Let me preface this by saying that I'm not a sports fan and don't know the rules of football, or any other sports for that matter, except that you need to put a ball somewhere. But last night while waiting for NCIS to come on I caught the last few minutes of the Steelers/Ravens game and was totally shocked.
While the clock was ticking down, the Steelers were walking around congratulating themselves on winning and the Ravens were crying into their laps. Now my question is, why did they stop playing before the game was over. What's happened to the "hail Mary" pass and last minute plays to shove a game into overtime? Why quit before the game is done?
That's like reading a book and finding the last page has been torn out.
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At a certain point, because of the way the clock works, the team with the lead and the ball can run out the clock and the other team can't stop it. Maybe it was that. I watched the game but I don't remember anyone giving up when they still had a chance.
That may be it, Charles, but it still doesn't feel right. That would be like Tiger Woods refusing to play the last hole because he was leading and no one could beat him. The point of the game is taking a chance, both of winning and losing.
There is a play clock which is the amount of time that the team with the ball has to initiate a play. If they don't then they will be penalized.
Then there is the game clock which is the overall clock for the game.
The team without the ball cannot do anything until the team with the ball initiates a play.
If the amount of time on the play clock exceeds the amount of time on the game clock then the team with the ball can just let the clock run out.
Instead of just standing around watching a clock tick down (which would be boring for all involved including the viewers) the quarterback will just "take a knee" which is a symbolic gesture indicating his desire to let the clock run down. Thus the game is over.
That explains the man on his knee in the middle of field while everyone was celebrating, Brian. Still an odd way to play a game.
I'm flogging the obvious here, I know, but here is where the genius of baseball resides. There's no runnning out the clock, and some of the greatest baseball memories come from a team's inability to get that last out.
Yes, you play your nine innings until you're done with baseball, Al. No throwing in the towel because you can't win.
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