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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3371 thread views

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?

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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.

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.

In all sports, I'm in favor of more aggressive and crazy rules to eliminate situations where the game becomes completely different during the last 2-5 minutes. For example, I think in Basketball during the last 4-5 minutes the rule should be that every penalty committed by the losing team drops 25 seconds off the clock. Because I hate watching the Hack-a-thons at the end of playoff games, I'd rather just watch Basketball.

I don't know how you make penalties sufficient to prevent time wasting plays at the end of an nfl game, but there's got to be a way.

The Elam Ending is just an objectively better way to end basketball games than the current rules. There's nothing worse than watching refs stare at a replay screen in between marches to the free throw line.

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