The US cricket team orchestrated a shocking defeat of powerhouse Pakistan following a dramatic Super Over victory at the Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup on Thursday in Dallas.
In fairness, I find the rules for American Football confusing, too, and I’ve been watching all my life. I am still not quite sure what Pass Interference is anymore. My kids are not sports fans at all, and when I explain what is going on it makes it all sound like Calvinball.
Baseball is a bit simpler in that respect. “Tag the guy after you catch the ball” is simple, as is “safe” vs. “out”. We’ll just skip over the infield fly rule, or whatever the hell a balk is. (I admit, one of the things I miss about the Other Place is the liberal application of Jon Bois’ Balk Rules copypasta…)
Pass interference is basically attacking the person instead of the ball before it’s caught. It’s up to the refs to decide how much PI they let slide though because a 100% clean game wouldn’t be fun to watch and would get stopped nearly every passing play.
There’s a lot of other confusing rules too like designated receivers, illegal shift, and one about linesmen being to far forward.
PI and Holding specifically are rules that I, a man who has spent 1000s of hours in his life watching or reading about football, cannot understand anymore. At times it appears as though they are purposefully vague so they can be used to add drama
The biggest beef I have with the PI rules is that it seems extremely easy to force a PI call on an underthrown ball. Most teams who are trailing late in the game and have a guy who can throw 80+ yards try this trick at least once, where they send a guy on a deep route and purposely underthrow, so the defender can’t help but be in the way. That gets flagged as PI more often than not, and makes a huge difference in outcomes.
Sometimes I wonder if the refs bet on the trailing team to cover the spread.
In fairness, I find the rules for American Football confusing, too, and I’ve been watching all my life. I am still not quite sure what Pass Interference is anymore. My kids are not sports fans at all, and when I explain what is going on it makes it all sound like Calvinball.
Baseball is a bit simpler in that respect. “Tag the guy after you catch the ball” is simple, as is “safe” vs. “out”. We’ll just skip over the infield fly rule, or whatever the hell a balk is. (I admit, one of the things I miss about the Other Place is the liberal application of Jon Bois’ Balk Rules copypasta…)
Pass interference is basically attacking the person instead of the ball before it’s caught. It’s up to the refs to decide how much PI they let slide though because a 100% clean game wouldn’t be fun to watch and would get stopped nearly every passing play.
There’s a lot of other confusing rules too like designated receivers, illegal shift, and one about linesmen being to far forward.
PI and Holding specifically are rules that I, a man who has spent 1000s of hours in his life watching or reading about football, cannot understand anymore. At times it appears as though they are purposefully vague so they can be used to add drama
The biggest beef I have with the PI rules is that it seems extremely easy to force a PI call on an underthrown ball. Most teams who are trailing late in the game and have a guy who can throw 80+ yards try this trick at least once, where they send a guy on a deep route and purposely underthrow, so the defender can’t help but be in the way. That gets flagged as PI more often than not, and makes a huge difference in outcomes.
Sometimes I wonder if the refs bet on the trailing team to cover the spread.