Are you sure the blocking stuff has no numerical solution or reasonable analysis?
I would not be surprised if the "how to block" mini-game could be productively analyzed in a game theoretic fashion in terms of a few discrete tactics and empirical success probabilities given the tactics choices. From that data, you can compute equilibrium mixed strategies for both the offensive and defensive positions. This was kind of analysis was by economists for the determining equilibrium strategies for making/defending penalty kicks.
http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/mike.shor/courses/game-theor...
Of course, the blocking in American football situation is much harder to analyze/collect data for, because it's not just a 1 on 1 successfully blocked or not, but rather the outcome of the play that matters.
Given a discrete list of tactics and enough data, it's of course possible to generate a best strategy for any particular situation numerically. So yes, if your question is "should I pull block or chip block here?" and you are willing to throw out all the information specific to the situation not found in the data (e.g. the fact that the left tackle's ankle is a bit sore today), then you can do it.
But the point is that detailed blocking foot work is not adequately captured by such a framework (unless you're going to do detailed numerical simulations of every part of everyone's body). There is no concise way to explain exactly why chop blocks work well in certain situations, and why a hypothetical block which seems mechanically similar is completely useless in the same situation. Human bodies are complicated, and the answer is usually just "empirically, that's how it works out".
I would not be surprised if the "how to block" mini-game could be productively analyzed in a game theoretic fashion in terms of a few discrete tactics and empirical success probabilities given the tactics choices. From that data, you can compute equilibrium mixed strategies for both the offensive and defensive positions. This was kind of analysis was by economists for the determining equilibrium strategies for making/defending penalty kicks. http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/mike.shor/courses/game-theor...
Of course, the blocking in American football situation is much harder to analyze/collect data for, because it's not just a 1 on 1 successfully blocked or not, but rather the outcome of the play that matters.