Vertical game

[James A. Landau]

I don't recall ever having heard the phrase "vertical game" (meaning long
passes in American football) before this year's NFL season, when the commentators
on the Philadelphia Eagles seemed to use it in every game.  However, I found
what purports to be a 1999 Web site
URL http://www.badgermaniac.com/99footballpreview.html
which contains "If a quarterback emerges who can do anything to give the
Badgers a vertical game in the three important conference matchups, the Badgers
could shock the nation and go to the Sugar Bowl or at least return to the Rose
Bowl."

Interestingly, "vertical game" also appears in "real" football:
URL http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3129330.stm
"Football has gained considerable popularity in Japan, but even after last
year's World Cup finals, it's a fair bet that local fans were not prepared for
the vertical game.
But in Osaka, 12 storeys above the ground, football is defying gravity.
<snip>
The players are attached to rubber cords of the kind usually used by bungy
jumpers, and so is the ball.
The players already had a head for heights - one of the pair, 43-year-old
Hisanori Kizu, cleans windows on Osaka skyscrapers.

"I've bungy-jumped a few times so this doesn't bother me at all and it's
actually a lot of fun," he said.

Adidas hope the campaign will build on momentum created by the 2002 World
Cup, jointly-hosted by Japan and South Korea.

The players hope to take the vertical game to another country where football
is still a newcomer - the United States."

          - ("vertically" challenged) James A.  Landau