Mentality In American Football

In American football the win at all cost mentality permeates the game, this mentality becomes ever increasing the higher the level of the league. In consequence, tricks, distractions and bending the rules are commonplace in order to gain any advantage possible over the opponent, especially evident at the professional level. For example, very commonly a quarterback will employ the use of a dummy snap count in an attempt to draw the opposing defense offside and incur a five yard penalty. In another example, a defense may try to substitute new players into the game, while the offense will often purposely run their play faster so as to not allow the defense time to be set or ready for that play before the new players are in the game. When the
use of headsets to relay play calls from the coaches on the sideline to the quarterback on the field was first introduced in professional football, it was not uncommon for the road team’s headsets to “mysteriously” stop working when the road team had the ball. Most people involved in the game of football, as players, coaches or fans would say these examples are all acceptable, commonplace, and even part of sound football strategy, which further demonstrates the win at all cost mentality of the game and disregard for fair play.