10 ms·

Reminds me of another example of video-game inspired tactics: Just before he reached the end zone, with 17 seconds remaining, Stokley cut right at 90 degrees a

by jefftk 4y ago

Reminds me of another example of video-game inspired tactics: Just before he reached the end zone, with 17 seconds remaining, Stokley cut right at 90 degrees and ran across the field. Six seconds drained off the clock before, at last, he meandered across the goal line to score the winning touchdown. For certain football fans, the excitement of a last-minute comeback now commingled with the shock of the familiar: It's hard to think of a better example of a professional athlete doing something so obviously inspired by the tactics of videogame football. When I caught up with Stokley by telephone a few weeks later, I asked him point-blank: "Is that something out of a videogame?" "It definitely is," Stokley said. "I think everybody who's played those games has done that" — run around the field for a while at the end of the game to shave a few precious seconds off the clock. Stokley said he had performed that maneuver in a videogame "probably hundreds of times" before doing it in a real NFL game. https://www.wired.com/2010/01/ff-gamechanger/ https://www.wired.com/2010/01/ff-gamechanger/

harrydehal 4y ago
Assuming this is the video you're referencing: https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8?t=107 https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8?t=107
TulliusCicero 4y ago
This is really interesting. The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. What the existence of video games does, is allow people to do things like this in an environment where social expectations and pressure don't really exist. It's like a psychological primer. You do it so many times in the video game, more and more you think, gee, why not do this in real life?
- zinckiwi 4y ago
  At least this is open play with ball in hand, and there is danger there. I fully admit I am not very familiar with American football, but the completely accepted "taking a knee" to run down as much as two minutes of the clock at the end of the game strikes me as far more cynical.
  - freetime2 4y ago
    It’s not cynical at all - clock management is recognized and even appreciated as an important part of the game. Teams routinely practice how best to take advantage of the last 2 minutes of the game, and if they misuse even a few seconds of game time the coach gets roasted by the media. When coaches are able to find a loophole to burn additional seconds off the clock, they are celebrated for it [1], and the rules are typically amended for the following year to prevent similar abuses. [1] https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/10/19/mike-vrabel-appeared-to-take-an-intentional-penalty-to-stop-the-clock-on-titans-comeback/ https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/10/19/mike-vrabel...
    - zinckiwi 4y ago
      You mean it’s not illegal. It’s absolutely cynical — “how can I win this game by stopping my opponent from playing?”
- kerakaali 4y ago
  I love this comment and want to add another perspective. The existence of video games brings people together on a level playing field where they are free to explore their ideas and refine strategies over a length of time far longer than anyone can actually play the game in reality. You see it to a more immediate effect in games such as Dota2, League, etc. Professional level players regularly play with amateurs and non-professionals and you notice that ideas propagate throughout the community readily. Obviously there is a certain barrier to entry for physical sports and the online equivalent to share in ideas, but with how far sports-based games will go striving for realism (all the iterations of Football Manager come to mind), it wouldn't be hard to imagine that in the future strategies will be tested virtually before being employed in real.
  - routerl 4y ago
    > it wouldn't be hard to imagine that in the future strategies will be tested virtually before being employed in real. Meet Max Verstappen[0], current reigning 2-time F1 world champion, who credits a lot of his success to how much time he spends playing racing simulators online. Seen here[1] doing something ridiculous, which works in the sim; he hasn't pulled this move on-track yet, but if he does it won't suprise me. Incidentally, most of the current generation of F1 drivers are also sim racers. I think what these people are doing is creating goals for themselves in virtual spaces, to strive for in real space. The OP video couldn't have happened except in the exact situation that driver was in, his mind was habituated to trying to make that move, and he knew his car and track enough to make the correct call re: risk. The video game experience is only one part of that, but it's a crucial part. The rest came from real world racing experience. [0] https://www.teamredline.com/work/max-verstappen/ https://www.teamredline.com/work/max-verstappen/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rC81KMPM9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rC81KMPM9Q Addendum to explain the video I've linked: The streamer who is recording is close enough to the car ahead (Max Verstappen) that he gets pulled along by the slipstream effect (caused by the vacuum created behind the car ahead as it cuts through the air). This reduces the aerodynamic drag on the streamer's car, and allows him to accelerate more than the car ahead. Normally (i.e. in meatspace racing), in this situation, the following car would wait as long as possible in the slipstream, until right before the next braking zone, then take a sharp turn out from behind the leading car, pass them (with the faster acceleration), and then try to brake later than the leading car before turning into the next corner, ensuring they'd go into the corner first, and thus come out of the corner first. In this clip, Max anticipated all of the above, moved out from in front of the following car (breaking the slipstream himself), braked much earlier than a racing driver normally would (allowing the streamer's car to temporarily pass him), and used the time he lost to assess the streamer's racing line (read: vector) into the corner. Then he aimed his own car into the gap between that line and the corner of the track, and used the extra space to accelerate earlier than the streamer. By doing this, he negated every advantage the streamer had gained from the slipstream, and stayed ahead.
- yuliyp 4y ago
  That social expectation isn't really present in american football: teams will do lots of different things to manipulate the game clock toward the end (choose to run vs pass because the clock stops on incomplete passes or if the ball goes out of bounds, taking a knee, spiking the ball).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I think it is also common in basketball for a team to intentionally manage their fouls, right? And hockey had goons for quite a while (I think they've been trying to prevent that sort of thing lately). Perhaps we should change the meaning of the expression "sportsmanlike behavior."
- discardedrefuse 4y ago
