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Post by bobgoodman on Dec 4, 2022 8:46:16 GMT -6
There are particular circumstances that would call for adjustments. One that comes to mind is having a left-handed passer.
Usually I'm more concerned with a lack of talents, which would require trimming the playbook, or the player who is so good he gets away with doing things wrong but could be better if he did them right.
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Post by bobgoodman on Nov 19, 2022 8:26:20 GMT -6
Am I the only one here who saw the subject and thought the question was about whether we were personally still playing?
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Post by bobgoodman on Nov 10, 2022 6:57:09 GMT -6
A common saying is we carry X, Y, Z into a game, *to me* that means they are repping those concepts the most in practice that week, and spend very few reps if any on concepts they are not carrying into the game that week. Would I be correct to guess that this is more commonly a defensive practice than an offensive one?
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Post by bobgoodman on Oct 29, 2022 12:21:53 GMT -6
When I was in a draft league (Bronx Warriors) we had the same problem but did nothing about it, because nothing reasonable could be done. Nothing we could do about players sandbagging the evaluations either. So evaluations often were not taken seriously in the draft. There were also late registrants assigned to teams in order of registration, which seems it could also be rigged but not easily. Also twin or within-1-year-in-age players had to be taken together, and we had weird situations in which relatives coached on the same or a different team, and had players who were family.
The club (which was also the league) tried when possible to keep teams together with held-over players who stayed in their division 2 years, and figured the order of the following season's draft based on their standings. Sometimes there were dispersal drafts, in which one team was dissolved and had all its players thrown into the draft pool, and sometimes expansion drafts, from which existing teams could protect only so many players.
Overall, though, results seemed pretty good. Some coaches just drafted lousy. But some were bad at coaching too.
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Post by bobgoodman on Oct 16, 2022 14:42:37 GMT -6
Sometimes a team doesn't have an away jersey (or a home jersey) that is the same number. That happened to us a few years ago. Our QB had a home jersey number 13, but an away jersey number 11. Maybe the explanation is as simple as that. That's exactly what happened with one of our players today. Got me confused.
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Post by bobgoodman on Oct 12, 2022 12:05:29 GMT -6
What's a hip player?
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Post by bobgoodman on Oct 2, 2022 18:37:25 GMT -6
Say you're against a 3-0-3 or 4-0-4 and want to run in the middle. So have the Gs block out, the play side (or whichever side the nose is shaded toward) T cross-blocks to double team the nose, and the opposite T folds to block inside at second level. Maybe that's not pulling, but the tackles do go behind the line toward each other for a bit.
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Post by bobgoodman on Oct 2, 2022 18:20:36 GMT -6
First of all, it is an overseas football introduction program, as a means of changing lives. We start with 6-11 yo old within one hub, as I type this thread I am reviewing the file of one's skill evolution and wondering what aspects should we look into a kid that is starting to play the game. We won't use traditional football but more on a flag approach. TIA! It's individually based. You look at which skills were weak to begin with.
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 24, 2022 14:44:33 GMT -6
You're probably seeing fold blocks by the T or TE on both sides, and they may be doing this automatically against certain fronts.
There's also a blocking scheme that's considered an alternative to wedge, wherein outside blockers fold together from opposite sides thru a central hole. Sometimes called "blast".
