ok, Ill ask the Jury..

[Justme]

Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

WMB:

Where did you learn your mathematics: "...ties only exist at infinity." Because that makes no sense whatsoever. If two events happen at the same time, that is a tie.

MTD, Sr.

Actually it does make sense..... The play only appears to be a tie when viewed by the human eye. But since that's the only method available to us on the field to measure the timing of the play it's called a tie. Other methods of measuring the timing of the event would show that it was indeed not a tie. In other words if you had a device that could view the action in, as the OP states, nanoseconds you would have a different view (timing measurement) of the play and I'd be willing to bet the farm that the play would not be a tie.

[Dakota]

A true tie (assuming infinite measurement accuracy, which is perhaps what WMB was talking about) would be exceedingly rare.

But, it really doesn't matter, since when the fans or coaches say "the tie goes to the runner" what they really mean is all close plays should be given to "our" runner. They don't really mean a literal tie - they just mean too close for THEM to see a clear out, and since they are on the offensive side, that doesn't have to be very close at all.