how rubbish is NFL tackling??

[tonym911]

The BBC often puts up bits of video from the NFL, usually of long-run touchdowns (as you'd expect). But the last few I've watched I've made a point of looking at the 'defense', and my god those boys are pants, they'd get nowhere in a halfway decent rugby team. They either flap their arms about in the area of the attacker's shoulders (with predictable results) or seem to make a point of actually avoiding the guy with the ball. Just wondering what techniques - if any - the NFL defense coaches are teaching.

[kingstondc5]

So your basing your opinion on a brief clip the BBC played that showed a Offensive geezer pulling off a 'sick' move

Have you Youtubes stuff like NFLs biggest hits? Theres a reason why they wear padding you know...

[Happy82]

kingstondc5 said:

Theres a reason why they wear padding you know...

Because they're not tough or skilled enough to play rugby and end up with injuries without the padding

[anonymous-user]

American football tackling has a different goal to rugby. In rugby, the main aim is to get somebody to ground so that your team can contest the ball, so it's OK to sacrifice a little bit of territory if you put a decent tackle in. OTOH with American Football it isn't about contesting posssession, it's all about preventing the other team from gaining yards, so stopping them dead is much more important which is why you see such massive hits and shoulder charges (which would get you a red card in rugby, no question because you could cripple somebody if they didn't have proper protective gear on).

[JerseyS2000]

Whilst I'm a huge rugby fan, I gave American football a try at university. At the time, I was 23 stone and 6' 5" and played as offensive tackle (ooer).

Despite my height and weight advantage over most 18 year old streaks of p1ss playing against us, I still managed to get so clobbered in a tackle that I slipped two discs in my back simultaneously. The team also had a broken jaw, fractured ribs, smashed kneecaps, etc and that was only at university level.

So yes it is only big girls who aren't good enough to play rugby (!!) that play it, but by god you know that you can smash the bejesus out of anyone in American football since you feel pretty invulnerable. Except you aren't, as I and others found out.

Damn shame really as I was due attend trials with the London Monarchs before theback injury ended my playing career.

Oh well.

Ben

[Lost_BMW]

tonym911 said:

The BBC often puts up bits of video from the NFL, usually of long-run touchdowns (as you'd expect). But the last few I've watched I've made a point of looking at the 'defense', and my god those boys are pants, they'd get nowhere in a halfway decent rugby team. They either flap their arms about in the area of the attacker's shoulders (with predictable results) or seem to make a point of actually avoiding the guy with the ball. Just wondering what techniques - if any - the NFL defense coaches are teaching.

Do we have a prize on PH, for most stupid post, ever?

If so, I guess it's in the post on the way to... you.

Moronic.

[Bing o]

Lost_BMW said:

tonym911 said:

The BBC often puts up bits of video from the NFL, usually of long-run touchdowns (as you'd expect). But the last few I've watched I've made a point of looking at the 'defense', and my god those boys are pants, they'd get nowhere in a halfway decent rugby team. They either flap their arms about in the area of the attacker's shoulders (with predictable results) or seem to make a point of actually avoiding the guy with the ball. Just wondering what techniques - if any - the NFL defense coaches are teaching.

Do we have a prize on PH, for most stupid post, ever?

If so, I guess it's in the post on the way to... you.

Moronic.

I second the nomination, which means it's carried.

And why is everyone with '911' in their username an utter bellend?

[tonym911]

Bing o said:

Lost_BMW said:

tonym911 said:

The BBC often puts up bits of video from the NFL, usually of long-run touchdowns (as you'd expect). But the last few I've watched I've made a point of looking at the 'defense', and my god those boys are pants, they'd get nowhere in a halfway decent rugby team. They either flap their arms about in the area of the attacker's shoulders (with predictable results) or seem to make a point of actually avoiding the guy with the ball. Just wondering what techniques - if any - the NFL defense coaches are teaching.

Do we have a prize on PH, for most stupid post, ever?

If so, I guess it's in the post on the way to... you.

Moronic.

I second the nomination, which means it's carried.

And why is everyone with '911' in their username an utter bellend?