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Post by bobgoodman on Jul 5, 2022 11:24:44 GMT -6
And yet you know that some players get good results even with inferior body mechanics, and you know that if you want to improve this player's technique, you're going to have to break it down before you can build it back up -- and what if, by game time, you've gotten only halfway thru that process, and have broken that player's confidence in the old move without building it up in the new one yet? I find the second part of your post (refering to not having enough time to instruct a new technique) to indicate that we may do things differently; in which case this may read as apples to oranges. All of the good places I have coached at use proper technique as a foundation- technique leads to responsibility- so we never really were at risk of: " by game time, you've gotten only halfway thru that process, and have broken that player's confidence in the old move without building it up in the new one yet". The technique we want them to use has been repped since the summer (if not the past few years); thats not writing they all are experts in it, but they are proficient at it. So we spend time during the season repping it, allowing us to at minimum remain proficient and most likely continue to improve. I guess that would be different if we were introducing new techniques throughout the season, but that doesnt really work for us. Maybe if we did I would lean more towards your line of thinking. As is, I hold on to the old axiom, 'if you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it again?' I wasn't assuming the same player was in your charge all that time.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jul 3, 2022 10:00:48 GMT -6
1. The 20-hour/week rule 2. CFB has become an extremely complex game X and O-wise. Requires a lot of practice-prep time which takes away from Individual (fundamentals).I've known a LOT of HS coaches who fall into this same mentality, who will argue that, "I'm not a drill master" (ie not here to rep fundamentals), who spend the vast majority of their time repping team, who are more into coaching plays as opposed to players. Yes, you can correct fundamentals in whole group situations, but to be honest most coaches look at that as a time to ensure players are in the right place at the right time, as opposed to using proper technique/fundamentals when there. And any correction they give is just telling the kid to do it, as opposed to really working on the fundamental development. Probably because they're projecting the W-L results of work on each, even more on defense than offense. How many times have you looked at a rep and seen that the player's in the right place, but still "doing it wrong", and you know that at least theoretically if his foot is here instead of there, he's in a superior position? And yet you know that some players get good results even with inferior body mechanics, and you know that if you want to improve this player's technique, you're going to have to break it down before you can build it back up -- and what if, by game time, you've gotten only halfway thru that process, and have broken that player's confidence in the old move without building it up in the new one yet?
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Post by bobgoodman on Jul 3, 2022 9:34:16 GMT -6
I think it started, because a friend of mine who was a Big Ten assistant coach for many years told me so, when the scholarship limitations were lowered and when Juniors were allowed to declare for the NFL Draft. You couldn't have anything resembling full contact so much any more because you didn't have the depth as before. If a starter got hurt you could no longer plug in a former highly-recruited kid who had been there waiting, working (including lifting-getting bigger, stronger, faster in Off-Season) for his chance to play. The transfer portal is only going to exacerbate that. Great point about the transfer portal. That is going to wreak absolute havoc with this matter...It will probably in effect end up being like the 1 and done environment in CBB. Impossible to build a program in that kind of environment. OL and most DL, and LBs will probably still be 4 and 5 years in the program. But you will probably have QBs, RBs, WRs, TEs, and DBs that will have played in up to 3 different systems during their career... If that becomes noticeable enough, it's bound to accelerate the professionalization of the game.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jul 3, 2022 9:28:13 GMT -6
the Bruce Lee principle: 1 kick practiced 10,000 times beats 10,000 kicks practiced 1 time each. But neither beats 100 kicks practiced 100 times each.
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Post by bobgoodman on May 14, 2022 10:06:56 GMT -6
Either "naturals" or "fools".
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Post by bobgoodman on Apr 14, 2022 18:40:32 GMT -6
The first thing that popped into my head when I read the thread title was turnovers. For me though, it was much more important to be plus in that category. I don't know if we won a game where we ended up minus in turnovers. Another for me was time of possession. I know it means absolutely nothing to hurry up no huddle guys, but we were the opposite of that and wanted to have the ball as much as possible to grind away and keep you off the field. As a no huddle guy, time of possession isn't all that important, but # of plays is absolutely huge! Of course this does not take into consideration explosives by either team, but it's still a pretty darn good indicator of how the game is going. In every game we have lost in the last 4 seasons, the opponent has had more snaps than us. OK, but now tell us...what can you do about that?
