site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4297 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?

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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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

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.

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.

CFB pleb here. What’s wrong with the QB push? Is this different from a sneak? Getting rid of that in cfb would seem wild to me. So many 4th and goals would turn into kicks without it.

The Eagles, through a mix of having essentially the pro-bowl offensive line, a QB who squats 600lbs and will do anything to win, and tremendous full team buy-in, call a QB sneak and get 2-3 guys behind Hurts who push him into the line scrum style. Hurts is the ball carrier, but in a very real sense he just curls up and becomes the ball, with 2-3 guys behind and 2-3 guys in front doing the actual moving.

It amounted to a cheat code for a lot of the season to get 1-2 yards automatically. Where that might get banned:

  1. Physical toll, or a public perception of the physical toll. It's actually relatively unlikely to result in injury, it is the big open field hits that do the worst damage, but it looks brutal and the NFL might not like that. QBs who aren't physical specimens might or might not use the NFLPA to bring this up.

  2. Changing strategy. The Eagles had a LOT of boring wins, part of which was that they could run the ball for 3 yards on 1st-3rd downs, and then push on 4th. I think 4 down football makes the game more exciting personally, but I could see teams complaining that it allowed the Eagles to just sit on 7-14 point leads and smother the game rather than play aggressively or give the ball back to the other team.

  3. Aesthetics. Some NFL magnates might not like how it looks. Just flat out think it is ugly, unentertaining, bad for the TV brand.

Changing strategy. The Eagles had a LOT of boring wins, part of which was that they could run the ball for 3 yards on 1st-3rd downs, and then push on 4th. I think 4 down football makes the game more exciting personally, but I could see teams complaining that it allowed the Eagles to just sit on 7-14 point leads and smother the game rather than play aggressively or give the ball back to the other team.

One could argue that this is just because 4 downs make football boring...

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats