[Swarm-modeling] american football vs other handball sports

[glen ep ropellaa]

So a friend of mine made the statement that American football is "the most 
poetic sport". I objected strongly because my sense is that it's too explosive, 
not only in the individual players, but in the plays ... too discretized ... 
"punctuated". 

I think his argument is that because players are so specialized (defense, 
offense, qb, kicker, backs, etc.), game strategy is more orchestrated than 
sports like rugby where individuals are more general. But he made the argument 
by talking about the athletic prowess. And because players are specialized, my 
sense is they *should* be able to set records and do any small set of things 
better than anyone else on the planet. The olympics are similar. We wouldn't 
expect a shot putter to be good at the balance beam. This raises the old 
problem of where the "logic" lies, in the individual or the collective, and 
orchestration by a composer/conductor/coach or via some sort of emergent 
structure. Which is the better *team athlete*? The one who tightly specializes 
and knows her place? Or the one who smears her capabilities across a large 
repertoire of tasks?

A brief duckduckgo search shows some hints that research on tactic complexity 
and such happens in these sports. But, so far, it seems to lack the research 
bloom we see in games like chess, go, or poker. Rather than argue in this 
qualitative way, I'd like to discover some quantitative results, if they're out 
there. There's bound to be such things, especially with all the simulations we 
build for various video games.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

-- 
glen ep ropella 971-599-3737