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Post by bobgoodman on Apr 9, 2022 9:59:31 GMT -6
Does anyone have a list of meaningful stats - stats that correspond with winning ? Something along the lines of, "turnover ratio: the team that has the fewest turnovers wins ?? % of the time". Also, explosive plays comes to mind. One of the issues is that there are descriptive stats and predictive stats, and also stats that are more or less within a team's control. That's why I think these discussions may be interesting, but not useful. What is the reason stats are "meaningful"? Unless I'm misunderstanding, it's knowledge you can use to improve your team's game, i.e. their W-L. In other words, predictive -- cause, not effect. Like can you keep stats on your team -- or even use the results of stats around football generally -- to tell you that practice time spent on X is going to make you more competitive than practice time spent on Y? I doubt it. Most of the things your team does wrong are either so obvious you don't need stats on them, or hidden in a way that something like merely increasing work on them won't reveal them. The rest of the things are close calls -- so close that the data would be too noisy, as has been said here, to be meaningful. The other issue is that even if you did find a predictive stat, how do you know that shifting practice emphasis to improving that one facet will actually make your players better at it? Maybe the amount of work you'd have to do to improve it just a smidge would require taking so much time that the rest of their game would suffer. Once my job as an assistant was to chart plays in a game and their results. Presumably this was to help find out which plays (or players) were more, or less, productive. Putting aside the issue of execution, and also variation in results aganst different opponents (and whether against their starters or scrubs), you could look superficially at these stats and conclude you should call certain plays more and other plays less. But how do you know whether running an "unproductive" play often enough preserves the threat that makes a "productive" play more productive? And yet, you can't reduce the time you spend practicing a "constraint" play -- one that you'll never call unless the opponent makes it a "gimme" -- to exactly 0. I coached on a team for an all-star game which didn't come off because the opponents didn't show up, so we chose up sides and two coaches to play each other. All the players were familiar with the offenses and defenses, which there'd been little time to put together and which had been practiced just before sides were chosen up. One formation was a total tip-off in that only a cross-buck play was in for it, so the defense could just pile up at those two points if that formation were ever shown. It's the sort of thing that can only work if your opponent doesn't know what you don't have. So one coach tried to put in a pass play from that formation during a time out; it should've been a gimme since the other team had sold out to stop the only plays they knew were in, but the unpracticed play, easy as it seemed, failed miserably, twice. (The other coach wisely never showed that formation.)
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Post by bobgoodman on Apr 7, 2022 11:04:21 GMT -6
Does anyone have a list of meaningful stats - stats that correspond with winning ? Something along the lines of, "turnover ratio: the team that has the fewest turnovers wins ?? % of the time". Also, explosive plays comes to mind. I don't think it's possible to come up with any such meaningful stats (other than comparing the teams' total scores), because you can't tell which way cause and effect run. When one side dominates, you don't need stats. When the game is close, it's never the same thing that determines it. Football just ain't that simple. Even soccer and wrestling aren't. Baseball, even less so.
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Post by bobgoodman on Feb 3, 2022 19:11:21 GMT -6
Not just the owners either - NFLPA didn't have to agree to another regular season game. Not the owner, not the players.....it's the odds makers and Las Vegas demanding a winner. Gotta get that point spread covered. If there's a spread, that already breaks the tie. Sometimes OT produces a tie from a game that was decided with the spread.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 30, 2022 15:13:18 GMT -6
We could also construct various choices based on the rarely-used provision that says you're allowed to accept a penalty but decline the yardage portion of it. So you're on offense, don't like the result of the play in the red zone, but there's a roughing the passer/kicker/holder/snapper penalty. If you want to, you can accept the automatic first down at the basic spot, which would be the previous spot, rather than first down and half the distance to the goal line from that spot. So it's first down no matter which choice is made. That might make some of these comparisons even more interesting.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 30, 2022 9:26:45 GMT -6
If you are the actual play caller for your team, you get pissed for just a sec when you get first a goal at the 10. It is tough to score a TD from there!! That's like the situation I wrote of where there's a slight yardage difference but a big difference in the down. Sure, I'd rather have 2nd and 1 at the 11, maybe even 3rd and 1 at the 11, than 1st and goal at the 10. A difference in just 1 yard in field position but no chance to get a new series (without a penalty). I'm thinking that from the 11 yard line we'd probably get 2 or 3 yards and a first down pretty easily, or could take a shot in the end zone and still be in pretty good shape if the pass is incomplete. But if it was 3rd and 2 at the 12, maybe even 2nd and 2, and you gave me a choice of 1st and goal at the 8, then the goal-to-go starts to look more attractive for that "given" 4 yard gain. Make it 5 yards -- like if the defense encroaches when we have 2nd and 2 at the 15 -- and I'm taking that penalty for sure to get 1st and goal from the 10. How about the rest of you? I'll sweeten it slightly by saying you have 2nd and 1 at the opponent's 15. They encroach, it's a dead ball foul, whistled dead. Do you accept or decline the penalty? If you think they should decline the penalty, then if you're on defense, do you keep encroaching until the referee threatens to award a touchdown?
