Sports have both written and unwritten rules, and they exist for a reason. The written rules are generally meant to ensure a fair contest: everyone must either follow them or be subject to forfeiting the game. Playing with a uniformly inflated football is a written rule, and the Patriots broke it. The exact circumstances remain to be determined.
But the unwritten rules provide a way to win the game; they should underpin your strategy and guide your decisions. And a failure to follow the unwritten rules can result in bitter defeat.
But the unwritten rules provide a way to win the game; they should underpin your strategy and guide your decisions. And a failure to follow the unwritten rules can result in bitter defeat. The Seahawks broke an unwritten rule yesterday, and that’s exactly what happened to them.
When you’re on your opponents one-yard line and about to score, an unwritten rule is that you run the ball and don’t subject yourself to a much more risky pass with players flooding the end zone because they have no place else to go. Your receivers can’t get as much distance to free themselves from the clogged area, and while on rare occasions you can violate this unwritten rule, it’s generally not a good idea to do so.
While every single knowledgeable football pro and amateur alike expected the Seahawks to run, especially with such a talented running back as Marshawn Lynch, the geniuses who have gotten the Seattle Seahawks to the Super Bowl somehow didn’t think about this, one of the most obvious decisions of the game. It’s like Bobby Fischer blundering and losing his queen. It just doesn’t happen. But it did. And the Seahawks lost because of it.