  > The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. Clock management is a pretty big aspect of (American) football strategy and very much expected. I don't think anyone considers it gaming the rules. Just off the top of my head: - Teams with comfortable leads tend to switch to conservative play calling. This keeps the ball safe and the clock running. - Inside of 2:00, getting tackled on the field keeps the clock running. But running out of bounds or throwing an incomplete pass will stop the clock. So plays are always chosen to take advantage of this. - Quarterbacks will spike the ball to quickly the stop the clock (incomplete pass). - Calling a timeout stops the clock, so teams save these for the 2:00 drill. The 2:00 warning also stops the clocks, teams consider this a free timeout. - Coaches will call timeout just as a kicker is about to kick a field goal. This is called "freezing the kicker". When timed right, it makes the kicker have to kick it again.
  - songshu 4y ago
    The Super Bowl in 2013 featured an intentional safety. Losing points but running the clock down. The play was predicted by one attendee at the party I was at —- a British gentleman whose introduction to football had been the Madden games.
    - jimbob45 4y ago
      I was trying to figure out if you meant the SB held for the 2013 season or the SB actually held in 2013 but then I remembered that it happened in both lol
  - mnd999 4y ago
    Even victory formation, this is an ultra cautious time waste. It’s also a thing in association football (soccer). Teams are praised for passing the ball around aimlessly denying the opposition possession to defend a lead. It’s boring to watch, unless it’s your team.
    - 4y ago
- lostlogin 4y ago
  > an environment where social expectations and pressure don't really exist. It’s almost inverted. The expectation is often for gamers to be as exploitative as possible. There is a lot of hilarity to be had by all with a play that gets a win in ann unexpected way, and it has quite a culture around it. It can go too far to be sure, but in good measure it’s often what is best about multiplayer games.
  - afarrell 4y ago
    A video game is a puzzle and it is fun to watch someone successfully manipulate a puzzle. Live sports are with people and people don't like watching others be manipulated.
    - setr 4y ago
      Of course they do, things like juking, tricking other players, etc are well accepted The problem is that these kinds of strategies are boring to watch, have little counter play, and only interesting the first time around — as soon as it enters the meta, it’s just boring. In this case it’d probably be fine, but if you spent two minutes doing it? It’d be awful. Exactly the same as it goes in video games — it’s fun to see people exploiting elements the game, when it adds complexity to the match. When it reduces it, like an infinite combo, regardless of how mechanically complex or novel a puzzle solution it might be, it just detracts.
      - solveit 4y ago
        Yeah, for game exploits "haha I can't believe you can do that, that's hilarious, now let's patch it out" is the norm. Exploits that make the game richer and gain wide acceptance are very much the exception.
        FileSorter 4y ago
        >Exploits that make the game richer and gain wide acceptance are very much the exception. Good examples of this are bunny hopping and rollout doomfist.
- hattmall 4y ago
  There's no social expectation in football. People don't generally do stuff like this because of the risk.
  - sixstringtheory 4y ago
    This is the right answer. There have been running backs, kick returners and pass receivers who thought they had outrun the opponents and slowed down towards the end zone to gawk and show off, and wound up getting tackled short of what should have been an easy touchdown by people that caught up to them. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in at least one of those cases, the defense then showed up and forced a turnover after a three-and-out on a first and goal.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  One reason you typically don't see really hacky/exploitative stuff in competitive sports is that... these sports are decades or even 100+ years old. Tens of thousands of games have been played by extremely talented and competitive individuals. Thousands of exploits have been tried and written into the rulebooks. For example, the "Sean Avery" rule in hockey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Avery#The_Avery_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Avery#The_Avery_Rule That was a neat "exploit" and much respect to him for trying it, but it was outlawed literally the next day. The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. While a fun thought, I cannot understate how incorrect this is. In basketball, football, or basically any sport with a time limit there is absolutely zero stigma or shame with regards to running out the clock if it benefits your team. In fact, that guy would have been raked over the coals if he didn't run out the clock. I also assure you his coach was exhorting the team to win the game by running out the clock rather than scoring with time remaining on the clock which would have given the other team another chance to score and perhaps tie/win. I'm sure that player definitely did pull that move off in a video game, but so has everybody else, because it's also super basic football strategy!
  - jefftk 4y ago
    I'm not a football person, but my understanding from the article is that this wasn't something that people were doing until after it became popular in the video game?
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      I'm not sure the Wired writer is a football person either. I can probably best explain it this way: that play does not have a name, because it's pretty basic and that guy didn't invent it. Clock management is so integral to gridiron football. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_out_the_clock#American_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_out_the_clock#American... You probably see that move a little bit more in video games. In real life there's more that can go wrong; you have eleven guys chasing you and you do not have 360-degree awareness. The ball could be knocked away from you, etc. Worst case scenario you hurt your teammates, lose your job, etc. So you will be more conservative. I think video games have influenced football in a lot of ways, just not that one. Particularly TV coverage - the "sky cams" on high tension wires crisscrossing the arenas, mimicking the unfettered virtual cameras in video games. Also, the superimposed CGI first down lines on the field.
- jdminhbg 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s the social expectations that are at play here. Instead, it’s that without video game football, the odds of a player ever being in this situation are minuscule — so minuscule that we’re currently commenting on an article written about one time that it happened twelve years ago — and so the correct strategy won’t be something that pops into your head when sprinting for the end zone. But if you play hundreds to thousands of iterated games of video game football where you control the ball on every play, you’re bound to run into the scenario and be detached enough to know what to do. Then that gets burned into your memory for the unlikely event it happens in real life.
  - bscphil 4y ago
