Take a recorded T.V. broadcast of an NFL football game from last season, or from ten years ago, or from 30 years ago, at random. All about the same, year after year.

Several attempts have been made to start football leagues in the NFL off-season, all failed. What's wrong with professional American football? Answer: it has a level, uniform playing field. The military battlefield that it emulates does not.

Introduce a controlled but randomly assigned set of playing field irregularities. Humpy ground. Mounds. Rubber stumps. A small pond. Until you tune in the game, you don't know what today's field will look like. Where will the mound be? Where will the pond be? Each team gets some advance notice of the playing field configuration before the game, so they can select some series of plays appropriate for the layout.

Now the best teams are the ones that have players who came up through the level playing fields of colleges and went on to more fully develop their skills in a realm where (whoops, now it sounds like an action movie trailer) you have to adapt every game, every game plan, and all your skills to a varied terrain. The best would truly be the best.

Of course the 'right' amount of obstacles and irregularities would have to be concocted to prevent certain kinds of injuries and to make sure it's not too irregular. Much is always made by the announcers of the weather, winds, crowd noise, etc. Let's play this up in a formal way with actual random irregularities. It's a fractal world after all.
-- entremanure, Nov 12 2001

I'm all for this as long as you throw in a few tanks, fighter jets, and perhaps a scarecrow in search of a brain.
-- AfroAssault, Nov 12 2001


Sounds a bit like that Brazillian soccer pitch that has an endangered species of tree in the middle of it.

Incidently, Old Trafford had a pond in the middle of it that was boarded over at game-time. And Newcastle's first ground had a difference of 11m from one end to the other.
-- [ sctld ], Nov 12 2001


Kent County Cricket club's ground had (until fairly recently) a large tree growing inside the boundary rope. Special rules governed how many runs were scored if it was hit during play.
-- Lemon, Nov 13 2001


Well, maybe if they ever try off-season American football again, they can hype it with the 'battlefield' angle.

Interesting about actual obstacles encountered in actual games among the field sports.

An idea related to that in this topic is helium football, where each player has a helium baloon firmly attached, of a size to make the player neutrally bouyant or very light on the feet. Best played in a field house.
-- entremanure, Nov 18 2001


This might make US football at least mildly interesting to watch, until one of the players has a major injury like a hangnail or something...

Afro, I think the 'in search of a brain' part is already adequately covered by the shaved gorillas currently in use.
-- StarChaser, Nov 18 2001


I think they should just have a free-for-all with 5 balls in play at one time. Both teams certainly have enough players to field 5 sides each. Playing field remains the same size - All 120 players on field at same time. None of that set and snap, huddles, timeouts or any of that other crap. Just 5 balls dropped from a blimp. Whoever gets the most touchdowns, field goals or whatever in an hour wins. Think of it as a human demolition derby. Now that I would watch.
-- thumbwax, Nov 18 2001



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