Hussar
Legend
This actually illustrates both sides of the issue rather well.
One side: The touchdowns emerged out of the positioning of the players, and the incremental actions that cause the event to be described as such a great touch down after the fact. The touchdowns emerge from the choices, skill and relative positions of the athletes involved. They don't do this every game because they can only do it when the situation allows for it and it is very rare.
Other side: The touchdowns occured because they were dramatically and competitively appropriate. The quarterback used his "once a career" ability which caused everything to come together in perfect alignment to make them happen. They don't do this every game because they expended their "once a career" ability and thus everything will not come together to allow it to happen again because that would be hogging the spotlight, repetitive, and not fair.
When playing D&D I used to prefer justifying things for dramatic and game purposes, now I like emergent play. Now I get my drama focused fun from games like In A Wicked Age or Strands of Fate and want a traditional emergent exploration-description experience from my D&D (or whatever fills the space D&D used to occupy).
Yeah, I can buy that arguement. Nothing wrong with emergent play. The only issue I might have is fiddling with the odds so that something emerges fairly often (and that fairly will vary from table to table). That "Really Great Thing" that only happens once in a campaign and never again, is bloody fantastic when it happens, but, how much time do we spend doing "Moderately Fun Things" waiting for it to line up and happen?
I never, ever want to go back to the whole 40 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours thing.