    > But if you play hundreds to thousands of iterated games of video game football where you control the ball on every play, you’re bound to run into the scenario and be detached enough to know what to do. Back in the day, the AI for opponents was often fairly stupid. Rather than spreading out intelligently to prevent an opponent from reaching the goal line, they would just sprint towards your current location at all times. So if you run in a bit of a loop from where it makes sense for you to actually go, you can get the opponents to chase you in a long line. Not hard to dodge them almost indefinitely in this case, allowing you to take an arbitrary amount of time off the clock. Real players won't behave like this. > I don’t think it’s the social expectations that are at play here. I agree, mostly, but there could be a slight effect here. It's widely known that coaches choose to punt rather than go for it on fourth down (in American football, failing to take the ball past a "first down" marker in five downs results in a turnover) much more often than they should if motivated purely to win the most games. It's speculated that coaches are disincentivized to make high-risk, high-reward choices like going for it, when trying and failing it will result in embarrassment versus taking the safe option.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      The team gets only four downs, not five, to pass the first down line and reset it.
      - 4y ago
- dylan604 4y ago
  >But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. There's also the concept of good sportsmanship. Doing this kind of "move" could be considered disrespectful and a show of bad sportsmanship. The other football has its time honored ways of wasting time, keeping the ball in the opponent's corner, the keeper waiting until the last second to pick up a ball, someone getting "hurt", nobody open on a throw-in, walking off for a sub, etc. Then there's the sportsmanship thing of kicking the ball out of play for an opposing player to receive treatment. How much of the time wasting is good/bad sportsmanship vs good stratechery?
- cortesoft 4y ago
  Yeah, I don't think it is social expectation... in fact, some common game clock management choices (like taking a knee) are frowned on much more in video games than real life.
- neffo 4y ago
  Yeah breaking the unwritten rules of the game, like not often seen is basketballers under-arming free-throws. It's unsporting, not even Michael Jordan did it (ooff, he took that personally...). Under-arming was done in modern international cricket once and ruined sporting careers.
  - dwd 4y ago
    As it should... 40 years later and we're still talking about it. Rolling the ball along the ground when a six was required to win made what was an exciting game into a farce. You want your team to win, but not like that. You have to question whether there wa some money put down on the side... Same can be said for the batsman who walks. It's the right decision when you consider you want to win with no doubt as to the validity of the result. Maybe if sponsors required sportsmanship as part of their contracts you might see less of ball tampering and other dubious practices in the name of winning.
- causi 4y ago
  The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit Having spent several years playing amateur football in my youth, I can attest that the game would be vastly improved if the clock never stopped and the teams had set time limits between the end of one play the beginning of the next. Christ I got so tired of the dicking around.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    And you could do it same way as in actual football. Have referee call the end when the last play is done.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- _ea1k 4y ago
  I don't think its from video games, tbh, its just not a situation that comes up very often. Similar things happen IRL on rare occasions and doing weird things to game the rules are common when they do. For example, if its 4th down and you are leading by more than 2 points with very little time left on the clock, what do you do? One option is to punt and have the punter run out of the back of his own endzone. It gives the opponent 2 points, but is a very safe play. I've also seen teams run a punt play, but the offensive linemen intentionally commit holding to maximize the amount of time that the punter (or qb) holds onto the ball in the backfield while the clock runs. The clock doesn't stop until the ball hits the ground if a qb throws, so a high long pass just out of bounds can burn a few seconds too. Hmm, lets see... also letting an opponent score a TD happens somewhat regularly. And often the player will slide instead of scoring. Video game players do that, but the idea didn't start there.
- dkarl 4y ago
  Gaming the rules is part of the game in most American team sports. The culture of consistency in rule enforcement regardless of context enables this, and it dovetails nicely with deception being celebrated as a tactic (hidden ball tricks in baseball, and deceptions like this play[0] in football) which also depends on rules being enforced. Another way to put it is that in American sports like baseball, basketball, and football, the rules are considered part of the game, and using the rules to your advantage shows respect for the game. With soccer, by contrast, people often talk about an essence of the game that transcends the rules, which the rules only approximate, and it seems like there is a different relationship to the rules as a result. Rules are a necessary evil that serve the higher essence of the game, and if you are too concerned with the rules people might feel like you are disrespecting the higher essence that they serve. At least that has been my impression from spectators and amateurs, in my experience. Competitors at higher levels of play might approach it differently. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MiD6no269s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MiD6no269s
- jjfoooo4 4y ago
  I think it’s more that unlike in video games, real football players cannot see behind them without turning their heads and slowing down. There any many examples of players who thought they were in the clear and celebrated early, only to get tackled and fumble.
- darepublic 4y ago
  Yes there is social pressure not to try anything so unorthodox. If you fail the social / reputational fallout will be greater than it you failed the old fashioned way.
- philodelta 4y ago
  Though there is the threat of rules being made to govern "unsportsman-like" behavior that dissuades this kind of thing. If the powers that govern the sport determine they don't want this to be a mainstay, they can rule it out. The videogame exists in a realm of concrete and unchanging rules, theres no threat of making anyone mad, besides the person at the other end of the couch of course.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  > But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. I’ve watched the QB take a knee hundreds of times to run down the clock. The difference here is his play was riskier because it would have been easier to lose possession.
jahlove 4y ago
https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8 https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8
- karaokeyoga 4y ago
  and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byZ67YQBFCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byZ67YQBFCk
- ignoramous 4y ago
  mirror: http://ghostarchive.org/varchive/9fPamV6LsV8 http://ghostarchive.org/varchive/9fPamV6LsV8
dereg 4y ago
I love this clip so much - I pulled it off so many times in Need For Speed but games like Gran Turismo always nerfed to move. There are so many moves that were obvious in video games but (bafflingly, to a kid like me) were never adopted until much, much later like: • NFL - Going for it on 4th down • NFL - QB spamming scramble moves (w/ Michael Vick) • NBA - Spamming 3 pointers (w/ Steph Curry)
