Let’s say American football adopted the English rule that if a players gets ejected, the team must play a man short, 10 vs. 11, the rest of the game. Let’s say this happens before kickoff. Would it always be a blowout for the 11? Would it depend on the teams? How would the style of play and play calling change if one team is a man down?
It most definitely would depend on the teams. And 11-10 is not a firm limitation on how badly an undermanned team might beat the full-complement group. It’s a much bigger issue than just numbers. That’s why evenly matched teams can have obscene scoring differences.
In Rugby Union (15 a side) and Rugby League (13 a side) teams play short if someone is sent off for foul play. It is quite common, even at the highest levels for teams to manage to win playing one man down, sometimes for most of the match.
No. No way, no how, nuh uh. There’s NO possible way it could happen. You could even get 10 all-stars and have them go against the Raiders or Browns.
Let’s look at it like this. If there were only 10 guys on the field and the offense knew about it and planned for it, you’ve got 3 defensive linemen, 4 linebackers (more than likely), 1 safety, and two cornerbacks. Against a three-receiver set, who’s covering the speedy slot reciever? Not the linebacker for any period of time.
In some kind of a three lineman-2 linebacker-2 safety-3 cornerback set, you’re almost certainly playing zone against a four-receiver set. Playing against a strict zone defense means that there are inherent weaknesses in the defensive scheme. The way to mask them is with coverage shifting.
Some VERY exotic blitzes would have to be planned to get any consistent pressure on the quarterback.
The offense could also run a lot of play-action passes from a jumbo formation. The defense would have to play for the run, especially when accounting for the bigger bodies on the offensive line. If they played 3 linemen and 2 linebackers, they’d HAVE to pull a safety up into the box to challenge the run.
Push this secnario on the opposite side of the ball and you have an extra blitzer every down with all personnel accounted for. 5 linemen, a quarterback, a running back, a fullback or tight end, and two receivers limits your offense. That offense would be running a TON of screen passes and play-action passes to get SOMETHING going.
Well that just supports my point in the other thread: there’s too many players on a soccer
field, while in American football 11 is just about right.
Look, in general I agree with you that it would be difficult and put a lot of pressure on the team that’s down a man, but this is just ridiculous. What if the team that’s up a man has a crappy quarterback? Doesn’t matter how many receivers are open if the QB can’t throw accurately.
In short, it could happen, but would be unlikely with two otherwise fairly evenly matched teams.
I think it depends on the player who got booted. Some of the positions are very specialized. If this were a rule, players would probably be cross trained on several positions I suppose.
Also, if you lose someone on the offencive team, your defensive team is still 11 guys, right?
What about special teams?
Part of that is the offinsive and defensive lines, constituting 8 to 9 of the 22 plaers on the field, don’t move around all that much, and stick together. Exceptions include screen passes for offense and zone blitzes for defenses.
A 10-man team would lose to the 11-man team 99.99% of the time if the talent levels were roughly equal. If an 11-man defense had a DB that simply couldn’t cover, they’d be screwed. If an 11-man offense had to keep an RB in for blocking, but he couldn’t block, they’d be screwed. It’s not like they’d never score, but they wouldn’t be able to consitantly.
Two variants of football should be noted. Canadian football uses 12-man teams on a slightly bigger field, and Arena football uses 8-man teams on a much smaller field.
I think so too. I’ve seen plenty of pressure, and a few sacks, even from a prevent defense where only 3 or 4 lineman are dedicated to pressuring. In fact, it was a bit of a sad running joke for Seahawks fans back in the day…when the Seahawks had their offense playing against a prevent defense, we all had the pavlovian cringe result waiting for them to give up the inevitable Dave Kreig sack 'n fumble under the dreaded overwhelming pressure of the 3 defensive lineman. 
It seems to me that the imbalance would make it much more likely that, on a particular play, the offense would take advantage of a defensive vulnerability. However, on any given play, the defense may run a scheme that stifles the play selected by the offense.
On every play, there are players who are essentially taken out of the play. Barring esoteric blitzes, cornerbacks play no role on most running plays. On many passing (and some running) plays, linebackers and/or one or both of the safeties may be doing nothing but watching.
If the defense can pick which position it is not fielding on a particular play, and the offense doesn’t know in advance, I would say the imbalance would give the offense a clear advantage in terms of probabilities, but it would guarantee nothing.
good point- lets say the same as in soccer- one man down on offense, defense and special teams, but the team that is a man down can pick what position it is, and can change that position at will.
In the NFL, it may not work. I wonder if it would work in college, with two obviously mismatched, but Division IA schools? Florida vs Utah State, where the score would normally be 55-10 or something. I would think Florida’s 10 could hold their own against USU’s 11, just because of the (very) significant talent and coaching disparities.
I’m fairly certain you’re from Michigan and presumably a Lions fan. Assuming so, you’re not the only Lions fan that has used the old “the Browns are a much more recognizably bad team” misdirection. Might I remind you who has the second pick in this year’s draft? I don’t understand how they do it, but the Lions always manage to lose games in a very low profile way. If not for all that Matt Millen hullabaloo, I don’t think anyone would even know they were in the league. At least the Browns lose with flair. 