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 30, 2022 9:00:53 GMT -6
I don't think I agree with Silkyice on this, but I believe what he is trying to say is that 1st and 10 from the 15 gives the offense 2 options for "success"- touchdown or firstdown, the latter giving them 4 more tries from 5 yards or less. You have a potential 8 plays from the 15. 4 from the 10. The 15 also gives you 5 more yards that the defense has to defend on a pass. Bob, do you really think that gaining 10 yards from the 15 to the 5 is the same difficultly as gaining 10 yards from the 10? And using you analogies, is gaining 10 from the 50 to the 40 the same difficulty as gaining 10 from the 10? Bob, not trying to be a punk, but do you coach? Have you called plays in these situations? I coach, but I'm not the play caller. If I were, you probbly wouldn't see anything to distinguish me from most coaches in the pattern of plays I'd call. Of course gaining the same amount of yardage gets harder the closer ou get to the opposing goal line. But if you gain that yardage, it still leaves you farther from that goal line than if you didn't have to gain it. If it were really easier to score touchdowns from farther out, then you should tell your players that if they have the ball, unless they see a clear path to the end zone, that once they make the line-to-gain they should stop, because leaving the ball closer to the goal line makes it harder to score. On defense, once the opposing runner is past the line to gain, you should only try to prevent them from scoring the touchdown. In fact you should try to carry them closer to your goal line, because then it'll be easier to defend. That said, there are some situations on offense where a gain of yardage is a bad thing. On an early down, if you're being forced to the sideline, it's better to go out of bounds slightly behind the first down marker than slightly ahead of it. I'd rather have 2nd and a foot to go than a 1st down 2 feet ahead of that spot. But if we're talking 10 yards of difference, I'm taking that 10 yards gain every time!
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 29, 2022 8:02:07 GMT -6
But you still have to go 10 yards to do it. And then another 5. So why would you score more? Because you can get a first down. Who has access to analytics? Can someone look up expected score with 1st down on the 15 and first and goal on the 10? If offenses are scoring more from the 15 than from the 10, then something's wrong with how defenses play. You have 1st and goal from the 10. You go 10 yards, TD. If you'd been on the 15 with 1st and 10, you go 10 yards, all you get is the first down. Who could believe that a first down is better than a touchdown? Plus, if you were on the 15, you'd be a little farther for a field goal, and even if you were on the hash mark that makes the angle narrower. Suppose there were some reason teams were scoring more from the 15. Then the defense could always change to defending the 5 yard line like it's the goal line, and then it's like the opposing team is on the 10. Having the opponents on your 10 could never be better than having them on your 15. If that last 5 yards didn't help the defense, then we could save the real estate and shorten the distance between the goal lines to 90 yards. But then the very same thing could be said, so shorten it another 10 yards. And repeat the process until the field of play was only 10 yards long, and throw away the chains.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 28, 2022 22:21:01 GMT -6
Same in high school. I do not like the 10. For two reasons. 1) It is actually hard to score from the 10. I think you would score more from the 15 since you can get a first down. But you still have to go 10 yards to do it. And then another 5. So why would you score more?