- svnpenn 4y ago
  > I love this clip so much what clip?
  - dereg 4y ago
    Sorry - I was talking about the clip of the video game move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3yNc5EasW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3yNc5EasW8
    - bmitc 4y ago
      Do Nascar drivers develop neck problems? I know it's a joke that all they do is turn left and that racing is in general tough on the neck, but it does seem like they'd almost always been veering their head to the left over hours long races.
      - criddell 4y ago
        The drivers wear a head and neck restraint to reduce the chances of injury.
      - Shocka1 4y ago
        Some tracks are more hard on them than others, but I haven't heard much about any negative affects in NASCAR besides feeling dizzy or off balance for several hours after a race. Open wheel drivers commonly pull over 5 G's though in corners. Their heads are supported, but I would think your brain getting pulled to one side with that much force for over an hour can't be a net positive. Not speaking negatively about it of course - to each their own. I raced Superbikes for eight years and you might as well throw risk tolerance completely out the window with that kind of racing.
chasd00 4y ago
I haven’t seen it in a while but it use to be fairly common to take a delay of game penalty (sometimes two in a row) to wind down the clock. /American football
- zerocrates 4y ago
  The NFL has rules to try make this ineffective: for one, taking two delay of game penalties in a row is an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. There's also various rules that try to eliminate strategic use of penalties to run down the clock by making the clock stop on penalties at the ends of the halves. You still see delay of game penalties by teams running down the clock fairly regularly, but it's more to just use every available second of the play clock up, typically in a situation where the distance loss isn't very important (like right before a punt).
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Furthermore, sometimes you want to lose the distance so that the punter doesn't have to struggle with a punt that's on the short end of his comfortable range.
quijoteuniv 4y ago
And before video games… Senna ‘91 win in brazil F1… 7 laps stuck on the 6th gear https://www.ayrton-senna-dasilva.com/brazil-1991/ https://www.ayrton-senna-dasilva.com/brazil-1991/ on the «Senna» documentary he even says that on the last laps he had an out of the body experience, watching himself and the car from the top.
baby 4y ago
People have been doing that in football in Europe forever. I remember a number of old world cup games completely ruined by people running the clock.
- eckesicle 4y ago
  In the Euro 2004, Denmark and Sweden would both go on to qualify at Italy's expense if the result of the game was 2-2. Of course, the score ended up being just that towards the end of the game, and then the players on both teams just stood still and passed the ball between themselves running down the last 8 minutes or so of the clock. https://youtu.be/9kgJNL_uuHI https://youtu.be/9kgJNL_uuHI
  - pfortuny 4y ago
    This was much worse (I saw it on TV), and the reason why the last two matches in the qualifiers are played at the same time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gijón https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gijón
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  I was going to say, if you're not at risk of getting tackled and you're ahead it makes sense to stall. I do believe in football (soccer for americans) a referee will intervene if players are obviously stalling (e.g. by not playing, or the goalkeeper just holding onto the ball) but they can just go back and forth for a bit. Probably also happens in boxing and other time related sports.
samstave 4y ago
This is like killing Lord British tactic in UO
m463 4y ago
I have noticed other analogies between computer behavior and real life. Basically security and similar attacks that were practical on computers have now become practical in real life. Think of one person annoying a business. But now what the same person annoys a business repeatedly? Or someone and all his friends annoy a business repeatedly? attack, denial of service attack, distributed denial of service attack. there are probably lots of other examples
hibikir 4y ago
Football coaches, especially college coaches and high school coaches, have made comments regarding how Madden has changed the game in some ways, but it's mainly due to increasing the baseline knowledge of the game. Your typical new player might have watched some football games, and most of their coaching would involve a position coach teaching the specific position. There aren't that many coaching hours that aren't dedicated to the physical part of the sport, so it wasn't uncommon to find players with the right physiques for a position, and decent knowledge of how they had to play, but short in general "Football IQ". As the games have become closer to a simulation, kids that are football fans get a lot free time where they control both the offense and the defense. They get to make calls, and see how every player in the team should move, and how it makes a difference. It in no way replaces actual football practice, but it boosts a lot of what you can ask a middling high school team to do. Even in the pros, you'll hear people talk about how so-and-so is "like another coach, but on the field", because knowledge of the game overall, and the system they play in, matters. Years of videogame football, instead of having to learn even the very basics from scratch, makes things easier.
jjallen 4y ago
I'm amazed it took until the video game era for this to happen.
c7b 4y ago
Interesting, why is it that it's "so obviously inspired by the tactics of videogame football"? It sounds like a pretty good (albeit annoying) tactic for a real game. In European football it's actually very common for players to use stall tactics, and they don't even gain as much because there's no hard limit on how long the game lasts.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
  Stalling like this in American football is significantly more risky because if any member of the opposing team reaches you, you lose everything.
jjallen 4y ago
They do this in basketball all the time. At least they try to. That's why there's a shot clock.
pif 4y ago
Sorry, I don't get it: what did he gain by shaving 6 seconds out of the last 17? Please, help me understand!
- mehphp 4y ago
  Now the opposing team gets less time to score and possibly win.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Clock management in football is incredibly important - the last 17 seconds can take multiple minutes to play if the team has timeouts, throws out of bounds, all sorts of things. You want to burn the clock if you have the ball and 17 seconds remaining, because you don't want the other team to have a chance to retaliate. It's a very delicate balance and one of the most difficult "coach" decisions football has, and it applies throughout the game, and changes based on how your offense and defense are doing vs theirs (do you score fast and hope to defend and score again, or do you score slow and hope to defend only, etc).
houtanb 4y ago
Here's a video of the Stokely touchdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fPamV6LsV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fPamV6LsV8
ubermonkey 4y ago
I had this exact thought when I read the headline.

