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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 e

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.

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

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_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.