Can someone tell me why, if the offensiver line replacements are so poor when certain guys are injured, why aren't the defensive line men sent in to do the job. Surely these guys would be better, they'd even know the moves the opposition defense would be likely to try. Just a thought.
Playing along the offensive line and defensive line requires completely different skill sets. There have been cases of people moving from one position to the other, but it's usually in college, and usually during the offseason, where they can, you know, learn the offense - like play calls, protection packages, and even just the basics of how to block. This isn't Madden. You can't just plug in your WR at TE and suddenly create a mismatch.
That's as maybe, but if I was running things and the opposition defense was cutting through my offense like ther Giants were at the end, I'd send in my big boys from y defense. Jeeze, would they have been worse than the girls we had on at the end.
Well Crazy, like Odin said, they are two completely different positions that require different skills. Offensive linemen actually "defend" while defensive linemen "attack" and try to penetrate the line of scrimmage. These positions are not interchangable and very rarely do you find a player talented enough to play either position. It's not like rugby where, from what I understand, when the players lockhorns it's just brute strength to move the pile.
I'm pretty sure it's important to know the play that is being called when you are on the field. I doubt it would help to have 4 offensive linemen trying to run a play while a fifth guy from the d-line just runs around hitting people like Big John Studd.
Be nice Donohue. CrazyFace is one of our football fans from across the pond is learning the game and just asked what he perceived as a simple question.
Well, it is true. The Offensive line play is dictated by the play called (run blocking and pass blocking are vastly different, and there are many different variations with each type!), where the play is going, how the D Line is set up in front of the O Line, and what assignments are called by the center before the snap. Very rarely in 'organized' football, as opposed to pick up games, do the offensive lineman just take the person ahead of them and try to hit them hard enough to move them out of the way. Add in the ideas of pulling guards, pulling center on occasion, even a tackle pull and lead, and trap blocks (lineman A blocks down on the D Lineman ahead of lineman B next to him while that lineman B pulls around behind the block of lineman A to block the D lineman and knock him out of the hole) - and offensive line play gets downright complicated. D Line play is equally complicated because they try to read all of this and react to counter the assignments of the offensive lineman. It used to be that D. Lineman were like a platoon of Marines in a Marseille cathouse.. they had a two position switch - On and Off... No more.. Now there are stunts, loops, different moves to counter different blocks, and all sorts of stuff which means that line play is just as much a specialty as anything else - but that these guys get sweaty, dirty, bloody, and seem to be just huge whales clobbering other just for the fun of it, which just is not the case... .
Have you ever watched British Parliament on tv? I went to college over there. Trust me, they are not a sensitive people.
I know the British quite well Donohue. Served with quite a few of them over here in Afghansitan. I was just trying to be that ambassador of goodwill regarding American Football...seeing that CrazyFace is only the second Englishman I know who likes football.
46 in Afghanistan??? This stop-loss business is getting out of hand. ...You picked good years to be away from the Dolphins. Hopefully you have better luck than I did making football converts out of them. I managed to convince one guy from Ireland to stay up until 1 in the morning to watch Super Bowl XXX with me and a guy from Buffalo. And even then, I think it was the extra hours of drinking beforehand that was the real selling point.
Mark Tuneai was the last DL -> OL I remember. I believe it was Hudson Houck that developed him in Dallas.
Phins fans have gone buckwild crazy. We should dig the corpse of Jim Thorpe up and suit him up to play while we are at it.
Yep. Believe it or not JDang, there's this game played all over the world where they kick a round white ball with their feet and try to get it into a net. It's CRAZY!!! Actually I was kind of surprised at one englishman I met in Dubai who really loved our football. He didn't understand all the rules (seems the 1st and 10 always confuses them ) but he said he really loves watching it....so I try to make converts out of them when I can
Hi all. I can take the jokes no problem. Thanks for all the responses, and I appreciate that NFL is incredibly complicated, but in the scenario I was talking about 3rd and long in 4thQ, surely it is possible to send in the biggest monsters you have available, hell even some of the support guys the Dolphins have I wouldn't argue with, with one instruction "THEY SHALL NOT PASS". It don't need no reams of sheets of paper with diagrams for that one. I'm not in the "Suck for Luck" camp. You win at all costs at sport. It's not always about having the best players IMO. It's about getting the right players in to gel as a team. The Dolphins, despite what the commentators said at the weekend, do not seem to be a team. This need to be addressed ASAP. PS There are a few of us over here who follow the game. I even had a discussion in the pub last night with my Uncle (another Dolphins fan) regarding the current sate of the team!!!!! Keep The Faith !!!!
I actually like this question. It shows original thought and not just accepting the status quo as truth.
No way do we need to try anything that will improve our chances of winning games!!! Our stall is set out and now we have to go with it.
I'm a Brit too. Im an assistant coach and work with DB's. I've been a Phins fan since 1985. :-) We are out there.