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 25, 2022 21:21:08 GMT -6
I think that in every game, whoever wins the coins toss at the very beginning, should have the option to take the ball first in ot. In other words, add that as an option. No matter what, it should be known who gets the ball first in ot before the game starts. That way teams have a chance to do something about it during the game. For instance, I am down 7 and score on the last play of the game. I know that the other team will get the ball first. So maybe my best chance to win the game is to go for 2 right now. Maybe not. That is not the debate. The debate is that I should already know how that coin has flipped. Doesn't it make things more interesting in regulation play if you don't know which team will have the choice in OT? I thought some of the interest was lost when alternating possession arrows were introduced in basketball. Not knowing who was going to win a jump ball was part of the suspense.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 21, 2022 19:51:39 GMT -6
In all my years as a JrHS/MiddleSchool football coach I realized the most important thing is not what the coach knows, but it's what the kids understand! I teach the game of football by starting with the history. During our summer practices I have players research and do a presentation on the founding fathers of the game and their importance to the development of the game. The presentation is no longer than 5 minutes and must be memorized! It's amazing the job the kids do and how years later they still remember the presentations. I'd like to see your script. Many people assign credit for changes to Walter Camp, when all he did was chronicle them, not originate (or in some cases even advocate) them. The one change we do know he pushed was to 11 players a side, but there's no evidence he personally favored that, he just represented the Yale players, who'd previously been introduced to 11s by someone with experience with the Eton field game. Also, the IFA didn't invent the practice of snapping the ball back. I don't know who introduced it, but the University of Michigan players were among those using it, so it wasn't coincident with a rule change but preceded it. Some of the changes the IFA adopted may have come about because the RFU rebuffed their request for correspondence, and the RFU laws didn't reflect their administration. Meanwhile it seemed the Canadians were hardly interested in standardizing their game at all, so they never sought liaison with the RFU during that period.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 2, 2022 16:16:49 GMT -6
I’m happy to see blind side hits go. Seemed like the players happiest to have them were the ones that couldn’t block a soul anyway and they used the blindside to act tough. That's a difference between our attitudes. I like seeing the ones that couldn't block a soul otherwise get their chance and take advantage.
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Post by bobgoodman on Jan 1, 2022 15:42:39 GMT -6
Nope, this is NOT going to be another old-timer complaining that safety rules are ruining the game. When I read people's complaints about how soft the game has become I wonder what it is that they miss. I guess the rules that most object to are targeting and blind-side blocking restrictions. Well, so what? You can't aim for a guy's head when you're tackling anymore? Then don't. You can still hit people hard, you just can't try to knock him out now. High tackling is illegal in rugby too and I don't hear anybody calling that game soft (Although I'm sure there are still old-timers in a pub in Slough, UK bemoaning that they don't make them like they used to.). You can't essentially sneak up on a guy and blast him with a blind-side crack block? Good. Just block him. You don't have to try to kill him. I was never shy about contact. I played HS, college and semi-pro football as an OL or LB then played rugby, mostly as a prop, in the middle of the scrum. I liked hitting people and didn't mind getting hit. If the new rules mean that fewer guys are getting hurt who didn't need to be that's a good thing. Is it destroying the game? That's what old-timers back in the day said about the forward pass. I love this. As a former rugby player, I feel the same way (Wing --> Hooker --> Scrum Half). I think what our sport needs is a huge culture shift, and to aggressively oust the "brutalize your opponent" attitudes...the coaches and players who encourage the KO hits, and who reward or encourage improper tackling as long as the hit is "big." My biggest gripe here is that most of us teach proper tackling, but the rules/officiating and culture of our sport does not discourage shoulder charging. It's like we teach proper tackling, but when someone doesn't tackle properly, as long as it's a "big hit," no one cares. Proper tackling is encouraged, but poor tackling form is not discouraged. You can still be physical. You can still "wear down" and demoralize your opponent with proper tackling and blocking. Essentially, less emphasis on "hitting," and more emphasis on "tackling." Make it like rugby; where the rules give you no choice but to tackle/hit properly. I really wish we'd enforce the wrap rule, where if you do not attempt to wrap up the ball carrier, it's a major penalty. Keep the head contact simple: If you hit an opponent in the head, you're ejected. No if/then, no "what about," no scenarios. I believe these two changes will fix the danger issue real quick. A major penalty (presumably personal foul) for not attempting to wrap up the ball carrier? But that'd mean you could make hits on other players that you couldn't make legally on the ballcarrier. The idea might've crossed the minds of rules makers for American football within the past century to outlaw other means of getting the ballcarrier to the ground, but only briefly when they realized you could block non-ballcarriers and knock them down. Why make the runner immune to hits the other players were exposed to? I couldn't see making it a strict liability rule to not hit opponents in the head, especially if it's a disqualifying foul, because there are too many ways for it to happen accidentally. You're giving a forearm shiver to an opponent across his chest, and after contact your forearm slips upward or the opponent slides downward, and you're giving him an uppercut. You're making a shoulder block, intending to hit in the armpit, shoulder, or chest area, and the opponent dips lower than you'd anticipated. You're straight-arming with an open palm, and get the opponent on the helmet.
