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They are catastrophic in rugby too. They built an entire game around it. They have a high failure rate in NFL because they clearly aren’t practiced.

piker 6y ago
It’s just a different sport. In American football, the plays are highly orchestrated and many players are travelling near top speed out of pre-arranged formations and in tightly constrained routes. The forward pass is available, has a much higher success rate when thrown at a specialist player and a bigger payoff. Many of the team (the offensive line) aren’t eligible for such passes and therefor have been optimised by body type for blocking. The lateral pass is practiced in high school as part of the “option” offense because the difference between position players in high school is much lower and there may not be huge standout talent at quarterback (the passer) and wide receiver (the specialist recipient). The offense is sometimes run at the college level by schools with a low level of talent, such as those with high academic admissions standards and the military service academy. Running the option also generally involves jeopardising the health of your best player, the quarterback. This matters less in high school and bad programs where the drop off isn’t as significant. At better programs there are just better strategies with lower risks.
- onethought 6y ago
  Thank you for the in depth reply, great points. But I often see that college/high school level play it as a one or two passes, usually thrown with varying levels of accuracy. It’s nothing like a rugby play. I take your point it’s a different game, but it also prides itself on unique playbooks. All of the things you pointed out are why a properly practiced rugby style play would not just surprise a defensive line, but they wouldn’t even have the correct types of players to combat it (i.e a heavy defensive line would be terrible)
philwelch 6y ago
If rugby allowed forward passes, they wouldn’t bother with backwards and lateral passes as much either.

piker 6y ago

It’s just a different sport. In American football, the plays are highly orchestrated and many players are travelling near top speed out of pre-arranged formations and in tightly constrained routes. The forward pass is available, has a much higher success rate when thrown at a specialist player and a bigger payoff. Many of the team (the offensive line) aren’t eligible for such passes and therefor have been optimised by body type for blocking. The lateral pass is practiced in high school as part of the “option” offense because the difference between position players in high school is much lower and there may not be huge standout talent at quarterback (the passer) and wide receiver (the specialist recipient). The offense is sometimes run at the college level by schools with a low level of talent, such as those with high academic admissions standards and the military service academy. Running the option also generally involves jeopardising the health of your best player, the quarterback. This matters less in high school and bad programs where the drop off isn’t as significant. At better programs there are just better strategies with lower risks.

onethought 6y ago
Thank you for the in depth reply, great points. But I often see that college/high school level play it as a one or two passes, usually thrown with varying levels of accuracy. It’s nothing like a rugby play. I take your point it’s a different game, but it also prides itself on unique playbooks. All of the things you pointed out are why a properly practiced rugby style play would not just surprise a defensive line, but they wouldn’t even have the correct types of players to combat it (i.e a heavy defensive line would be terrible)

philwelch 6y ago

If rugby allowed forward passes, they wouldn’t bother with backwards and lateral passes as much either.