by jefftk 4y ago

harrydehal 4y ago

Assuming this is the video you're referencing: https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8?t=107 https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8?t=107

TulliusCicero 4y ago

This is really interesting. The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. What the existence of video games does, is allow people to do things like this in an environment where social expectations and pressure don't really exist. It's like a psychological primer. You do it so many times in the video game, more and more you think, gee, why not do this in real life?

zinckiwi 4y ago
At least this is open play with ball in hand, and there is danger there. I fully admit I am not very familiar with American football, but the completely accepted "taking a knee" to run down as much as two minutes of the clock at the end of the game strikes me as far more cynical.
- freetime2 4y ago
  It’s not cynical at all - clock management is recognized and even appreciated as an important part of the game. Teams routinely practice how best to take advantage of the last 2 minutes of the game, and if they misuse even a few seconds of game time the coach gets roasted by the media. When coaches are able to find a loophole to burn additional seconds off the clock, they are celebrated for it [1], and the rules are typically amended for the following year to prevent similar abuses. [1] https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/10/19/mike-vrabel-appeared-to-take-an-intentional-penalty-to-stop-the-clock-on-titans-comeback/ https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/10/19/mike-vrabel...
  - zinckiwi 4y ago
    You mean it’s not illegal. It’s absolutely cynical — “how can I win this game by stopping my opponent from playing?”
kerakaali 4y ago
I love this comment and want to add another perspective. The existence of video games brings people together on a level playing field where they are free to explore their ideas and refine strategies over a length of time far longer than anyone can actually play the game in reality. You see it to a more immediate effect in games such as Dota2, League, etc. Professional level players regularly play with amateurs and non-professionals and you notice that ideas propagate throughout the community readily. Obviously there is a certain barrier to entry for physical sports and the online equivalent to share in ideas, but with how far sports-based games will go striving for realism (all the iterations of Football Manager come to mind), it wouldn't be hard to imagine that in the future strategies will be tested virtually before being employed in real.
- routerl 4y ago
  > it wouldn't be hard to imagine that in the future strategies will be tested virtually before being employed in real. Meet Max Verstappen[0], current reigning 2-time F1 world champion, who credits a lot of his success to how much time he spends playing racing simulators online. Seen here[1] doing something ridiculous, which works in the sim; he hasn't pulled this move on-track yet, but if he does it won't suprise me. Incidentally, most of the current generation of F1 drivers are also sim racers. I think what these people are doing is creating goals for themselves in virtual spaces, to strive for in real space. The OP video couldn't have happened except in the exact situation that driver was in, his mind was habituated to trying to make that move, and he knew his car and track enough to make the correct call re: risk. The video game experience is only one part of that, but it's a crucial part. The rest came from real world racing experience. [0] https://www.teamredline.com/work/max-verstappen/ https://www.teamredline.com/work/max-verstappen/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rC81KMPM9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rC81KMPM9Q Addendum to explain the video I've linked: The streamer who is recording is close enough to the car ahead (Max Verstappen) that he gets pulled along by the slipstream effect (caused by the vacuum created behind the car ahead as it cuts through the air). This reduces the aerodynamic drag on the streamer's car, and allows him to accelerate more than the car ahead. Normally (i.e. in meatspace racing), in this situation, the following car would wait as long as possible in the slipstream, until right before the next braking zone, then take a sharp turn out from behind the leading car, pass them (with the faster acceleration), and then try to brake later than the leading car before turning into the next corner, ensuring they'd go into the corner first, and thus come out of the corner first. In this clip, Max anticipated all of the above, moved out from in front of the following car (breaking the slipstream himself), braked much earlier than a racing driver normally would (allowing the streamer's car to temporarily pass him), and used the time he lost to assess the streamer's racing line (read: vector) into the corner. Then he aimed his own car into the gap between that line and the corner of the track, and used the extra space to accelerate earlier than the streamer. By doing this, he negated every advantage the streamer had gained from the slipstream, and stayed ahead.
yuliyp 4y ago
That social expectation isn't really present in american football: teams will do lots of different things to manipulate the game clock toward the end (choose to run vs pass because the clock stops on incomplete passes or if the ball goes out of bounds, taking a knee, spiking the ball).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I think it is also common in basketball for a team to intentionally manage their fouls, right? And hockey had goons for quite a while (I think they've been trying to prevent that sort of thing lately). Perhaps we should change the meaning of the expression "sportsmanlike behavior."
discardedrefuse 4y ago
> The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. Clock management is a pretty big aspect of (American) football strategy and very much expected. I don't think anyone considers it gaming the rules. Just off the top of my head: - Teams with comfortable leads tend to switch to conservative play calling. This keeps the ball safe and the clock running. - Inside of 2:00, getting tackled on the field keeps the clock running. But running out of bounds or throwing an incomplete pass will stop the clock. So plays are always chosen to take advantage of this. - Quarterbacks will spike the ball to quickly the stop the clock (incomplete pass). - Calling a timeout stops the clock, so teams save these for the 2:00 drill. The 2:00 warning also stops the clocks, teams consider this a free timeout. - Coaches will call timeout just as a kicker is about to kick a field goal. This is called "freezing the kicker". When timed right, it makes the kicker have to kick it again.
- songshu 4y ago
  The Super Bowl in 2013 featured an intentional safety. Losing points but running the clock down. The play was predicted by one attendee at the party I was at —- a British gentleman whose introduction to football had been the Madden games.
  - jimbob45 4y ago
    I was trying to figure out if you meant the SB held for the 2013 season or the SB actually held in 2013 but then I remembered that it happened in both lol
- mnd999 4y ago
  Even victory formation, this is an ultra cautious time waste. It’s also a thing in association football (soccer). Teams are praised for passing the ball around aimlessly denying the opposition possession to defend a lead. It’s boring to watch, unless it’s your team.
  - 4y ago
lostlogin 4y ago
> an environment where social expectations and pressure don't really exist. It’s almost inverted. The expectation is often for gamers to be as exploitative as possible. There is a lot of hilarity to be had by all with a play that gets a win in ann unexpected way, and it has quite a culture around it. It can go too far to be sure, but in good measure it’s often what is best about multiplayer games.
- afarrell 4y ago
  A video game is a puzzle and it is fun to watch someone successfully manipulate a puzzle. Live sports are with people and people don't like watching others be manipulated.
  - setr 4y ago
    Of course they do, things like juking, tricking other players, etc are well accepted The problem is that these kinds of strategies are boring to watch, have little counter play, and only interesting the first time around — as soon as it enters the meta, it’s just boring. In this case it’d probably be fine, but if you spent two minutes doing it? It’d be awful. Exactly the same as it goes in video games — it’s fun to see people exploiting elements the game, when it adds complexity to the match. When it reduces it, like an infinite combo, regardless of how mechanically complex or novel a puzzle solution it might be, it just detracts.
    - solveit 4y ago
      Yeah, for game exploits "haha I can't believe you can do that, that's hilarious, now let's patch it out" is the norm. Exploits that make the game richer and gain wide acceptance are very much the exception.
      - FileSorter 4y ago
        >Exploits that make the game richer and gain wide acceptance are very much the exception. Good examples of this are bunny hopping and rollout doomfist.
hattmall 4y ago
There's no social expectation in football. People don't generally do stuff like this because of the risk.
- sixstringtheory 4y ago
  This is the right answer. There have been running backs, kick returners and pass receivers who thought they had outrun the opponents and slowed down towards the end zone to gawk and show off, and wound up getting tackled short of what should have been an easy touchdown by people that caught up to them. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in at least one of those cases, the defense then showed up and forced a turnover after a three-and-out on a first and goal.
JohnBooty 4y ago
