To get all old man about this…
First game in Australia, the dual anthems, I’ll give them that. But a full halftime show, are you kidding me?! Just fucking get on with it!
I wish they were on tv.
Yeah. I’d been hoping that they’d use halftime to talk to people attending. “Is this your first time seeing American football? How do you like it?” That sort of thing, or maybe a little about Melbourne—attractions, things to see, and so on . But with that halftime show, the game might as well be taking place in the USA.
Probably wondering why all of the players are not on the field.
I think the 49ers’ approach to this Melbourne game worked well.
I do too. What impressed me was the preparation that the Niners took prior to the game. Arriving ten days early, with plenty of time to acclimate and get over jet lag was a good idea. The Rams arrived two or three days before the game, which probably contributed to their performance.
I know that when I’ve gone to Australia, I’m not fully “together” for three days. I’d hate to play football two or three days after landing.
29 hours from landing to coin flip, more or less. Maybe I’m biased, but apart from some individual amazing plays, the Rams looked off top to bottom.
So not even two days! Gosh, I’m hardly ready to do anything 29 hours after I get there, except maybe sleep. I sure couldn’t play football.
I agree with you, by the way. The Rams did “look off from top to bottom”; that’s a good way to describe it. That brief time from landing to the game probably had a lot to do with that.
But hey, the NFL got a fancy international game out of it. It’s like we all won
The tactics worked when they played in London last year. Questions will be asked but it will be interesting to see if the Rams step it up in the next few weeks. They should beat the Giants but have two tough matches in Denver and Philly after that. If they go 1-3 they might need to win out to win the NFCW.
I’ve become a less enthusiastic football fan in recent years, but I felt rather ashamed last night when the Rams “threw in the towel” earlier than sportsmanship used to require. Revealing to another nation that we’re a bunch of “aw fuck it” competitors rubbed me the wrong way.
Granted, it was reasonable.
I doubt anything was “revealed” that wasn’t known before. NFL games aren’t new to Australia. There’s something of a fan base of expats and local fans.
For those who don’t follow the sport, it’s part of the game as far as they can tell - would we really be able to tell what is a “good” or “bad” cricket game?
That said, I’ve never been a fan of having real games played internationally anyway. Games in Mexico are barely acceptable, though Goodell seems to favor Europe or Australia over our direct neighbors to the south.
But London or Germany are already stretching it, and there’s no direct football reason to subject competitive teams to dealing with the issues with traveling to Australia to play a single game within the regular season. I understand it is to “grow” the game but it’s just another reminder to fans in this country that the league knows we’ll watch anyway and keep pulling stuff like this game and continue the trend of non-Sunday games on random streaming services instead of broadcast
I feel an Onion article on its way; Los Angeles Rams coaches and players stunned to learn that international games “do count”.
I will admit that I fell asleep after the Niners scored to make it 24-7 with about 13 minutes to play. When did the Rams give up? (I assume they pulled their starters?)
They didn’t, but at least on that last drive they didn’t bother with timeouts toward the end because it was literally impossible to make up the difference (despite being well in range of a field goal or a shot at the end zone). And it was weird, because they sort of let the time run out but didn’t kneel it out or anything. They couldn’t even fully commit to quitting properly.
It didn’t look to me like the Rams gave up until maybe 30 seconds left. They were threatening to score but called a run play, then let the clock run out. Which is the very reasonable thing to do when down by 20.
I don’t think I’ve seen a team who was losing take a knee. They’ll call running plays to keep the clock moving, but kneeling is for when you’re ahead.
Good point. Much was made of “this is the first regular season game played in Australia,” but there have been preseason exhibition games before.
I was on a business/personal trip there back in 1999 (if I’m going that far for business, I’m going to take some time to be a tourist). My business contact and his friends had been to an NFL exhibition game in Sydney a couple of weeks earlier. They liked it, even though they didn’t quite understand it, and my contact had lots of questions.
I’m looking at the play-by-play. The Niners missed a FG with about 3 1/2 minutes to play; score was 27-7. The Rams ran 10 plays (with their backup QB) on the ensuing possession. There were 6 runs and 4 passes. I guess if they thought they had a chance they would leave Stafford in and throw the ball down the field, but obviously they didn’t.
Can’t really blame them. No reason to risk injury at that point.
I have seen that before. It helps prevent injuries.
Now, most of the time you just put out your third string guys for some free practice time, and that would be the more likely thing in the kind of situation the Rams were in, but I’ve seen folks take a knee if they are getting blown out and there’s only like a minute left or whatever.
That is my bad. I didn’t even realize Stafford wasn’t out there. I wasn’t paying that much attention at that point I don’t think.
Yeah, even the announcer expressed surprise (and a bit of dismay) when they didn’t take to the air for a desperate last-ditch effort.