Both Wade and Zero are deliberately missing the point for philosophical reasons. It's irritating.
So what if you "shouldn't" let the opposing team score? If it materially increases your chances of winning the game, that is the correct move. It's analogous to a strategic retreat in warfare -- or perhaps even closer to a "demasking procedure" following a gas attack, in which you force one of your soldiers to take off his mask to determine whether or not chemical agents are still in the area. It's very possible you will kill one of your own men to ensure the safety of the rest, but if your unit is thereby able to continue the mission, you consider it a justifiable loss.
Yes, letting the Bears score would have put the Packers down by 7 instead of by 3, but it would have dramatically increased their probability of tying the game. This is indisputable. I can't believe we're still arguing about this.
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:
Sigh. I'm not missing the point.
But I suppose I am making a philosophical point. All good points have a philosophical basis, after all. :)
The analogy to war is not on point. War is a different game. In war you die. In football you just go home with fewer points.
If I were in charge of a war -- and let us all thank God that *that* will never happen -- playing probabilities actually makes a lot of sense to me. Losing in war is too damn expensive to not play every card you can. And, in fact, apart from some bits about "crimes against humanity" and such, I wouldn't much care what people said were the rules for conduct. Because war is a nasty thing that should be pursued only if the enemy needs to be destroyed. (For situations short of this, we have nonfatal methods of scumsucking politics, to paraphrase Clausewitz.)
But when it comes to football, the objectives aren't destruction of the enemy. The objectives are striving to show you are the better team at beating up on the other side.
Football is not a "war" game. Chess is a war game.
Both are fun. I enjoy playing both. But IMO they are games different in kind.
Football is both more civilized and more barbaric. It is more civilized in that it keeps the exertion of violence limited via various rules of "fair play". But in a way it is also more barbaric, because it remains a game that is not just about "winning" but about "beating the other guy."
War can be played probabilistically (so long as you understand the rest of it better than, say, McNamara's band of idiots or your average Obamoid). War, being even more barbaric than football, can be played whatever way works to destroy the enemy and take ownership over the board.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)