papz

Though this is rare, I definately agree with what Euph just said. I thought it was way more insulting kneeling with that amount of time left.

LongTimeFan

3 for 3....

I'm with Euph and papz, this was an insult to Parcells, it showed that the student out coached the ole' ball coach, the teacher.
Either way though, Payton made the Cowboys look silly, the Cowboys were embarrassed in front of a national tv audience.

Fleured

If I was Payton it would've been a smite to all the Dallas Wagoneers who found out Romo's squad is human. I would hope that Sean wouldn't need to salt Parcells's wounds such as it is..

Tobias-Reiper

No it wasn't an insult to Parcells.

I'm sure Parcells considers more of an insult how his team played most of the game, not the Saints kneeling down when the game was decided.

As I said before, this "respect" and "disrespect" thing is a fairly new societal ideology phenomenon.

By the way, saying "it's all about the W and only the W" is not entirely correct: when considering playoff qualification, points scored is one of the NFL tie breakers, lest we forget the Panthers trying to score 45 points against the Saints the last game Ditka coached so they could break a tie and go to the playoffs that year.

'Cause the simple man pays the thrills, the bills and the pills that kill

FatiusJeebs

Hey I actually remember that. Man was I pissed!

aussiesaint

Thanks for the explanation guys.

Have to understand that American Football, while it has been televised for decades in Australia, is still a fairly foreign concept to many of us whose football (Australian Rules where I am in Melbourne) is so vastly different that the only thing in common is that we play it with an oval shaped ball.

As i said the basics of American Football is fairly easy to understand, such as the downs, and scoring of TD's,FG's, and safetys, however the intricacies and traditions aren't really known hence the question.

I suppose the most logical explanation is the W/L scenerio. In our game for example we have a national competition of 16 teams attempting to get into a month of finals (playoffs) in September of every year (remember, our winter is your summer). This is achieved by getting four competition points for each win over 22 games. Positions are decided on points scored for and points scored against in those games. Whoever has the better record has the better positionin the top 8 and the playoffs and a better chance tyo get to the Grand Final (our Superbowl if you will).
This is the reason a team will want to win by as much as possible. In NFL a win is a win and it doesn't matter as much.

Anyway for a bit of trivia. In 108 years of being in the competition my team St.Kilda (or simply the Saints) have won one championship in 1966. Co-incidentally New Orleans and Atlanta entered the NFL that year, with NO taking our nicname of the Saints and the Falcons taking our colours (red white and black). We like to kid ourselves that we had some influence

I'll be around a bit, but wont post too many dumb questions.

Thanks Guys.

SaintFanInATLHELL

Aussiesaint,

Nothing dumb about your questions. Bring them on.

Thanks for the insight into AR football.

As pointed out earlier in the thread "A win is a win" isn't technically true. Points scored is a tiebreaker. But it's like 7th on the list. Items such as division/conference record, record against common opponents, strength of schedule and victory (I still don't know exaclt what they mean), and other tiebreakers come into effect before looking at points.

I found "strength of victory" here:

http://football.about.com/cs/footbal...rengthofvi.htm

Note that all of the lower level tiebreakers (about 4 of them) are related to points.

So you may be right AS, maybe one should in fact step on the neck of an opponent, because you never know down the line if points will matter.

SFIAH

Super Bowl Championships: New Orleans Saints:1, Carolina:0, Atlanta Chokers: STILL ZERO

Only Atlanta choked in an unchokable situation... Life is definitely good.

hagan714

Simple
We have beat you and you are done with you. we have no need to compete. You are the losser and are no longer any competion. We just ran the ball and pounded you into submission and there was nothing you could do about it.
When the opposing team does it is a saying We give up.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLosser
I do not bye into the respect portion as much. The points would have been of no concern. It is more like in boxing to ask the corner to throw in the white towel to end the match before their boxer gets killed.
It is a way to keep silly injuries down also
As for the Tie breaker bit. The saints are in complete control of that angle. Seattle is the only team of concern there and we are way out in front of them there. If we catch the bears by some mircle we are in control there too. Just by streangth of schedual only. that comes before the points bit

SaintsFan81

The simple fact this guy is in Australia and we have fans there kicks so much @$$. I served with some of your countrymen in Iraq Aussiesaint its way cool to have you on the board man.

AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE

kuke

Another way to look at it as a revenge factor is how it takes the ball out of the other teams hand when they most desperately want to score or get back at us for one last parting shot (like getting the last word in on an argument you get crushed in). If we were to go in and score, then they would have gotten the ball back and been able to have had some sense of hope at the end, or ability to end it on a high note. The thing that killed about the onside kick was that they were just desperate to have the ball back, the mere opportunity to answer back is seen as a right in this game, no matter how much you sucked on defense, your offense gets a chance to answer back. And when that is taken away from you, it feels like a violation. At least when another team is running up the score on you, you continually get a chance to answer back each time they score. That is what makes it so frustrating when they take a knee. To have no hope when the clock is still ticking just seems wrong.

Wrong, but fun!