transfer between the leagues, all three seem to be very different games. I'll give you two examples. Kurt Warner was considered a "decent" arena league quarterback. Warren Moon was regarded as an elite Canadian League quarterback. I'd say Warner was a bit better than decent when he came to the NFL, and while Moon had a very respectable NFL career, he was never considered among the best at his position in any given year. One got considerably better, one got considerably worse upon coming to the NFL.

I don't know. While I certianly don't know Federer really well, and he does seem like a really nice guy, he's also a professional athlete. One common denominator among professional athletes - a characteristic that seems only magnified when talking about the great ones - is their Type A hyper-competitive personalities. They hate to lose at anything. It doesn't matter if you're talking about the sport they play or a game of cards. It seems like in addition to having natural ability, along with the drive and committment to perfect your craft, being hyper-competitive is practically a prerequisite for becoming a great professional athlete.

Then again, of all the examples I could list of athletes that fit this mold, they would also be American. Perhaps this phenomenon is not as prevalent among athletes of other nations. And I can't say I know Federer well enough from the interview I've seen as to whether or not he's like this or not. I can't seem to think of a single great athlete who isn't very competetive though, so I'm disinclined to think Federer deliberately threw the match. A more plausible scenario in my mind is that perhaps Murray prepared much harder for the Olympics than Federer. Murray, as a member of the host nation, may have placed far greater importance on the match than Federer.

 

I still disagree. While there are some differences in rules, they aren’t so vast as to make the 2 games completely different. The skill sets are essentially the same. A receiver doesn’t forget how to catch a ball when he goes from one league to another. A QB still knows how to throw, a RB still knows how to carry, an offensive lineman still knows how to block, a defensive player still knows how to tackle, and everyone still knows how to fondle their teammates’ buttocks. Yes, the differences in rules and field size means there would be a bit of a learning curve, and some players have more trouble adjusting than others, but the core of the game is still the same. And with regards to the Olympics, Canada would at least be able to field a team that knows what it was doing – it wouldn’t beat a US team, but it would probably be able to beat anyone else. Your Warren Moon example isn’t really an indication of the difference in the games, but rather shows the difference in the quality of players – as I said, most CFL players are guys who aren’t good enough to make it in the NFL; they know how to play the game, but they lack the talent needed for the NFL.

 

*sigh*

I don't even know if we're even arguing about the same aspects of the sports now. Yes, players in the NFL and the CFL are throwing, catching, running and kicking a football. But the styles of play are quite dissimilar. About the only counterarguement I can come up with is that you couldn't run an NFL offense in the CFL, and you couldn't run a CFL offense in the NFL. Play designs by necessity are intrinsically different.

Keep all the same players in each league, and just change the field size and rule sets, and both leagues would change drastically. The most easily recognizable example I can give you would have been seen in this year's draft. With CFL rules, the Colts wouldn't have taken Andrew Luck with the first pick. They would have grabbed RG3. Why? Because the way offenses need to be run in the CFL are fundamentally different.

If we work on the premise that the skill sets are the same, and that the NFL just has the better players than the CFL and Arena Leauges, then there's no way to explain someone like Kurt Warner. Certainly a decent Arena League quarterback, (where the rule differences make it even more dissimilar to either the NFL or CFL) would have no chance of making the grade as a starting QB in the NFL. Yet Warner went from middling starter in Arena League, to a likely Hall of Fame QB in the NFL. Are we to believe that he magically became better at throwing the football with accuracy and reading defenses in his first year as a starter in the NFL when he won the MVP?

I'm trying to find a non-football corrolary to put my argument in perspective, and this is the best one I can come up with. It's like saying Skyrim and WoW are essentially the same game because they are both single person action RPGs. That because they have many visual similarities, that they must be very much alike. I don't agree with that statement, and I don't agree that the NFL and CFL are similar leagues.

 

Seems to me they're more alike than not, and they're all called football after all. (Never mind the soccer misnomer for the moment.)

If Canada formed a basketball league where they shortened the court by ten meters, raised the net by ten centimeters, and implemented three periods instead of two halfs or four quarters, I bet most people would still think it was some form of basketball.

