# For those who think American football is a wimpy game. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 25, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018 "2006-09-25T03:14:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/21 "2006-09-26T00:12:43Z")
[QUOTE=Laughing Lagomorph] 😕 [/QUOTE] “\*2” = “times two,” meaning that the England World Cup was watched all over the world. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/22 "2006-09-26T00:18:19Z")
[QUOTE=Laughing Lagomorph] 😕 [/QUOTE] You seemed to be somewhat impressed that the guy puked live on TV. I was saying that the video showed a guy puking on live TV for much the same ‘pumped’ up reason in front of a live audience of almost certainly 500-1000 million people. The world cup is HUGE. That’s all I meant and that was also the point of the linking to the video. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/23 "2006-09-26T00:19:57Z")
[QUOTE=Ogre] “\*2” = “times two,” meaning that the England World Cup was watched all over the world. [/QUOTE] A England game during the World Cup in Germany 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/24 "2006-09-26T00:23:44Z")
[QUOTE=yojimbo] A England game during the World Cup in Germany 😉 [/QUOTE] Oh. Well, hell. I’m a Murkan. I don’t know nothin’ 'bout your poofy European sports. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/25 "2006-09-26T01:09:25Z")
A’hem, poofy English game 😉 We have a game call Hurling over in Ireland. Think of Ice Hockey and then put the ball in the hand and the the sticks at head height. No rules call for helmets etc. You can always tell a Hurler. They’re the one with no teeth and big dents in their head. Most do wear helmets nowadays but they don’t have to. A taste of the game. It’s said it’s the fastest field sport in the world and it’s hard to argue with that. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FQDCURvboEU/hqdefault.jpg "Tipperary 2006") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQDCURvboEU) ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/26 "2006-09-26T01:10:58Z")
100% amatuer BTW. The final is played to close to 90,000 in the stadium. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/27 "2006-09-26T01:13:10Z")
Looks a lot like lacrosse. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/28 "2006-09-26T01:26:01Z")
> [@](#): > > A’hem, poofy English game Knew that’d get ya. 🙂 I’ve seen hurling before. Great game. Reminds me a bit of [lacrosse](http://youtube.com/watch?v=2eU5B-g_lN4). Lacrosse came from the Iroquois, and it was not at all uncommon to have all sorts of cracked bones. As you can see from the last half of the linked vid, it’s still pretty rough-and-tumble. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/29 "2006-09-26T02:11:29Z")
[QUOTE=yojimbo] A’hem, poofy English game 😉 We have a game call Hurling over in Ireland. Think of Ice Hockey and then put the ball in the hand and the the sticks at head height. No rules call for helmets etc. You can always tell a Hurler. They’re the one with no teeth and big dents in their head. Most do wear helmets nowadays but they don’t have to. A taste of the game. It’s said it’s the fastest field sport in the world and it’s hard to argue with that. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FQDCURvboEU/hqdefault.jpg "Tipperary 2006") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQDCURvboEU) [/QUOTE] Guinness used to run a commerical here in the US that featured hurling. (Wow, that’s a rather amusing sentence.) I haven’t seen it in quite a while, but it was one heck of a commerical. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/30 "2006-09-26T03:28:01Z")
Oh sure, one guy gets hit so hard he has to have surgery after a game to keep from dying from internal bleeding. Once in awhile a Joe Theissman discovers his leg can’t been backwards. So the Rams have had a few quarterbacks who’ve been hospitalized with concussions. This is America dammit! We won’t be happy until at least three players on each team die during a game. Preferably one that goes into overtime. ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/31 "2006-09-26T03:31:36Z")
[QUOTE=kunilou] This is America dammit! We won’t be happy until at least three players on each team die during a game. Preferably one that goes into overtime. [/QUOTE] Why do you think they call it “sudden-death” overtime? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/32 "2006-09-26T04:40:13Z")
I won’t be convinced that a sport is truly hard core until they start offering the losing team as a human sacrifice again. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018/33 "2006-09-26T09:58:03Z")
[QUOTE=brickbacon] How did Rugby change? [/QUOTE] They did away with hacking as a means of stopping a player with the ball. That’s right, the approved method of stopping the ball-carrier used to be kicking the feet from under him. Rucks (a sort of scrimmage-like affair that takes place _ad hoc_ after the tackle when the ball’s on the ground, with lots of people pushing and shoving for possession) are now brought to a stop if the ball’s buried and not about to come to light, whereas once upon a time they’d just carry on for as long as it took, with small regard for whoever was getting trampled, kicked or piled on at the bottom of it. But chiefly, there are precious few allowable reasons for laying hands on anyone who hasn’t got the ball, and even the tackle must be made with the intent of catching and stopping the ball-carrier - you can’t just smash into him making no attempt to hold on. Talking of being sick on the field of play, google up Dean Jones some time (Australian cricketer). He played a great and famous innings in sweltering heat and humidity in India circa 1985-86 and during it he was being sick about once every over (six pitches), pissing his pants, having to be ice-bathed at every interval in play, and losing about twenty-odd pounds in weight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-those-who-think-american-football-is-a-wimpy-game/374018.md?page=1)