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Post by bobgoodman on Dec 27, 2021 18:35:07 GMT -6
Much of the time if a blindside block doesn't put the opponent on the ground, it's an ineffective block. If you look at the bodies in motion around that collision, sometimes just deflecting the opponent is enough, but other times, if you let the opponent stay on his feet and fight thru that block, it won't accomplish much. I always thought of the blindside block as a great equalizer where, because of the way the play was going, a smaller player had the opportunity to put a larger one on the ground and contribute to the success of the play.
I used to play rugby too, and mostly as a prop. However, over the course of my lifetime, most of the safety concern in rugby has been in with the set scrums, not the open play issues we're discussing here. And in the meantime they even made one aspect of that game more dangerous, by legalizing lifting in the lineout just after I quit playing.
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Post by bobgoodman on Dec 7, 2021 19:57:56 GMT -6
The sort of thing the phrase, "Play stupid game, win stupid prize," was made to apply to.
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Post by bobgoodman on Nov 23, 2021 12:42:42 GMT -6
Why does the rule exist? Why do you need 7 on the line of scrimmage? It's for safety. It's so people don't get killed. Originally, yes, it was for safety. 7 on the line had been the common number to play with since 1880, when the total number a side was set at 11. Walter Camp or some other commenter years later said that if they ever increased the number of players, the extras would undoubtedly be put on the line, because at that time (pre forward pass but also pre neutral zone and pre some of the other tactics I'll describe) it was seen as advantageous to the offense to do so, and defenses would need to follow. The Eton field football game, which was the inspiration for 11 a side, uses 8 forwards and only 3 backs. Because there was no neutral zone, originally the line players shoved against each other over that space before the ball was put in play. Later in the 19th Century, teams first saw the advantages of starting their line charge on a snap count, instead of contesting the space that would later become the neutral zone. Further, although teams most of the time would still play with 7 on the line, it was found advantageous for some of the O line to start in the backfield and get a running start to their interference. Because of the increased danger, first a rule was made to require at least 6 on the line, and in 1906 (along with the introduction of the neutral zone and the forward pass) that was increased to 7, which was convenient because then they also had a basis to limit the number of eligible forward pass receivers. Canadian football until 1966 required only a minimum of 5 on the line if no forward pass was thrown. On plays with a forward pass, at least 7 on the line were required. It was really only advantageous for protection against a blocked kick to have extra backs. But if you're asking why the rule was made forbidding putting the ball into play by passing from one line player to another, that had nothing to do with safety. When the snap was formalized, they wanted to make clear by rule when the ball would be in play. The ball would be in play originally when it was moved by foot by the player entitled to do so. However, previously the ball could not be handled "in scrimmage", so it had to leave the space between the forwards before it could be picked up. At some point early in the 1880s that form of restriction was abolished, and in its place was put a requirement that the ball be kicked forwards or heeled backwards clearly out of scrimmage. That is, the ball would no longer be live while in scrimmage except for the fraction of a second it took for it to leave that space. From that point players of both sides were allowed to move their feet to an offside position -- ahead of the ball -- although theoretically players on offense were still restricted against interfering with play while offside.
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