Sport Today

There is no such thing as soccer.

There is football, and many different types of it!

There's regular "Football" that we play here in England and around the
world. There's American Football, mainly played in the United States
as NFL Europe has never really taken off. The Canadians have their own
version of it. There is Rugby Union and Rugby League. There is Aussie
Rules. And I'm sure there are many other types of football as well.

Football (English, soccer to the Yanks) may be the worlds number one
sport but nobody can doubt how major American Football and the NFL is.

If you decided to host a regular season Premiership football match
between Liverpool and Man Utd in the United States at Giants stadium,
how many people do you suppose would turn up to watch the game? Would
the stadium fill to capacity? How many ticket requests would there be?

If you want to understand how big the NFL is outside of the USA then
you have to take a look closer to home and to next weekend at Wembley
Stadium 28 October 2007. The first ever regular NFL game to be played
outside of North America in London between the New York Giants and the
Miami Dolphins.

Within 72 hours of the website being set up at the beginning of the
year there were over half a million (500,000) ticket requests. That's
enough to fill Wembley 5 or 6 times over and this is just for a
regular season game.

For those of you that say only Americans are interested in American
Football or that it's not a real mans game like Rugby because they
need loads of padding and protection you seriously need to think
again.

They need the protection because it is a high impact game. Neither
regular Football that we play here in England or either of the Rugby
codes are high impact sports. Rugby League is a good game, but it
isn't that aggressive and it certainly isn't as tense and exciting as
the NFL. Rugby Union is a southern softies game. Both Rugby games they
seem to spend a lot of time rolling around in the mud having big group
hugs and grabbing each others bollocks.  Good old regular Football
(English) is great, but you can't deny there are those long boring
dull games that make up a large percentage of the fixtures. There are
hardly any games like this in the NFL, it is the greatest show on
Earth.

Every play is tense and very tactical. It is like a bunch of warriors
meeting each other on the battlefield just before they are about to
charge at each other.

I always hear these bollocks comments from time to time about Rugby
being a real mans game. What's that supposed to mean? Isn't it just a
bunch of bulky blokes on steroids rolling around in the mud together,
and hugging each other in scrums (amongst other things they do in
there!)? Sounds more like a thicko working class/dole bludger game to
me. I mean I like Leeds Rhinos but as for it being a real mans game,
they can't even invent their own songs up they have to pinch Leeds
United ones to sing.

I love American Football and support the New York Giants, have done
since a young age. Am off down to London to see them at Wembley
against the Dolphins at the end of October. For this regular season
NFL game let me remind you again, there were over 500,000 that's five
hundred thousand i.e. half a million plus ticket requests. The number
of people wanting to go and watch this "regular season" game could
fill out the new Wembley stadium six times over. The first 40,000
tickets were sold out within 90 minutes of going on sale. There is now
even talk of franchise teams outside the United States, in Mexico,
Canada and even in the UK in London.

I can't see the same being the case for the Challenge Cup or a Grand
Final between the Leeds Rhinos and Bradford Bulls in this country
never mind another one can you? And they aren't even regular season
games. Even Leeds United games don't sell tickets as fast as this NFL
game has done for next weekend, though we do manage to sell more
tickets than all the League One, Championship and half the Premiership
teams despite being in the third tier of English football. Our
supporters are simply the best and most loyal in the World. If the
likes of Liverpool, Chelsea, Man U or Arsenal dropped down two
divisions their entire stadiums would be bare. Hell, Chelsea's stadium
is bare at the moment for Premiership games and has been bare in the
last few months for Champions League games too. What does that say for
top tier football and the loyalty of the supporters?  I like the
Rhinos don't get me wrong, but Rugby isn't at the top of my list of
favourite sports. I have Football at the top followed by American
Football, probably followed by F1, Aussie Rules and Female Tennis
before I'd scribble Rugby in.

A real mans game is one where you have to make the most use of
intelligence, skill, speed and tactics. Rugby is one of the more
simpler of games where you don't need much in the way of skill to play
it, you just need more brawn than brains.

Football may be the number one sport in the world but American
Football and the NFL is the greatest show on Earth, of that there can
be no doubt.

Sniffer-Dog

New York Giants
Super Leeds United

The Future is Bright
The Future is White... and Big Blue.

"Hardly any boring NFL games" ?  You could fool me. I watch it
quite often. There is plenty to admire. Great running ,
passing and receiving at times. It has its own followers here
- enough to fill Wembley - but not enough to make it a success
when tried every week. Why? Probably because it is more hype
than substance.

I don't know why you need to make this direct comparison with
Rugby, but if you want to do it on the basis of it being more
macho you are not on very strong ground. Those macho heroes of
the NFL play for one hour, divided into 4 to save them from
stress. The average period of play lasts for just a few
seconds.....5 or 6 maybe? A teams dee-fence will spend half of
the hour sitting on the bench watching the game, as will the
offence players. Add a few extra rest periods for time outs
and we have players whoes  stamina is hardly tested.