Ditto what you said about 10 players vs. 11. That extra guy would make a huge impact on defense. He’d probably be most effective in the box stopping the run and blitzing on every passing down. He’d really wreak havoc in there.
Yes, but he’d still have to figure out which is which. How many times has a big running gain come exactly when the defense overloads the box and rushes? You let them through and then take off through a depleted secondary. Granted it’s not a great strategy for the whole game, but it’s not like every team scores on every drive anyway. Scoring three times the entire game may be enough to win.
I’ll say it again, it would make an impact. Given two otherwise roughly equal teams, the 11 man team would win more often than not, but in no way is it a lock. The Colts would have stood a decent chance against the Raiders, even down a man.
The longest rushing play in NFL history was accomplished with the offense inadvertently playing with 10 players. It was Cowboy great Tony Dorsett’s semi-famous 99-yard run on Monday night vs. the Vikings in the early 80s. Somebody didn’t check in to the huddle, so the Cowboys’ offense was down a man for that play.
The team a man down would have a huge problem on offense. On defense, you typically have a free safety who is not assigned to guard any one receiver(except in blitzing situations). The tradeoff for sending a 5th defensive player rushing the QB is that you now must play man to man throughout the secondary. Very rarely are all receivers so well covered in a man to man defense that the QB cannot hit one, but the defense is basically gambling that the extra pressure will force the QB to make a bad decision, or not be able to find the open guy in time to get rid of the ball. Now imagine a defense that could blitz EVERY down, and play zone behind it. This is really the philosophy behind Dick LeBeaus zone blitz scheme, except when he sends a LB or a DB, one of the DL drops back into a short zone, so the QB is still facing 7 men in coverage, and the OL never knows where the rushers are coming from, which creates confusion and pressure. If I was a defensive coordinator, and I could play a 3-4, and now send 2 LBs or DBs on every play, and still play zone behind it, I would be licking my chops. The only way an offense could score would be to pop a running play through the exact right gap and have a RB who could beat the safety through the defensive backfield(which is exactly how Dorsett scored).
I don’t think any NFL team could beat another 10 on 11. I think NFL teams could beat most Div. I college teams 10 on 11. An NFL defense would have fast enough DBs to cover college level receivers without a safety, and their front 4 would crush most college lines and still create pressure on the QB. Likewise, you would just play a receiver down on offense, and still have be athletic enough to move the ball. You could probably go to 5 OL, a QB, and a spread 4WR set against a college team and pick them apart with superior speed, and I think very few college DLs could get consistent pressure against a NFL caliber OL
I know. I was going to pick on the Lions, but I wanted to pick a wretched defense (the Raiders) and a wretched offense (the Browns).
I was going to say “the Lions” or at least add them in there, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it…not when I could poke at two other teams. The Lions had a solid offense. I can’t throw Martz under the bus right now. I CAN throw the defense under there…and then I can throw things on them after they’ve been run over, too. No team loses as spectacularly as the Michigan State Spartans, though. It’s amazing how GOOD they are at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
For the record, yeah, I’m in Michigan. The drive to Ann Arbor every frickin’ morning sucks.
To drive my point home, playing offense is all about exploiting the weaknesses in the defense. If the defense comes with an inherent flaw, then it becomes a matter of personnel and basic defense reading. No amount of stunts or zone blitzes (because that’s about as fun of a blitz you could percievably run if you’re down a man) can effectively cover up not having a cornerback/safety/linebacker.
I also want to say, for the record, that Millen needs to draft Calvin Johnson. He hasn’t got balls big enough to take a receiver 4 years in a row, but I believe that’s the correct pick.
What was the run play? Was it a draw? Was it because the defense was loading up the box and overpursuing?
It’s a lock. 11 Raiders could beat 10 Colts. Anyone from New England will tell you (ad nauseam, I might add) how Peyton Manning performs when there’s someone pressuring him. (How it’s different from any other quarterback getting pressured, I don’t know, but apparently Tom Brady does no wrong.)
I think I’m with you on your last point. College and pro football are two different animals. Your average college player is a bad tackler. Your average NFL player is an average NFL tackler, which means they’re way above average compared to college players.
No need to dissect it too much more, but in the NFL an 11-man team would beat a 10-man team like a redheaded stepchild. It wouldn’t even be close, it doesn’t matter who the two teams are. For how bad the Raiders, Browns, Lions and Cardinals are the difference between them and elite teams is pretty damn small. Everyone talks about parity, and each of those teams is a good coach and an impact player from being in the playoffs.
Assuming the rules were changed so that playing with a man advantage was a foreseeable occurrence, you can be certain that NFL coaches would have elaborate schemes to take advantage of those short-manned teams by overloading one side of the field. On nearly every play there’d be a wide open receiver or RB and on defense there’d be a free blitzer. The man-down team could not complete a pass longer than 5 yards all game long. Their only prayer would be a concentrated running attack, and that hasn’t been effective since the days of the T-formation.
It would be an utter and complete whitewashing. You simply cannot underestimate how heavily schemes and mismatches would exploit this situation regardless of talent levels within the NFL.
In the NCAA and High School where the talent disparities are greater and the margin for error is wider you might stand a chance if you had a really sound strategy for covering your weak points, but even then after better coaches had a chance to analyze your gameplan you’d be dead meat.