Not nearly as impressive as the plays cited above, but yesterday, in the CFL Western Semi-Final, the Calgary Stampeders burned the Saskatchewan Roughriders with a lateral pass leading to a touchdown.
The Riders were in possession, about 15 yards out from the Stamps goal line. The quarterback, Kerry Joseph, threw to one of the Sask receivers in the end zone, Andy Fantuz, who got his mitts on it, but the ball deflected out - and into the hands of Dwaine Carpenter of the Stamps, who ran it out of the end-zone and down field. He made it to Sask 40 yard line, but QB Kerry Joseph caught up to him and was about to tackle him (a good illustration of the old comment that in the CFL, you better be willing to play offence and defence ). Stamps Trey Young had been blocking for Carpenter, so Carpenter lateralled the ball to him just before Joseph tackled Carpenter, and Young ran it the rest of the way for a touchdown.
So, an interception, a combined runback of over 120 yards, and a lateral, for a Stamps touchdown. Ouch!
I used to wonder that too, when i first moved to the US. But after watching American football for a while you soon realize that, despite many superficial similarities, the game really is so different from rugby that you can’t apply the same thinking.
First, and perhaps most basically, is the fact that NFL players don’t really have any experience passing. In rugby, you grow up learning how to pass the ball accurately, and even the biggest, most uncoordinated prop gets to pass every now and again during the game. NFL is a much more specialized game, and in most typical games the only guy that ever hands the ball off to someone else with a throw is the quarterback.
Second, and probably more important, is the different rules concerning how possession works in the NFL. If a team tries a whole bunch of laterals, the opposition is usually up in their faces very quickly and can shut the play down. The play linked in the OP probably never would have got that far in the NFL. Also, because each lateral has to go sideways or backwards, every time you pass you are giving up ground, and in a field position game like the NFL it’s generally better to punt it 50 yards downfield than it is to go backwards 15 yards and risk being tackled.
And this ties into the structure of the play itself. In rugby, during a long series of passes, any breakdown or tackle can be overcome by the team with the ball by creating a ruck or maul. So, if someone gets hit or knocked over by a defender, and can’t get the ball away, his forwards will arrive and help him out. Not only does this allow the attacking team to set the play up again, but it forces the members of the defending team to come back onside, and thus gives the attacking team more room to move.
In the NFL, this isn’t an option. As soon as you’re tackled, that’s the end of the play, so keeping the ball alive in such situations is much more risky than in rugby, especially given that possession is a more precious commodity in NFL than in rugby. Also, once the play starts, there is no offside, and the defending team has no obligation to leave room between themselves and the attacking players.
I’d actually be interested to know what the average number of possession changes is for a game of rugby, compared to a game of American football. My hunch is that there are probably at least twice as many in a typical rugby game, but that’s just impressionistic guessing.
As noted, it’s hard as hell in American football. There is nowhere near as much open space on the field, so it’s unlikely that you’ll find a teammate open for a lateral pass when you need one, unless you design the play that way. If you do (say, you line a couple of receivers up closer together), you’re generally asking for more trouble than it’s worth, since you’ll just attract more defensive attention to that area of the field. Also keep in mind that five guys on the offense–the ones who stand directly in front of the quarterback–can never touch the ball in play unless somebody else fumbles it and they pick it up.
There are a few exceptions, however, most notably when one of the receivers or the halfback has experience at quarterback. The San Diego Chargers’ running back, LaDainian Tomlinson, can actually throw a bomb way upfield with the best of them, and when Marty Schottenheimer–a man not usually given to trickery–coached the team, he loved to give the ball to LT and have him toss it forward 20 yards for a touchdown. Much amusement ensues on the postgame shows when LT scores a running touchdown, a passing touchdown and a receiving touchdown in the same game. However, this really only works because LT is such a dangerous runner that as soon as he gets the ball the entire defense is on red alert and trying to stop him from making forward progress himself, rather than paying attention to the open receivers.
Especially since, if you get tackled on fourth down, you give the ball up on the spot you’re tackled at. If you start on the opponent’s 40 yard line, pass backwards 15 yards and then your dude gets tackled at your own 40, that’s (a) humiliating and (b) a great way to give up a touchdown fast.
You’re picking up on a pet peeve of mine. Coaches tend to get very conservative with the ball on fourth and short and punt the ball away. If they go for it and don’t make it, they get the blame. If they punt, it’s just standard operating procedure. However, if you’re a)out of field goal range b)within 3 yards of getting the first down or c)a combination of the two and later in the game, you should go for it. The average play in football goes for about 4 yards.
The rugby-style chains exist…in a way. We have screen passes. If the offensive line lets some defensive linemen into the pocket as the quarterback moves back, the offensive linemen can swing out to the side. The quarterback can lob the ball to the running back, who leaked out behind the offensive linemen, creating a little convoy. There are also wide receiver screens, bubble screens, reverse screens…all sorts of fun screens.
Others have answered this fairly well, but I think it can be summarized thusly: in American football, field position and possession of the ball are everything, and not casually given up. There’s a direct correlation between keeping possession (committing fewer turnovers*) and winning the game. The game is designed for the offense to keep possession until they score, or they decide that they have no reasonable expectation of reaching the 1st down marker and therefore punting the ball away – giving it to the other team 40 yards downfield.
(*Turnovers = inadvertently losing possession, via an intercepted forward pass or a lost fumble)
I was at the 1982 Cal - Stanford game. My claim to sports immortality.
The average play, sure. But there is no such thing as an average play. Fourth down tries are when the defense and the fans are the most pumped up; it’s by far the most nervous situation that can occur at any point during the game. Fourth downs are converted about 50.8% of the times they’re attempted. That’s not that great, considering that if you give the ball to an NFL punter you probably have an almost 100% chance of pinning the other team 20 to 40 yards back. And I would suggest that it’s only even as high as it is due to selection bias: coaches and offensive coordinators, who know every intricacy of their offense and have an intuitive feel for these things anyway, go for it only when they feel they can make it. I’m sure the majority of those tries are within four yards of the first down, and it should be telling that even after considering all of that, the conversion rate is just over 50%. On a good year.
Others have answered this well, but I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned blocking. If I am running the ball and you are near me (in Am. football), I expect you to go ahead of me and block, not drop behind for the pass. This is a very difficult problem for new American rugby players to deal with. We are used to running the ball and gripping it like death and the other players are SUPPOSED to get between me and the bad guys.
Hahaha, that reminds me of my very first game of rugby, when I absolutely flattened a guy on the other team with a well-timed block. Among all the hundreds of new rules I needed to remember, the “no blocking” one didn’t stick, I guess
). Stamps Trey Young had been blocking for Carpenter, so Carpenter lateralled the ball to him just before Joseph tackled Carpenter, and Young ran it the rest of the way for a touchdown.