Just as well maybe, because half the team on the field is made
up of overweight men. It is the only sport in the world, apart
from Sumo, where fat fellers can make a good living. Yes there
is more direct contact in NFL. but much of this is fat men
leaning on each other. Those who have to withstand tackles at
speed are well protected with face masks, helmets, back
protection, massive shoulder pads and even gloves.

Do you really want to compare this with rugby or football,
where players are in continued action for 33% longer, have
only one break and where every player is involved throughout.
How would those NFL  players cope with 5 mins of continuous
play? The pundits already suggest a defence will be "tired" if
it is kept on field for too long....like almost a whole
quarter of broken action.

The game has its moments of skill to save it, but it pretends
to be far tougher than it is. They don't really dash off to
have a few stitches slapped in before rushing back on do they?

You are right to call it a show....it is hardly an athletic
sporting event because there are not enough atheletes on the
field. Have you ever seen the All Blacks v Springbox.

Tough?  I'll show you tough!

LC

At 00:17:57 on 23/10/2007, John delighted
uk.sport.football.clubs.liverpool by announcing:

Often the sign of someone who has no grasp of a sport.

--
"Shaun Wright-Phillips has got a big heart.  It's as big as him, which
isn't very big, but it's bigger." - Kevin Keegan

american football is ***ing shit.

We are duly indebted to you for that insightful gem!

4ax.com:

It's certainly my favourite comment so far.

--
Cheers, Os

Utter bollocks, you've obviously never played the game then. 20 years
ago you may have argued that American Footballers hit harder than
Rugby Union but since the arrival of professionalism your argument is
utter tosh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvMFHXcd0yQ

Take a look for your self

The video was a bit fuzzy on my computer, but I get the idea. Thanks for
sharing that.

Having said that, one of the concerns that folks over here have about
our football players is that they are so protected, (helmets, shoulder
pads etc) that that they hit harder than they may have been able to had
they not had the equipment. This may have resulted in some of the
horrific injuries we have seen over the years.

Your players obviously play a physical game, I don't dispute that. No
wimps on those fields.

However, what is the inury situation in rugby? Do you have the
concussions and major joint injuries (most notably knees and shoulders)
our players do? We have even had some horrible spinal injuries.

Rest assured, I am not advocating football over rugby. I am just
wondering if the lack of equipment in your game might actually make it
safer (not softer) for the player. (And maybe better for the fans as the
stars are on the field and not on the sidelines or in the hospital.)

Just wondering...

I think you're right.  Although there are some awful injuries and
occasionally disabililties in rugby, I think the equipment used in
football might well contribute to injuries.  Rugby body armour is much
thinner (for want of a better word) than that used in football and I
guess what you're saying is that in football cerain areas are left
exposed to shock because there is a sudden - and pronounced -
difference in protection.  For example, the neck is exposed and I
guess any shock not absorbed by a hit to the helmet or the shoulders
will travel on neckwards.

Watching both sports (on TV at least) week in week out, I would say
that football players do hit harder and get up from hits which would
generally leave rugby players groggy.  It stands to reason that you
can take a bigger shock in a tank than in a jeep and that's why tanks
go into areas that jeeps don't.  Similarly, rugby players tackle much
harder now than they used to, increased levels of fitness and
technique allowing them to go into places they mostly didn't before.
The more dynamic nature of rugby mostly precludes being able to line
somebody up and take a twenty to thirty metre run and launch yourself
at them.  You might miss, or they might offload the ball so such "long
range" committed tackles tend to be last ditch and, hence, rare.

Anyway, who cares?  You just have to accept they're different and
watch accordingly. Vive les differences, I say!   What I wonder about
is why you hardly ever see football players offloading the ball to a
teammate in order to keep the play alive.  And when they do they throw
it like two year old girls ;-)

Just my 2 eurocents worth...

UD

Two sensible, well thought out and fair posts. Both well structured and not
overshadowed by favouritism.

You should both be ashamed of yourselves! There's no room for that kind of
thing in a NG these days.

SirBob

Yeah?  And wtf would you know?

UD

That's more like it.

SirBob

:-)

UD

I won't say that Rugby is less hard-nosed than American Football.
However, there are no 350-pound rugby players, or there would be
protective gear required in their leagues, as well. It's not a question
of toughness here. It's a question of physicality. Banging against 25
stone linemen fifty times a game has a way of wearing down men's body
parts. Even Joe Namath, the great New York Jets quarterback, had to have
both kneecaps replaced from being run over by defen***, and he played a
position that is thought to be the least threatened. So don't argue
toughness unless you discount the collateral damage that is inherent in
the American pro league. There is no arguing that both rugby and NFL
football are brutal games. It's the weight differential that makes the
American game more bone-crushing, literally speaking.

Already spotted 2 minutes into the 2nd quarter.  Do I get a
prize?  ;-)

UD