American Football > Rugby

[Crissi]

Having played Rugby for a while as a young guy, through high school, and having been a massive american football fan for the last 7 years, I can say that they are completely different sports. Some things are similar, mainly leftovers from when football grew out of rugby, but the pace and set pieces (scrums, lineouts for rugby, the general setup before a play in football) are what sets them apart.

As far as a spectacle, personally, I find football to be more enjoyable to watch. Rugby is a lot more smoothed out over the full 80 minutes when it comes to exciting plays, where as football has more moments of excitement, tempered with low moments.

Also tempered by constant breaks for commercials. Seriously, nothing sucks more when attending a live game as when they stop ON PURPOSE FOR COMMERCIALS.

Well, except the one time that the Superbowl had a blackout for half an hour...

[Bigbazz]

Oh god. Where am I?!? How did I get here?!? WHAT IS HAPPENING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH



What the fuck does this mean?!?!?!?!?!

*snippy snips*

The ball is more the shape of an egg and it spends more time in your hands than being kicked by your foot. What baffles me is the need to ban such a term. If we used the same approach to all topics we would have a banned word list the length of a novel.

[Crissi]

The ball is more the shape of an egg and it spends more time in your hands than being kicked by your foot. What baffles me is the need to ban such a term. If we used the same approach to all topics we would have a banned word list the length of a novel.

The reason is because it derails topics, and antagonizes football fans into eventual flaming.

Now drop it

[Bigbazz]

The reason is because it derails topics, and antagonizes football fans into eventual flaming.

Now drop it

You brought it up, I wasn't replying to you, so you drop it. The cheek.

[xskarma]

As far as a spectacle, personally, I find football to be more enjoyable to watch. Rugby is a lot more smoothed out over the full 80 minutes when it comes to exciting plays, where as football has more moments of excitement, tempered with low moments.

If we're going into details: Rugby keeps a pretty constant flow of game play going, there's little breaks in the action and tactics are dictated by moment to moment flow of the game.

Football is MADE to be a constant break of action, regroup, decide on new tactics and have a play again. This gets generalised as "Football takes several minute breaks and the plays only last 10 seconds" but that's not true if you know what's going on.

Actual tactics in Football start the minute the previous play is over, with personnel changes, it continues with personnel changes by the opposite team to match up, then goes into lining up with the QB surveying what the defense is doing, and his play that he received from the sideline is going to work or not. While the QB is surveying the defense, the defensive captain is surveying what the offense is doing with their pre-snap line up, and thier pre-snap motions. This chess game goes on for anywhere between 10-20 seconds before the play actually starts, with both sides making changes trying to confuse and defeat the other side.

For the uninitiated that might look like there's nothing going on and there's no "action" but it is VERY much part of the game, and SHOULD be taken into account when deciding what the actual play time is (which most of those "there's only 12 min of game play" statements don;t do, they measure from actual snap, till actual whistle).


That's why comparing Rugby to Football is apples to oranges. They;re vastly different games with vastly different tactics, even if they resemble eachother a tiny bit by how the field looks and how the ball looks.

[Affixiation]

Honestly I don't understand the euro hate for my nation's most beloved sport.
American Football has brought many families together around the family telly in appreciation of the sport.
Not that it isn't a heavily commercialized sport though, can barely go five minutes without a commercial break when watching it.
Definitely needs more playing and less commercials for sure, that way the game ends much sooner than they currently do.

Exactly when did one sport become more real than another sport too? American Football, Soccer, Rugby, etc.
Guaranteed that many of you who bash the sport would love playing it with a bunch of friends.
Go on, give it a try.

[durrtygoodz]

Honestly I don't understand the euro hate for my nation's most beloved sport.

Could say the same about Americans views towards association football.

American Football has brought many families together around the family telly in appreciation of the sport.

So does association football.

[Zelk]

Going to be really fun discussing two sports which have almost no crossover whatsoever.

[Northern Goblin]

Well this thread is certainly guaranteed to be productive.

Played both, love both.

The real debate is league vs union... I say that but it's not really. Union shits on league.

[Xanjori]

The real debate is league vs union... I say that but it's not really. Union shits on league.

Yeah, that isn't really a debate.

[Deleted]

You brought it up, I wasn't replying to you, so you drop it. The cheek.

Don't be too harsh on her, it's finally given her another thread to post in on this forum. Think the total is up to 14 now, although three of those were NFL threads and two were college football so I'm not really sure they should all count.

[Deleted]

Rugby Union is a game of attrition, Rugby League is a game of back and forth, American Football is a game of intense back and forth.

When people say they've seen Rugby, they should really make it clear which type of Rugby they've seen, League is a lot more like AF than Union is.

That said, i've been playing Union for nearly 2 decades now, and i'll always back it over American Football. When I was semi pro back in my late teens - early twenties, we had an American Football team (smallish I think, i've never heard of them anyway) do a tour of Rugby clubs, to promote the sport, so we had a game of American Football with them, which we loved, wearing the armour is great, and its a pretty fun game to play, but when it came to playing a game of Rugby afterwards there coach said that it was "too rough" and that he wouldn't risk his players, and i've always had a poor opinion of the sport since then.

[Crackleslap]

Well this thread is certainly guaranteed to be productive.

Played both, love both.

The real debate is league vs union... I say that but it's not really. Union shits on league.

As an Australian I beg to differ! I much prefer League over the 3. Union and American Football okay. American Football seems to slow a lot of the time. Things like "timeouts" really piss me off too.

[The Phone]

I wish Rugby was more popular in the US. ;(

[draynay]

What a dumb thread, who would make such a thing?


Oh, I see, makes sense.

[willtron]

You have bad taste if you like either.

Fight me.

Says the brony.

OT: Way too much stop start in american football, way too many players, way too much padding. Rugby is the more entertaining sport, imo. Better flow, more skill, more players than the quarterback are important, less adverts.

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Both sports are horrendously boring and take little to no skill to play, it's all about being tall and fat and charging into people as hard as you can. And the play is constantly stopped all the time.

If you think rugby is a no skill game where just fat people running into each other you have clearly just demonstrated you know nothing of the game.

[Northern Goblin]

If I want a constant flowing game I'll watch Union.

If I want a stop start affair where action is in bursts and momentum is exchanged I'll watch NFL.

I really never got into League.