IMO American football and Canadian football would be like BG vs. IWD. They're both Infinity Engine games but one uses 2nd Edition rules and the other 3rd. (Also Canada would be IWD because it's snowy. )

 

Oh, I definitely deserved that - I even gave both of you a thanks for it!

OK, well, pick whatever analogy you like. I wasn't trying to prove an analogy point. If I were to boil my argument down to a sentence or two it would be while the different football leagues present a visually similar product, they are vastly different in how they are played (different plays, different formations, different offense and defense formations). You and Splunge see this as a minor difference, whereas I see entirely different plays, and thus conclude it's a very different game. I'll agree with Gaear that it's still "football", but it's played in a very different way.

I admitted up front it wasn't a great analogy. I was just trying to think of an example where two different things can look similar with a cursory inspection.

 

I don't know what Warren Moon you're talking about but the Warren Moon I watched is a Hall of Fame quarterback with nearly 50,000 yards passing, 4 4,000+ yard seasons, another 5 3,000+ yard seasons. He was the first quarterback with consecutive 4,000+ yard seasons (leading the league in one of those). He was considered one of the best while playing against Elway, Montana, Young, Marino, and Kelly -- and four of those guys had much better support.

 

This time it’s my turn to say that dmc said basically the same thing I would have said, even right down to the singles-vs-doubles tennis analogy.

Actually, that does more to prove my point than yours. I think Warner learned football under NFL-style rules, and while he wasn’t a star in Arena Football, he wasn’t a disaster either. And that’s my point – players used to one set of rules can transition to another, albeit with varying success; and like you point out, the difference between Arena and NFL is greater than between CFL and NFL.

And again, our point is that the differences are not vast enough to mean that a player who can play in one league can't play in the other, although perhaps at different levels. A lot of the differences you cite relate to strategy rather than skill, and that falls on the coaches; now I don’t mean to suggest that coaching isn’t important – in fact, I think that would be a bigger challenge than what the players face. The point, as dmc stated, is that if football using US rules were to become an Olympic sport (which is how this whole discussion began), Canada could still field a team and at least look like they knew what was going on.

 

Australian football. But then they should just do rugby.

 

OK. Fine. You win. Besides, this is far more interesting...

That's the same one. And yes, I consider every single one of those guys you listed as better, with the exception of Jim Kelly, who I didn't think was all that. As an aside, his back to back 4,000 yard seasons were 1990 and 1991. Dan Marino had 3 consecutive years with over 4,000 yards in 1983-1985, including one that was over 5,000 yards. So I don't think Moon was the 1st.

Some relevant statistics:

Moon:

4000+ yd seasons - 4
3000+ yd seasons - 5
TD/INT ratio - 291/233
Record 102-101
Playoffs 3-7

Elway:

4000+ yd seasons - 1
3000+ yd seasons - 11
TD/INT ratio - 300/226
Record 148-82-1
Playoffs 14-7

Montana:

4000+ yd seasons - 0
3000+ yd seasons - 9
TD/INT ratio - 273/96
Record 117-47
Playoffs 16-7

Marino:

4000+ yd seasons - 6
3000+ yd seasons - 7 (including 2 where he had over 3,900 yards)
TD/INT ratio - 420/252
Record 147-93
Playoffs 10-10

Like I said, I think all these guys were better, and since they played contemporaneously with Moon, I have hard time listing him as "one of the best" when he had at least 5 comtemporaries who were better. I won't include Brett Favre because there was only two years of overlap in their careers, and it's not fair to compare an old Moon with a young Favre. Oh, one other point, all of the other guys you listed won at least one MVP, except Jim Kelly, and um... Moon.

 

Hello? Olympics topic?

Overnight, New Zealand just won our 100th ever Olympic medal. Nice milestone.

Meanwhile, The tiny island nation of Grenada has taken a virtually unassailable lead in the population adjusted medal table, winning the gold in the 400m, with their population of only 100,000 people. NZ sitting in second place, and Slovenia in 3rd.

Great Britain still having an awesome Olympics. A flood of medals for the hosts.