Posted on 09/10/2009 2:27:17 AM PDT by BGHater
As Scoring Soars, One Professor Sees Parallels in Nature; the 'River Basin' Theory
When the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans open the NFL season Thursday night, they will headline a brand of football that is nearly unrecognizable from the days when Jack Lambert and Mean Joe Greene were pulverizing ball carriers at the line of scrimmage.
Today's NFL offenses spread out across the field, stretching defenses and creating wider holes of flow and penetration. In this game, balletic receivers like Pittsburgh's Santonio Holmes are the NFL's defining talents.
The NFL has become so fast and efficient that last season, teams each scored 22.03 points per game, the highest since 1967, while all the league's 32 teams combined for 11,279 points—the most in NFL history.
The game has become less cluttered. Offenses averaged just 3.09 turnovers (interceptions and fumbles) per game, the lowest of all time by more than 10%, and offensive lines allowed just 4.04 sacks per game—also the lowest ever. Even place kickers set a new mark: They made a record-high 84.5% of their field-goal attempts.
Some football thinkers believe these numbers speak to a temporary period of offensive dominance in the NFL—just one more high point in an endlessly fluctuating historical curve. But if you venture a bit beyond the particulars of football, to the principles of science, there's another argument to be made: that the NFL's high-speed, high-scoring offenses are a reflection of one of the laws of nature—the tendency of all things to evolve toward efficiency.
Adrian Bejan a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University, likens the NFL's evolution to a river's effect on its basin. (Stay with us, here.)
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Specifically, while the average human has gained about 1.9 inches in height since 1900 ...
I thought it would be more than that. I’m 5’10”, just slightly over average. When I visit museums and check out the old clothing I’m always amazed at how small people were. The WW I uniforms on display are absolutely tiny. My father was a WW II vet and stood 5’8” - about average with his contemporaries. I check out my grandson and his friends and have to look up at them - they are over 6’ and still in their middle teens.
Paralysis by analysis.
The NFL has intentionally and incrementally tied the defense’s hands. Soon tackles will be abolished to be replaced with two-hand touch and a polite suggestion that the ballcarrier take a knee or step out of bounds.
The result is inflated scores and a cynical manipulation of results that would make the NBA hang its head in shame.
“The average human” is not the average American.
Offense, defense, passing, running, scoring, special teams...all stats that pale before the only one that really matters...Ratings.
Guess not. We must be growing faster than most.
that the NFL's high-speed, high-scoring offenses are a reflection of one of the laws of nature—the tendency of all things to evolve toward efficiency.
OK, but wouldn't that apply to the defense as well as the offense? Shouldn't the defense also evolve towards efficiency?
Over time, a river relentlessly wears away its banks and, as a result, water flows faster and faster toward its mouth. When obstacles fall in its way, say, a tree, or a boulder—or in the case of an NFL offense, beefy linebackers like the Baltimore Ravens' Ray Lewis or the Chicago Bears' Brian Urlacher—it will figure out how to wear those away, too.
Ray Lewis is a far cry from an inanimate rock or pile of dirt. In fact, Ray Lewis represents a defensive evolution. I daresay the stats against the Ravens are below the league average.
I'm not a big football fan, but I do agree with other posters that the rules have changed to benefit the offense. At some point, a genius coach will come along and figure out new ways to defend against the new offenses, and a new process of adjustment will begin.
Plus, the Steelers defense is outstanding, a clear contradiction to the thesis that offenses are dominant.
Big Ben is a proven winner, but he doesn’t have to put up gaudy passing numbers.
Thus defenses aren't allowed to sneeze at the QB without some kind of penalty. Now known as the "Brady Rule".
Yes, that was the thrust of my point, possibly not articulated very well. Defense rules the game, still.
Warhead vs. armor -- there's no such thing as an impenetrable defense. In the race for optimization, offense wins out over defense in the long run because defense is reactive to offense.
Except that armor is inanimate, like the river rocks and dirt. It's another false analogy. The offense has the ball, and calls the play. But the defense is active. It's not simply absorbing the blows, is it?
When the defense confuses the offense with complicated blitzes, with various players up on or near the line of scrimmage, they are technically on defense, but they are acting offensively--attacking.
It seems to me the offense has to react to innovations in defense just as much as the other way around. Wasn't the shotgun, and the west coast offense, a reaction to the way defenses were pressuring the quarterback? Like I said, I'm a casual football observer, so I could be wrong. But it seems to me the offense has to react to the defense. Or else why call audibles? Why play action? That's all "defending" against the defense.
I don’t see how the hashmarks change much. Yes when the ball is spotted on the college marks it means the near sideline is closer, but the far sideline is further, the over width of the field is the same. The only scoring I see as easier is field goals, with the ball always inbetween the posts the kicker has a lot less necessary steering. But the rest shouldn’t change that much, scoring tends to be higher in college, though that could be as much about the lack of experience in the defensive players as anything else.
One thing missing from the analysis of why scoring has increased is the change in how missed field goals are handled -- the 7-8 years of extra field position given up on a missed field goal has encouraged fewer teams to settle for 3 and play more aggressively, which I believe has added to, if only in small amount, the number of touchdowns scored.
By making one side of he field shorter, it becomes easier for the defense to defend runs to that side, and they can overload the "long side" more to stop that side as well. By making them spread out more evenly, it gives runners (and receivers on short passes) more chances to find gaps and weak spots, because they have two "good" sides to choose from.
Right, like the meandering lower Mississippi prior to channelization.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.