15 Comments

1. 

   What we in the UK call American Football is already more stop-start by design and probably has more on-field team tactical play discussions than the more free-flowing end-to-end Association Football or Rugby Football (or, for instance, basketball and hockey), but even in soccer and rugby there are now more delays while everyone waits for the deliberations respectively of the VAR (Video-Assistant Referee) or TMO (Television Match Official) to pronounce on on-field refereeing decisions, and these are sometimes teams of video-watchers and their technicians. So it could be something like that. Plus in all games there seem to be teams of off-field coaches standing around making decisions or arguing with officials. And a panel of broadcast pundits watching from on-high making real-time pronouncements on everything.

2. 

   I don’t know about football. but baseball is certainly trending toward the committee model with its emphasis on analytics and the manager just being a cog implementing the strategy planned out by the GM and people with all sorts of other titles.

3. 

   Ah yes, I forgot also the various team people before any match or season – video analysts, statisticians, sports psychologists, masseurs, coaches for specific disciplines (eg in cricket spin bowling, fast bowling, batting, fielding and catching). Plus of course the individual player entourages of their own hair and makeup people, personal fitness advisers, agents and managers.

   A former colleague of mine in my publishing days – herself a UK rugby international some years ago, a World Cup winner in 1994 – is a Performance Lifestyle Advisor to GB Hockey (field hockey), basically helping team members (who win Olympic gold medals) manage the real world, off-field parts of their lives. So I suppose that all contributes to the modern “committee” feel; in the old days, or when you are young, you just show up and play a game wityh none of the other fol-de-rol.

   https://www.aquestionofperformance.com/ep-31-emma-mitchell-managing-the-off-pitch-distractions/

4. 

   I think maybe this is a reference to long delays for video review or referee discussions about whether or not to call a penalty.

5. 

   He could be kvetching about replay huddles, but maybe Jimmy realized that everyone else has already done that and decided to leave us guessing.

6. 

   I know nuttin’ ’bout sports, but I know something amusing when I see it . . .
   

7. 

   BTW, do you find comparisons in terms of “the length of a football field” to be at all helpful?

8. 

   “BTW, do you find comparisons in terms of “the length of a football field” to be at all helpful?”

   Is this question directed at me? If so, definitely yes.

9. 

   I believe it was George Carlin who said that football combined the two very worst aspects of modern American life: “bursts of senseless violence punctuated with committee meetings.”

   Last football game I saw live was back in grad school around 1968, on a whim. Last one I watched on television was probably thirty years ago, and that was because I was stuck at a sort of family reunion, and it was either that or try to find something to talk about with people I didn’t really want to talk to.

10. 

    In re football fields: a Canadian field is 110 yards long plus two 20 yard end zones, and 65 yards wide, but the goal posts are on the goal lines, not at the end of the end zone. For a recent NFL game played in Winnipeg the American field had to be shortened to 80 yards between goal lines to avoid holes left by removal of the Canadian goal posts! So a football field is 110 or 100 or maybe 80 yards! Or, if you include the end zones . . . .

11. 

    What I was getting at was the contrary direction of comparison, where they say “And it is as long as two football fields”. I could do the arithmetic, but they probably already told us in feet or metric, and were just using the football field for giving the “feel” of it.

    Which mostly doesn’t work for me. Oh sure, I know the difference between “as long as a football field” and “the size of an urban apartment livingroom”. But maybe three times in my life have I been in the stands for a live football game (one of those was my high school, but it was in The Orange Bowl!), and just once walked around on an empty field. But more usual is to see some games on TV, and that gives no reliable cues, what with tele lenses and foreshortening etc.

    But I’m not a good test case. If I were the witness and the lawyer was asking “How far away was the car when you saw it? As far as the distance from you to me? Or to the back of the courtroom?” I would have to confess I had no idea, if it was an outdoor scene. “As long as a city block” would help me, as long as you didn’t follow by asking me if that is 50 feet or 100 feet or 300 feet.

12. 

    Not only do I not know how big a football field is, I don’t ‘get’ football jokes like this . . .
    

13. 

    Think of the bruise as a desirable accessory.

14. 

    I was looking for a bruise (thinking along Brian in STL’s lines), but there is crosshatching in several places, so I didn’t think that was the joke.

15. 

    I took this as figuring he’s bruised all over, so the teammate is weird for asking about some specific one