One reason you typically don't see really hacky/exploitative stuff in competitive sports is that... these sports are decades or even 100+ years old. Tens of thousands of games have been played by extremely talented and competitive individuals. Thousands of exploits have been tried and written into the rulebooks. For example, the "Sean Avery" rule in hockey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Avery#The_Avery_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Avery#The_Avery_Rule That was a neat "exploit" and much respect to him for trying it, but it was outlawed literally the next day. The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit, that was already present. But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. While a fun thought, I cannot understate how incorrect this is. In basketball, football, or basically any sport with a time limit there is absolutely zero stigma or shame with regards to running out the clock if it benefits your team. In fact, that guy would have been raked over the coals if he didn't run out the clock. I also assure you his coach was exhorting the team to win the game by running out the clock rather than scoring with time remaining on the clock which would have given the other team another chance to score and perhaps tie/win. I'm sure that player definitely did pull that move off in a video game, but so has everybody else, because it's also super basic football strategy!
- jefftk 4y ago
  I'm not a football person, but my understanding from the article is that this wasn't something that people were doing until after it became popular in the video game?
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    I'm not sure the Wired writer is a football person either. I can probably best explain it this way: that play does not have a name, because it's pretty basic and that guy didn't invent it. Clock management is so integral to gridiron football. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_out_the_clock#American_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_out_the_clock#American... You probably see that move a little bit more in video games. In real life there's more that can go wrong; you have eleven guys chasing you and you do not have 360-degree awareness. The ball could be knocked away from you, etc. Worst case scenario you hurt your teammates, lose your job, etc. So you will be more conservative. I think video games have influenced football in a lot of ways, just not that one. Particularly TV coverage - the "sky cams" on high tension wires crisscrossing the arenas, mimicking the unfettered virtual cameras in video games. Also, the superimposed CGI first down lines on the field.
jdminhbg 4y ago
I don’t think it’s the social expectations that are at play here. Instead, it’s that without video game football, the odds of a player ever being in this situation are minuscule — so minuscule that we’re currently commenting on an article written about one time that it happened twelve years ago — and so the correct strategy won’t be something that pops into your head when sprinting for the end zone. But if you play hundreds to thousands of iterated games of video game football where you control the ball on every play, you’re bound to run into the scenario and be detached enough to know what to do. Then that gets burned into your memory for the unlikely event it happens in real life.
- bscphil 4y ago
  > But if you play hundreds to thousands of iterated games of video game football where you control the ball on every play, you’re bound to run into the scenario and be detached enough to know what to do. Back in the day, the AI for opponents was often fairly stupid. Rather than spreading out intelligently to prevent an opponent from reaching the goal line, they would just sprint towards your current location at all times. So if you run in a bit of a loop from where it makes sense for you to actually go, you can get the opponents to chase you in a long line. Not hard to dodge them almost indefinitely in this case, allowing you to take an arbitrary amount of time off the clock. Real players won't behave like this. > I don’t think it’s the social expectations that are at play here. I agree, mostly, but there could be a slight effect here. It's widely known that coaches choose to punt rather than go for it on fourth down (in American football, failing to take the ball past a "first down" marker in five downs results in a turnover) much more often than they should if motivated purely to win the most games. It's speculated that coaches are disincentivized to make high-risk, high-reward choices like going for it, when trying and failing it will result in embarrassment versus taking the safe option.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    The team gets only four downs, not five, to pass the first down line and reset it.
    - 4y ago
dylan604 4y ago
>But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. There's also the concept of good sportsmanship. Doing this kind of "move" could be considered disrespectful and a show of bad sportsmanship. The other football has its time honored ways of wasting time, keeping the ball in the opponent's corner, the keeper waiting until the last second to pick up a ball, someone getting "hurt", nobody open on a throw-in, walking off for a sub, etc. Then there's the sportsmanship thing of kicking the ball out of play for an opposing player to receive treatment. How much of the time wasting is good/bad sportsmanship vs good stratechery?
cortesoft 4y ago
Yeah, I don't think it is social expectation... in fact, some common game clock management choices (like taking a knee) are frowned on much more in video games than real life.
neffo 4y ago
Yeah breaking the unwritten rules of the game, like not often seen is basketballers under-arming free-throws. It's unsporting, not even Michael Jordan did it (ooff, he took that personally...). Under-arming was done in modern international cricket once and ruined sporting careers.
- dwd 4y ago
  As it should... 40 years later and we're still talking about it. Rolling the ball along the ground when a six was required to win made what was an exciting game into a farce. You want your team to win, but not like that. You have to question whether there wa some money put down on the side... Same can be said for the batsman who walks. It's the right decision when you consider you want to win with no doubt as to the validity of the result. Maybe if sponsors required sportsmanship as part of their contracts you might see less of ball tampering and other dubious practices in the name of winning.
causi 4y ago
The incentive to pull off this kind of move, running the clock down a bit Having spent several years playing amateur football in my youth, I can attest that the game would be vastly improved if the clock never stopped and the teams had set time limits between the end of one play the beginning of the next. Christ I got so tired of the dicking around.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  And you could do it same way as in actual football. Have referee call the end when the last play is done.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
_ea1k 4y ago
I don't think its from video games, tbh, its just not a situation that comes up very often. Similar things happen IRL on rare occasions and doing weird things to game the rules are common when they do. For example, if its 4th down and you are leading by more than 2 points with very little time left on the clock, what do you do? One option is to punt and have the punter run out of the back of his own endzone. It gives the opponent 2 points, but is a very safe play. I've also seen teams run a punt play, but the offensive linemen intentionally commit holding to maximize the amount of time that the punter (or qb) holds onto the ball in the backfield while the clock runs. The clock doesn't stop until the ball hits the ground if a qb throws, so a high long pass just out of bounds can burn a few seconds too. Hmm, lets see... also letting an opponent score a TD happens somewhat regularly. And often the player will slide instead of scoring. Video game players do that, but the idea didn't start there.
dkarl 4y ago
Gaming the rules is part of the game in most American team sports. The culture of consistency in rule enforcement regardless of context enables this, and it dovetails nicely with deception being celebrated as a tactic (hidden ball tricks in baseball, and deceptions like this play[0] in football) which also depends on rules being enforced. Another way to put it is that in American sports like baseball, basketball, and football, the rules are considered part of the game, and using the rules to your advantage shows respect for the game. With soccer, by contrast, people often talk about an essence of the game that transcends the rules, which the rules only approximate, and it seems like there is a different relationship to the rules as a result. Rules are a necessary evil that serve the higher essence of the game, and if you are too concerned with the rules people might feel like you are disrespecting the higher essence that they serve. At least that has been my impression from spectators and amateurs, in my experience. Competitors at higher levels of play might approach it differently. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MiD6no269s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MiD6no269s
jjfoooo4 4y ago
I think it’s more that unlike in video games, real football players cannot see behind them without turning their heads and slowing down. There any many examples of players who thought they were in the clear and celebrated early, only to get tackled and fumble.
darepublic 4y ago
Yes there is social pressure not to try anything so unorthodox. If you fail the social / reputational fallout will be greater than it you failed the old fashioned way.
philodelta 4y ago
Though there is the threat of rules being made to govern "unsportsman-like" behavior that dissuades this kind of thing. If the powers that govern the sport determine they don't want this to be a mainstay, they can rule it out. The videogame exists in a realm of concrete and unchanging rules, theres no threat of making anyone mad, besides the person at the other end of the couch of course.
nkrisc 4y ago
> But there's a certain social expectation that you won't game the rules so blatantly, so that's a disincentive. I’ve watched the QB take a knee hundreds of times to run down the clock. The difference here is his play was riskier because it would have been easier to lose possession.