Thanks for these few kind words. Not sure how they address the point, which is that there is some very sketchy tackling going on at the top level of NFL, and I find that quite surprising. Rather than simply categorising me as a bellend, try looking objectively at ANY video of a running touchdown. Rather than watching the attack, look at the defence. Then come back, ideally in a less abusive manner if you can manage it.

[Lost_BMW]

tonym911 said:

Thanks for these few kind words. Not sure how they address the point, which is that there is some very sketchy tackling going on at the top level of NFL, and I find that quite surprising. Rather than simply categorising me as a bellend, try looking objectively at ANY video of a running touchdown. Rather than watching the attack, look at the defence. Then come back, ideally in a less abusive manner if you can manage it.

Tempted as I am I think I can manage it - I'll save the abuse for after any reply you make.

I've played American Football - Offensive Tackle, so often up against those you decry who, even at an amateur level included several pro and semi-pro rugby players and athletes, so know how good they could be at 'not even patch' level compared with the NFL - and rugby. I've also been watching it for over 20 years, often watching plays again and again even on slow-motion, rather than a clip from some BBC (home of NFL, not) trailer.

And, abuse aside, you wrote tosh. To compare the players with rugby players in such a negative way as if they have comparatively poor skill sets is garbage. A different sport requiring different techniques and approaches, and often limited by rule makers and restrictions. If you can't see how well schooled, well prepared and skilful they are (all absolutely gifted athletes by any standards) they are you really ought to just stop (watching and posting about it.)

If you bothered to check out just how competitive and well trained players are even by the time they leave high school, let alone college or the NFL - and the massive proportion of even college stars who never make it - you might realise there is something in what they do, rather than it being just a bunch of fat, lazy, unworthy blokes who couldn't hack rugby making sketchy plays.

[Derek Smith]

JerseyS2000 said:

Whilst I'm a huge rugby fan, I gave American football a try at university. At the time, I was 23 stone and 6' 5" and played as offensive tackle (ooer).

Despite my height and weight advantage over most 18 year old streaks of p1ss playing against us, I still managed to get so clobbered in a tackle that I slipped two discs in my back simultaneously. The team also had a broken jaw, fractured ribs, smashed kneecaps, etc and that was only at university level.

So yes it is only big girls who aren't good enough to play rugby (!!) that play it, but by god you know that you can smash the bejesus out of anyone in American football since you feel pretty invulnerable. Except you aren't, as I and others found out.

Damn shame really as I was due attend trials with the London Monarchs before theback injury ended my playing career.

Oh well.

Ben

I have an American friend whose son - later in the astronaut programme - played college American football, as what we would call a winger. Her daughter was a cheerleader. I don't know much about cheerleading, apart fromt he fact they spend most of their time in the showers, but a point raised by me friend was that her daughter suffered more injuries, and more serious ones, than her son.

Further, she said that cheerleading had the highest injury rate of any 'sport' in America. I found this hard to believe but it would appear that it is quite dangerous.

So the injury rate is not a fair gauge of how butch a sport is.

By the way, she mentioned that there was a contest between high level football players and cheerleaders as to who was the fittest. The cheerleaders accepted the challenge and required the football players to go through their fitness regime. The cheerleaders went through their warm up routine (yes, that's right, warm up) and the majority of the football players expired before the end.

My friend had a second son - indeed she had three. This lad had his head screwed on right and took up athletics and did cheerleading. It would appear they have lots of men in the team. It wasn't only his head that was screwed, I bet.

[Zaxxon]

A bloke I used to work with did Rugby and also American Football for big local teams( can't remember which).
He said that Rugby was tough, but US football had armour for a reason. Both are a hard mans game, but US football would be suicidal without helmets and armour.
Having only played Rugby on the wing I cannot really give a true reference for either. But I'll take this guys word as he was passionate about both sports so was not trying to score points of the other.

[mph1977]

the fitness challenge thing doesn't suprise most 'boys' sports don't need the stamina that the dance / acro aspects of cheerleading or a dance class needs, if you want to see macho men flailing and failing make them do a 'dance' based workout whether it;s cheer, aerobics or a ballet class they will be lagging ...

CHeerleading in the US sense has a lot of gymanstic / acrobatic stuff with all the lifts and throws and other stunts ...

