Captain Seafort wrote:That was my point. Scotland scored a try against Italy on Saturday precisely because the Italians were running forward fast. The ball carried knocked on after being tackled, Scotland turned it over, and before the Italians knew what was happening (and because they were going forward as fast as he, from their perspective, was going backwards) Lamont was through them all the way to the try line. The lot who conceded that touchdown don't have that excuse.
Excepting the first and last sentence, I'm not even sure in which language is this paragraph.
Captain Seafort wrote:I agree with the effort by Mr Jones - that's the furthest I've ever seen anyone run in American Football.
In fact, it was initially a post-season record for the longest kickoff return (109 yds.) Later the league reversed that decision, calling it instead a 107-yd. return which tied for the post-season record.
Captain Seafort wrote: My complaint is that the entire opposing team were standing within touching distance of him, with plenty of time to tackle him, and made no effort to do so.
As I said, I didn't see it that way. Poor performance by the Niners' kick coverage unit was certainly a part of it, but total lack of effort certainly wasn't (to my eye.) Certainly many coaches in all sports preach that doing something - even it's wrong - is better than doing nothing; but you have to understand that attempting an open-field tackle against a runner with a north-south head of steam is both completely different than trying to stop a run from scrimmage, and something not accomplished by simply trying to tack to a good angle and launching yourself. I was pulling for the Ravens, so perhaps I was more inclined to see the good on their side rather than the bad on the SF side; and again, it could be a different perception based on our differing levels of familiarity with - and regard for - the game.
*EDIT* yet again, there are the so-called "wedge" rules that came into play a few years back, that woefully restrict the positioning of players on a kick coverage unit. Certainly these wouldn't much come into play once Jones was past his own 20-yard-line or so, depending on a few factors (I don't recall what the hang time of the kick was,) and I sure won't say that the Niners coverage unit did all it could; but it is an example of something that a more practiced eye sees that could look radically different to a more casual observer. To a casual observer of a soccer match, an offensive player on a solo breakaway who held up approaching the sweepers might look like a lazy bastard; while to you, your knowledge of the offsides rule is so ingrained that you wouldn't even have to consciously consider the rule to apply it to your analysis of the play.