jahlove 4y ago

https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8 https://youtu.be/9fPamV6LsV8

karaokeyoga 4y ago
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byZ67YQBFCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byZ67YQBFCk
ignoramous 4y ago
mirror: http://ghostarchive.org/varchive/9fPamV6LsV8 http://ghostarchive.org/varchive/9fPamV6LsV8

dereg 4y ago

I love this clip so much - I pulled it off so many times in Need For Speed but games like Gran Turismo always nerfed to move. There are so many moves that were obvious in video games but (bafflingly, to a kid like me) were never adopted until much, much later like: • NFL - Going for it on 4th down • NFL - QB spamming scramble moves (w/ Michael Vick) • NBA - Spamming 3 pointers (w/ Steph Curry)

svnpenn 4y ago
> I love this clip so much what clip?
- dereg 4y ago
  Sorry - I was talking about the clip of the video game move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3yNc5EasW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3yNc5EasW8
  - bmitc 4y ago
    Do Nascar drivers develop neck problems? I know it's a joke that all they do is turn left and that racing is in general tough on the neck, but it does seem like they'd almost always been veering their head to the left over hours long races.
    - criddell 4y ago
      The drivers wear a head and neck restraint to reduce the chances of injury.
    - Shocka1 4y ago
      Some tracks are more hard on them than others, but I haven't heard much about any negative affects in NASCAR besides feeling dizzy or off balance for several hours after a race. Open wheel drivers commonly pull over 5 G's though in corners. Their heads are supported, but I would think your brain getting pulled to one side with that much force for over an hour can't be a net positive. Not speaking negatively about it of course - to each their own. I raced Superbikes for eight years and you might as well throw risk tolerance completely out the window with that kind of racing.