[Derek Smith]

Zaxxon said:

A bloke I used to work with did Rugby and also American Football for big local teams( can't remember which).
He said that Rugby was tough, but US football had armour for a reason. Both are a hard mans game, but US football would be suicidal without helmets and armour.
Having only played Rugby on the wing I cannot really give a true reference for either. But I'll take this guys word as he was passionate about both sports so was not trying to score points of the other.

ONLY the wing! Wash your keyboard with soap.

I used to get fed up with the front row boasting about how brave they were when they stopped their opposite number dead when he was going at half a mile an hour. Wingers run, something which forwards know about of course but try to avoid. Everytime a winger gets the ball and runs flat out (once each half I accept) and is then tackled the risk of injury is much greater than fowards falling on one-another.

In my day you could be tackled in the air, before or after you get the ball, and in the changing room.

Only on the wing. Cor!

[Wadeski]

Moronic post from the OP. The aim of tackling in gridiron and rugby are vastly different - rugby is to get a player to the ground, american football is to push the player backwards. A rugby style low tack would allow the American football player to stretch for more yards, possibly in a make-or-break situation.

More importantly, in rugby you can only tackle the player with the ball. Therefore, you can commit 100% to that tackle to get the man down. In American football you cannot fully commit because if you get sucked in, you leave a hole in the defence which another player could run through. Defensive players have to stay on their feet and block, while giving themselves the option of moving to intercept long passes or runners...

and on the fitness? come off it. A second row couldnt keep up with an Aerobics instructor, and an aerobics instructor couldnt take the hits a second row can. Training for different things.

[tonym911]

Two moronics, one stupid and a bellend. I've done well here.

[Lost_BMW]

tonym911 said:

Two moronics, one stupid and a bellend. I've done well here.

Well, can't say you weren't tackled...

[Derek Smith]

mph1977 said:

the fitness challenge thing doesn't suprise most 'boys' sports don't need the stamina that the dance / acro aspects of cheerleading or a dance class needs, if you want to see macho men flailing and failing make them do a 'dance' based workout whether it;s cheer, aerobics or a ballet class they will be lagging ...

CHeerleading in the US sense has a lot of gymanstic / acrobatic stuff with all the lifts and throws and other stunts ...

It didn't surprie me either, except for the bit about the warm up.

Oh, and the bit about them actually competing with the cheerleaders.

[Zaxxon]

Derek Smith said:

Zaxxon said:

A bloke I used to work with did Rugby and also American Football for big local teams( can't remember which).
He said that Rugby was tough, but US football had armour for a reason. Both are a hard mans game, but US football would be suicidal without helmets and armour.
Having only played Rugby on the wing I cannot really give a true reference for either. But I'll take this guys word as he was passionate about both sports so was not trying to score points of the other.

ONLY the wing! Wash your keyboard with soap.

I used to get fed up with the front row boasting about how brave they were when they stopped their opposite number dead when he was going at half a mile an hour. Wingers run, something which forwards know about of course but try to avoid. Everytime a winger gets the ball and runs flat out (once each half I accept) and is then tackled the risk of injury is much greater than fowards falling on one-another.

In my day you could be tackled in the air, before or after you get the ball, and in the changing room.

Only on the wing. Cor!

Fair point, but It was rare that I was tackled hard. I did not play for a club, just practice games in the marines but my skinny frame and speed meant I could dodge most big hits. Time and beer would allow me to be nearer the pack now though. I really was a skinny runt when in the corps at 11 stone. Now almost 15 stone 6'1 and no longer as quick or averse to a tackle.

[Bing o]

tonym911 said:

Thanks for these few kind words. Not sure how they address the point, which is that there is some very sketchy tackling going on at the top level of NFL, and I find that quite surprising. Rather than simply categorising me as a bellend, try looking objectively at ANY video of a running touchdown. Rather than watching the attack, look at the defence. Then come back, ideally in a less abusive manner if you can manage it.

Well of course they missed tackles if it's a touchdown, otherwise it wouldn't have been one.

Here's some guys tackling like pansies...

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







You bellend.

[tonym911]

Thanks, all I need now is one more stupid and I'll have a nice collection.