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NFL Offseason Thread: 2018 NFL Draft

DeaconSig said:
My 9-year old wondered aloud during the game whether Wolford taught Foles the RPO.
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That is a perfect nine-year-old question to ask. Your nine-year-old is awesome.

On a related note, anybody notice how the announcers this year couldn’t seem to say RPO without explaining “run pass option,” or couldn’t say “run pass option” without also saying RPO? Like they felt they needed to educate the viewing public every single time.
 
One thing about the Eagles run/pass option with Foles is that the running back did the running and Foles did the passing. Didn't see much of Foles taking off and running.
 
DeacDaddy said:
That is a perfect nine-year-old question to ask. Your nine-year-old is awesome.

On a related note, anybody notice how the announcers this year couldn’t seem to say RPO without explaining “run pass option,” or couldn’t say “run pass option” without also saying RPO? Like they felt they needed to educate the viewing public every single time.
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Because it’s the one game with a lot of viewers who don’t regularly follow football.
 
NFL Offseason Thread: Jimmy G got PAID

Because televised sports cater to the least knowledgeable fans in order to bring in and keep an audience.

The RPO is relatively new to the NFL particularly to any fans of teams that don’t regularly use it. I don’t remember hearing much about it at all before this past season. So they’re introducing a new concept and a new term to the audience.

Edit: This article from August confirms what I was saying. It introduced the RPO as the hot new play for the 2017 season. There were only 5 RPOs per game in 2016.
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/...s-option-rpo-aaron-rodgers-ben-roethlisberger
 
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If they use the phrase RPO at the beginning of the game, and explain what it means, that's one thing. But they explained it every time without fail. "He's once again utilized the RPO - the Run Pass Option - for yet another third quarter first down." Or even better, the opposite, "He's once again utilized the Run Pass Option - the RPO..." Not needed. Just a case of analysts enjoy hearing themselves elucidate football vernacular unnecessarily.

I doubt my wife or many casual fans/sports novices could tell you what an RBI or an ERA are. But the announcers are not repeatedly saying, "That's his third RBI - Run Batted In - in the last three innings..."
 
NFL Offseason Thread: Jimmy G got PAID

Because those terms have been around for well over 100 years.

RPO is new.
 
No it isn't, I'm pretty sure Cam ran it on every single play at Auburn, because it looked like he was running the same play every time. It just didn't have a fancy hashtag. It is just another annoying announcing term du jour like "doublemove" (oh you're right Troy he hit him with a doublemove! holy shit nobody has ever seen that before and there was no way the CB should have expected it because he apparently never played backyard football!), "in this league" (what other league are we watching right now? what other league is there? the NBA?), "trail technique" (uhhh, he got beat?), and "efficient" (the word that has singlehandedly ruined all sports broadcasting) that all make me turn the sound off.
 
NFL Offseason Thread: Jimmy G got PAID

2&2, it’s new in the NFL, not in college.

I agree that it seems RPO is used to describe play action sometimes.
 
PhDeac said:
Because those terms have been around for well over 100 years.

RPO is new.
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Your argument is that they feel the need to explain it to novices. I'm saying novices to sports don't know what ERA means either, but that doesn't mean it gets explained every time. An unknown abbreviation is an unknown abbreviation to a novice, regardless of how old it is.
 
PhDeac said:
Because televised sports cater to the least knowledgeable fans in order to bring in and keep an audience.

The RPO is relatively new to the NFL particularly to any fans of teams that don’t regularly use it. I don’t remember hearing much about it at all before this past season. So they’re introducing a new concept and a new term to the audience.

Edit: This article from August confirms what I was saying. It introduced the RPO as the hot new play for the 2017 season. There were only 5 RPOs per game in 2016.
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/...s-option-rpo-aaron-rodgers-ben-roethlisberger
Click to expand...

This was my argument.
 
DeacDaddy said:
If they use the phrase RPO at the beginning of the game, and explain what it means, that's one thing. But they explained it every time without fail. "He's once again utilized the RPO - the Run Pass Option - for yet another third quarter first down." Or even better, the opposite, "He's once again utilized the Run Pass Option - the RPO..." Not needed. Just a case of analysts enjoy hearing themselves elucidate football vernacular unnecessarily.

I doubt my wife or many casual fans/sports novices could tell you what an RBI or an ERA are. But the announcers are not repeatedly saying, "That's his third RBI - Run Batted In - in the last three innings..."
Click to expand...

This was mine.

Novice football fans don't care what this new play is called. They aren't drawn in because they now know what RPO means. Novice fans are novice for a reason. By definition, they aren't interested, and the only thing that keeps them interested when they start watching a game is either that it's a competitive game, or there's a story about a player that intrigues them, or the team matters to someone they know, like their spouse.

So even if that was the NFL's attempt - "Announcers, please make a point to spell out what RPO means every time" - I think it would be misguided. Tell stories about the players or make sure there are competitive games. Don't explain RPO. If you're the type of fan to be interested in the mechanics of the playcalling, you already know what RPO means, and you aren't a novice.
 
And as I explained, RPO is relatively new in the NFL. So even regular fans need it explained to them, especially if their team doesn't use it that often.
 
You said it was for the least knowledgeable fans, not the regular fans.
 
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