chasd00 4y ago

I haven’t seen it in a while but it use to be fairly common to take a delay of game penalty (sometimes two in a row) to wind down the clock. /American football

zerocrates 4y ago
The NFL has rules to try make this ineffective: for one, taking two delay of game penalties in a row is an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. There's also various rules that try to eliminate strategic use of penalties to run down the clock by making the clock stop on penalties at the ends of the halves. You still see delay of game penalties by teams running down the clock fairly regularly, but it's more to just use every available second of the play clock up, typically in a situation where the distance loss isn't very important (like right before a punt).
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Furthermore, sometimes you want to lose the distance so that the punter doesn't have to struggle with a punt that's on the short end of his comfortable range.

quijoteuniv 4y ago

And before video games… Senna ‘91 win in brazil F1… 7 laps stuck on the 6th gear https://www.ayrton-senna-dasilva.com/brazil-1991/ https://www.ayrton-senna-dasilva.com/brazil-1991/ on the «Senna» documentary he even says that on the last laps he had an out of the body experience, watching himself and the car from the top.

baby 4y ago

People have been doing that in football in Europe forever. I remember a number of old world cup games completely ruined by people running the clock.

eckesicle 4y ago
In the Euro 2004, Denmark and Sweden would both go on to qualify at Italy's expense if the result of the game was 2-2. Of course, the score ended up being just that towards the end of the game, and then the players on both teams just stood still and passed the ball between themselves running down the last 8 minutes or so of the clock. https://youtu.be/9kgJNL_uuHI https://youtu.be/9kgJNL_uuHI
- pfortuny 4y ago
  This was much worse (I saw it on TV), and the reason why the last two matches in the qualifiers are played at the same time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gijón https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gijón
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I was going to say, if you're not at risk of getting tackled and you're ahead it makes sense to stall. I do believe in football (soccer for americans) a referee will intervene if players are obviously stalling (e.g. by not playing, or the goalkeeper just holding onto the ball) but they can just go back and forth for a bit. Probably also happens in boxing and other time related sports.

samstave 4y ago

This is like killing Lord British tactic in UO

m463 4y ago

I have noticed other analogies between computer behavior and real life. Basically security and similar attacks that were practical on computers have now become practical in real life. Think of one person annoying a business. But now what the same person annoys a business repeatedly? Or someone and all his friends annoy a business repeatedly? attack, denial of service attack, distributed denial of service attack. there are probably lots of other examples

hibikir 4y ago

Football coaches, especially college coaches and high school coaches, have made comments regarding how Madden has changed the game in some ways, but it's mainly due to increasing the baseline knowledge of the game. Your typical new player might have watched some football games, and most of their coaching would involve a position coach teaching the specific position. There aren't that many coaching hours that aren't dedicated to the physical part of the sport, so it wasn't uncommon to find players with the right physiques for a position, and decent knowledge of how they had to play, but short in general "Football IQ". As the games have become closer to a simulation, kids that are football fans get a lot free time where they control both the offense and the defense. They get to make calls, and see how every player in the team should move, and how it makes a difference. It in no way replaces actual football practice, but it boosts a lot of what you can ask a middling high school team to do. Even in the pros, you'll hear people talk about how so-and-so is "like another coach, but on the field", because knowledge of the game overall, and the system they play in, matters. Years of videogame football, instead of having to learn even the very basics from scratch, makes things easier.

jjallen 4y ago

I'm amazed it took until the video game era for this to happen.

c7b 4y ago

Interesting, why is it that it's "so obviously inspired by the tactics of videogame football"? It sounds like a pretty good (albeit annoying) tactic for a real game. In European football it's actually very common for players to use stall tactics, and they don't even gain as much because there's no hard limit on how long the game lasts.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
Stalling like this in American football is significantly more risky because if any member of the opposing team reaches you, you lose everything.

jjallen 4y ago

They do this in basketball all the time. At least they try to. That's why there's a shot clock.

pif 4y ago

Sorry, I don't get it: what did he gain by shaving 6 seconds out of the last 17? Please, help me understand!

mehphp 4y ago
Now the opposing team gets less time to score and possibly win.
bombcar 4y ago
Clock management in football is incredibly important - the last 17 seconds can take multiple minutes to play if the team has timeouts, throws out of bounds, all sorts of things. You want to burn the clock if you have the ball and 17 seconds remaining, because you don't want the other team to have a chance to retaliate. It's a very delicate balance and one of the most difficult "coach" decisions football has, and it applies throughout the game, and changes based on how your offense and defense are doing vs theirs (do you score fast and hope to defend and score again, or do you score slow and hope to defend only, etc).

houtanb 4y ago

Here's a video of the Stokely touchdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fPamV6LsV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fPamV6LsV8

ubermonkey 4y ago

I had this exact thought when I read the headline.