For instance, in American football, if the losing team is behind by several touchdowns, the offense may resort entirely to the passing game in a futile effort to catch up.
Complementing this strategy, teams sit their first-string players during garbage time to give them more rest and avoid further injuries for future games.
[citation needed] Particularly at the youth level, garbage time is eliminated by the use of a mercy rule, which automatically ends a game when the margin of victory has reached a point that is presumably insurmountable.
Most (although not all) elite competitions now employ tiebreakers that de-emphasize or even outright ignore the importance of statistics such as goal difference for which there would be an obvious incentive to "run up the score.
[5] Technically, the term does not exist in fighting sports such as boxing and martial arts since in those, an opponent who is down by a large amount with seconds to go, can still win the contest by scoring a knockout.
[6] It refers to a period when social development goes against natural rules, individuals are powerless to change, and the entire era is bound to fail.