Week 04 - Football

Chase Seabolt

Devlog #4

The sport I am choosing to analyze is football. I think football is an interesting sport and while doing the readings/videos this week. There was a point made that football is a game about game design. I have never thought about it much like that before, and as a former player and photographing as much football as I do, it is interesting to realize that. In chapter 2, the word constraint is used as a means to explain a field, rules and regulations in the game of football per say. If you think about it like an old 2D Atari game, the constraint of the field is the rectangle in which your little figures move around. Rules as constraints can be how many people are allowed inside this rectangle at one time and further constraints can be such that a lineman is not able to go down the field for a pass (ex: ineligible receiver down field penalty).

With football being described as a game about game design, lets break that down a bit. Football is a game in which the offense and defense both run plays simultaneously. Both the offense and defense are trying to design a play that will work better than the others in order to either score a touchdown or stop the offense. In chapter 2: Skill, Strategy, Chance and Uncertainty all come into play every single time a ball is snapped in football.

Skill is a large factor as you need to have higher skilled players on your team in order to win, with few exception. Strategy and Uncertainty go hand in hand as your team is trying to design the best, most strategic play. However, there is always the uncertainty that the other team is trying to do the same thing. Therefore, you never truly know what is going to happen until it happens. Another term used in the chapter is Decision Making. This is an extremely important aspect of football as well because you have a certain amount of time between plays that you have to start the next play otherwise the constraint of rules comes into play and you will be penalized. Decision Making is in almost every single aspect of football. I’d say besides constraints and rules, decision making is the most important tool in football.

As a former high school varsity quarterback, there is not a single play that you run on offense where there is not a decision made by you or someone else on the team. In football, an accident could happen and you will have to make a decision in less than half of a second on what you have got to do next in order to execute a more strategic and better designed play than the other team. If a snap goes over your head, your play is busted. But, you have the opportunity to run back and pick up the ball and throw it to someone, run it yourself or run out of the pocket and throw the ball to the sidelines.

Football is a game about game design and hearing that for the first time blew my mind.