American Football, Malaysian style

In the US, American Football is extremely popular. To the rest of the world, football is known as the sport which people play with a round ball. This is what the American football looks like:


Quite different eh? But those who play rugby might understand as there are some similarities. So, the objective of the game is for one team to move the ball to the other end of the field, thus scoring points. The catch is they only have a limited amount of opportunities to do so. Anyhow, the game is usually played wearing a lot of protective gear such as the one this guy is wearing:

Yes, that is David Beckham in American Football gear, only thing missing is the helmet...heheh. Anyhow, the two ways to advance the football, is to throw it or to run it down. When a team decides to run it down, the runner, known as a running back stays in the back and is given the ball and tries to advance while the other team tries to stop him.

The chances of the other team successfully doing that is quite high as the opposing team has eleven defenders all gunning for the running back. So, how does the running back overcome such odds? One of the most common ways is to follow behind some of his teamates who are in front of him . This is called follow the blocker. The running back's teammates are helping to clear a path for him.

A lot of people here seem to have this concept down pretty well but most have never heard of the game. Where have we seen this follow the blocker concept in Malaysia?

I bet almost everyone has seen this at least once in the last month, unless they never go out. Who is the blocker in this case?

And the running back?

For some reason, quite a few people here, especially drivers, like to play the follow the blocker game with the ambulances a lot. That concept is one of the most basic in American Football. I have a feeling the sport will take off here if there were some marketing muscle behind it. I see a lot of people having fun following the blocker on the road very often.