- No, this discussion concerns how qb's can help their defense by not putting them in bad spots.
As a rebuttal, in attempt to minimize the importance of risk assessment, Ragnar stated that the "primary purpose of the offense is to score points."
He has also doubled down by stating the "job of the offense is to score, unequivocally."
I'm pretty sure he's not even conceding running out the clock situations. There are people that will tell you, that even in that situation, nothing better than a TD could possibly occur.
For one thing, that is incorrect. Scoring a TD will give the ball back to the opponent. And if the opponent in turn, scores a TD+2, the original offense comes out behind on that exchange, and worse off than if the opponent had never touched the ball. Same dynamic if the opponent in turn, scores a TD and recovers an onside kick.
But mainly, those who believe this, don't understand that to strive for maximum offensive production, carries a level of risk, that at some point just isn't worth it, when you're playing against the clock. That's why at the extreme end of this dynamic, teams literally take a knee to close the game.
- I clearly said, "the primary purpose of the offense is not to put points on the board, BUT RATHER, to do whatever it takes to help the team win the game."
And you clearly left that 2nd part (the point) out. People can read.
And if you're going to try to play semantics, you should be reminded that in addition to "primary purpose", the "job" of the offense has also been taken into question in this thread.
- Whether you want to call it the job of the offense, or the priority, or the assignment, or the strategy, or the approach, or even when talking "primary purpose", the most accurate and all-encompassing way to describe it is, "to help give the team its best chance to win."
There does come a point in games when it's time to prioritize playing vs the clock.
The most extreme downing of the ball is at the end of a sliding scale of risk tolerance, that can correspond with a sliding scale of priority to clock.
For programs like Iowa, that have strong running games and defenses that can be weapons, those sliding scales can extend to the majority the 4th quarter.
Similarly, the entire game requires risk assessment. When is potentially giving up field position not worth the risk? When is potentially giving up momentum not worth the risk? Every offensive drive comes with TL, KF, and PP taking the defense into consideration. They manage all the spots in which scoring is not the priority, that you have called, "situational".
But if not prioritizing scoring seems too situational for you, let me tell you what is fundamental. Punting. How "primary" can scoring be to offense, when the majority of offensive possessions end up with an offensive down literally being forfeited, for the sake of the defense?
This literal forfeiture of the ability to even try for offensive production, is so fundamental to the game, that it's part of how a sport that rarely sees the ball touch a foot, got named "football"
