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| | The New England Patriots can thank Adam Vinatieri and his foot for the Super Bowl victory on Sunday. Vinatieri has now given New England its second Super Bowl win in the past three seasons. He did it with a 41 yard field goal with only four seconds left on the clock. New England claimed victory with a score of 32-29, defeating the Carolina Panthers. In 2002, he kicked the winning field goal against St. Louis during the final play of that game as well.
Football Popularity:
American football is the most popular sport in the U.S. with millions of viewers gathering in front of TV screens. One of the polls indicated that American football is the favorite sport amongst U.S. residents since 1972 when it overtook baseball for the first time.
Television ratings for the National Football League games are higher than for any other sports leagues in North America. On the day of the “Super Bowl” - the final game of the season in NFL – around 100 million viewers watch the game in the US.
Unprofessional college football is also very popular in the U.S. Four university stadiums in the U.S. can accommodate more than 100,000 spectators and often they are completely jam packed. Even a game between high school students is often viewed by over 10 000 spectators.
The game involving teams of the University of South California was attended by more than 90 thousand spectators.
Key strategies:
At first glance it might seem that American football is a game that fully depends on the physical parameters of players. In fact, the strategy in a football game plays a major role. Coaches need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their team and should be able to assess the impact of external factors such as weather, place of game and condition of the field. Based on this data, coaches plan game strategy and the player’s task would to be meticulously and purposefully implement the strategy. Each player, regardless of position on the field, should know the strategy of his team and should be able to respond to strategy of the opponent team.
Offensive game strategy:
While planning an offensive strategy, the coaches try to maximize the strengths of their offense team and utilize the weaknesses of the opponent team, taking many other factors into account. Basically, downs, during which the ball is carried in the hands, are considered more reliable and downs, in which the ball is passed, are considered more risky, since the interception of the ball by the defence players increases. On the other hand, a successful pass, as a rule, advances the ball to a greater distance, than running with the ball.
The offense team tries to find a balance between two kinds of attacks with an aim not to give the defense team a chance to tackle the attack and successfully defend against one of the schemes. Often, the offense team simulates a running down, while passing or on the contrary, simulates a pass and tries to advance the ball along the ground.
During the game, the offence team tries to change the type of downs to gain an advantage. The traditional strategy is the attempt to run with the ball in the early stages of game to exhaust the defense and forcing the players of the defence team to set up ground play thus opening the chances for long passes. The more modern strategy is the West Coast offense (it is called so because the West Coast team was the first one to employ such a strategy), requires a lot of short passes early in the game with an aim to open the defense and open-up space for ground play.
Some teams traditionally rely on a strong run with the ball, having one or more tailbacks, which are capable of significant breaks. Some rely on strong quarterbacks and receivers, relying mostly on passes in the game.
Weather conditions such as rain, wind and cold weather, could significantly weaken the passing in a game and force the offensive team to handout the advantage of running with the ball.
So as to execute the downs as planned by coach, all the downs are to be written in a special book of “Downs”. Players learn all the downs by heart and only use their code names or numbers.
Defensive game strategy:
During defensive play, the team tries to analyze the strategy of the opponent and to form the most successful defense formation. The defense can play more conservatively, rolling back, attacking quarterback only through players on the line and trying to intercept a pass or return, or more aggressive, by attacking the quarterback with many players and "baring" the rear of the opponent.
As offense players, defense players can simulate formation, thus forcing the quarterback to change the attack and play another attack.
The defense tries to choose a defense formation (zonal, individual or blitz) with an aim to more effectively resist the attack. Also, the defense actively varies the type of players, positioned on the field, depending on the situation in the game, having, for example, more defense backs, when the attack produces more receivers.
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