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Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 12, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Can the Chiefs come back down 14? Or is the Eagles?

To those that didn't watch- the Kansas City Chiefs did in fact come back from being down 14 points to beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl- the championship game of the NFL. This means they are the best team in the sport of American gridiron football.

Fans of the sport will argue about two particular calls that the referees made that seem to have strongly changed the game.

I am more interested in the gameclock management that the Chiefs used in the final 2 minutes of the game while things were still tied. It was a very undramatic way of winning at the very end- while quite close to being able to get a touchdown, the Chiefs decided to burn almost all of the time up by kneeling the ball 3 times, then kicking the field goal. There were 11 seconds remaining, and receiving the ball took 3 seconds. This left 8 seconds for Jalen Hurts of the Eagles to throw a single "Hail Mary"- extremely long and accurate pass, which didn't happen.

I wonder if this kind of clock management is defecting in a game theory sense. The Chiefs won the biggest game, but it was in a manner that probably damages interest in the sport and will increase general usage of the tactic.

I could just be salty because I like both Jalen (I'm an Alabama fan) and Mahomes (I have won the past 2 seasons of fantasy football with him as my keeper) and wanted a more dramatic fun end for either.

EDIT: Also the question probably should have been fun thread, but it makes sense you'd put it in daily thread when people might have actually answered before the answer was known.

Resident Eagles fan: I'm profoundly NOT salty about that game. It was very much a good Super Bowl, the Eagles proved they are the second best team in the league, and Hurts proved he's a real QB at that level playing Mahomes to a 4th quarter field goal. No one can walk out of this game saying the Eagles were frauds, which concerned me way more than them losing in the Super Bowl.

At the end of the day, the Eagles win if it weren't for that Fumble Recovery TD given up to the Chiefs. The tendency is to focus on the mistakes in the 4th quarter, but any 3 expected points swing from any play is equally culpable.

The thing about the NFL and "defecting" against making it an entertaining game is that the NFL has the power to change the rules. It's likely that the Hurts QB Push is going to be made illegal next year, for example, because it's such a wild cheat code for the Eagles all season. At most you can defect for one season, and if it becomes an issue the collective will act to limit it. It wouldn't be hard for the NFL to institute a penalty for, eg, "Non Competitive Play" where Pacheco would have been required to run into the endzone on that play or something like that.

No one can walk out of this game saying the Eagles were frauds, which concerned me way more than them losing in the Super Bowl.

Going a step further, I watched this game through the eyes of a Bills fan and texted friends that the silver lining is that this Eagles team would have absolutely annihilated the Bills if they'd made it there.

It's likely that the Hurts QB Push is going to be made illegal next year, for example, because it's such a wild cheat code for the Eagles all season.

This, on the other hand, Bills fans watch and say, "why the fuck are we not doing that with our giant quarterback?".

It wouldn't be hard for the NFL to institute a penalty for, eg, "Non Competitive Play" where Pacheco would have been required to run into the endzone on that play or something like that.

You could potentially come up with a ruleset that would stop the clock when a player gave himself up. You'd have to tune it to situation to avoid it being used for advantageous clock-stopping, but that seems potentially feasible. This wouldn't be entirely novel, we already have the opposite of it at the boundary - if an offensive player goes out of bounds backwards, the clock doesn't stop, you have to be advancing the ball to get the clock stoppage.

I don't think this is likely to be considered though, the only commentary I ever see on a play like the Pacheco play is everyone in the room agreeing that it's a smart play. It doesn't feel like an unfair exploit, it's just less exciting than the alternative.

At one point the Arena League had a rule where the clock would stop in the last minute if the ball didn't cross the line of scrimmage, to eliminate end game kneel downs.

"For most of the league's history, any play that did not advance the ball across the line of scrimmage also stopped the clock; this prevented teams from kneeling to run out the clock. (This rule was repealed in 2018.) It also rewards defensive play, as a tackle for loss automatically stops the clock."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-minute_warning

Obviously wouldn't have affected the play last night as the runner was past the line of scrimmage (but I guess would have affected Mahomes subsequent kneel downs).

Yeah, that at least forces a QB sneak and creates a non-trivial turnover risk. I can't really think of any serious downside to that rule, there isn't an obvious exploit that could be done with it (intentionally stopping the clock that way is no different than spiking it).