Football sucks

Please note: this article is not intended to change your mind about how YOU feel about football, it is merely to explain how I feel about football.

If you’re a football fan, you’re not alone. Average game attendance is over 67,000. Also, 63% of Americans claim to be a fan of pro football. I’m left within the minority. But ONLY within the United States. As its name suggests, American Football is only popular in the United States. There’s plenty of spoofs on the internet making fun of the very fact that it’s CALLED football. To everyone else in the world, it’s a soft form of Rugby. What really amazes me, however, is how many times someone has asked me, "Did you see that game, last night?" And I responded with, "What game?" Eventually, we get around to the fact that I don’t watch football. I always get looks of complete surprise and puzzlement. It really does seem unbelievable so some people. There’s a perfectly sound and reasonable explanation for why I don’t watch football. Here it is.

Part I - Football is boring. I’ll prove it.
Reason number one: Down time.
The average NFL game takes from 2-3 hours to play from beginning to end. Each quarter is 15 minutes long, times four quarters = 1 hour. So, if the game only takes an hour to actually play, this leaves us with 1-2 hours of complete and total down time. Time to watch guys walk around the field, watch commercials, watch the announcers talk about what just happened, etc.

Reason number two: More down time.
Even while the clock is ticking, time is spent lining up, walking around, setting up, walking around, and more walking around. I just read where the typical NFL game runs approximately 120 plays, each play taking a maximum of six seconds. That’s 720 seconds 720/60 = 12 minutes. So, that means that of the full 60 minutes that the players are supposed to be Doing Something, we have a total of approximately 12 minutes of ball-moving-around. These 12 minutes are spread in 6-second intervals (plays) throughout . . . 2-3 hours!

Reason number three: Redundancy
"Let’s see that again!" It’s a great testament to how much down time there is during a professional football game when the network can show you what you just saw, slowed down to Ultra Slow Motion so catch every nuance of the play that just happened and we all saw. Then we go back to the field where the players are . . . walking around. Next up, we have the guys lining up . . . again. There’s the snap, and the same shit that JUST happened happens again. The pass falls short, the quarterback gets sacked, etc. VERY rarely does anything surprising ever happen. Or even unexpected, for that matter. You can watch a play from 1974 and it looks JUST like the game that happened today. Hey, what about picking up the quarterback and THROWING him over the defensive line? That’d be unexpected, right? Or, how about hiding the ball under your shirt? How about passing it more than once during a play? Anything to break up the monotony of line up, run and/or pass, walk around, repeat.

Part II: Who cares?
Reason for being a fan: It’s my hometown team!
I fail to understand loyalty to a geographic area in any case, but these guys aren’t even from your geographic area. Go to "Your" team’s website, click on the team roster. Now scroll down the list of names and see what colleges they came from. They are not from your home town, many of them are very far from home. They have no loyalty to "your" home team, and any one of these guys could be playing for someone else’s hometown next year. You might be from Pittsburgh, but the Steelers are not. You might be from Baltimore, but the Ravens are not. Add in the fact that an entire team can pack up and leave town (Looking at you, Colts), and you can see where this ‘hometown loyalty’ is strictly a one-way street.

Reason for being a fan: If they win, I got bragging rights!
Believe it or not, I’ll go with this one. I mean, if you buy a jersey, a coffee mug, or any "officially licenced" team product, you have actually given money to the team. Let’s break that down. The NFL revenue for 2010 is $7.8 Billion. The average base salary of an NFL player in 2009 was around $990,000. The average NFL player signing bonus salary for all players in 2009 was approximately $1.3 million. I’m sure that $65 you paid for that official replica jersey was JUST what these cats were thinking about when they scored one for YOU, the fans. So, yeah, you just brag away that "your" team won. I mean, after all, you contributed. But that’s it, you know. Whatever money you contributed is your ONLY contribution. So you did not win. We did not win. The team won, and you feel entitled and obligated to brag for them. Of course, if you happen to actually go to the game and cheer, and the players actually care that you’re cheering, then, perhaps, you may have contributed your drop in the bucket to that particular game. Good for you.

Reason for being a fan: I was raised a _(your NFL team here)_ fan!
I’m of two minds about this one. On one hand, I can’t think of a dumber reason to have an opinion about anything that is justified by "that’s how I was raised." You’re basically saying, "I’ve been programmed to be this way, thus, I have no interest in changing that programming." On the other hand, it’s as good a reason as any to be a fan, so have at it.

Part III: it has nothing to do with you.
Any professional sport is not about you. It’s about the teams who are playing. Granted, somewhere along the line somebody figured out that there’s a market in this and that you’ll pay to watch somebody else do something. If it weren’t for fans, people would be playing these games for fun, right? So, the fans, as a whole, are important. However, whether or not it affects you, personally, is totally and completely between your ears. You have to choose to take an interest, then choose to follow the team’s progress, and then become emotionally involved in the outcome of said progress. However, nobody involved in the planning and execution of the game is thinking about you, the viewer. You might be thinking "What’s the difference between this and, say, a movie?" Movies and TV shows are 100% about the viewer. The whole reason Indiana Jones gets into these scraps is to entertain you. Writers write the screenplay with YOU in mind. The director tries to get the most out of the film so that YOU will enjoy it. It was created for you. Football, on the other hand, is reverse-engineered. Guys were playing the game, THEN came the spectators, then came the money. These games will be played whether or not you, as an individual, watch. If you don’t watch, you will not be missed. If you watch a movie, and like it, you’ll recommend it to a friend. So, movie-makers have a vested interest in entertaining you. With football: Can they see the game? Check. We’re good.

Part IV: Jocks suck.
Firstly: NFL players appear to feel empowered and above the law. I can almost understand someone who commits a crime because of ignorance or bad upbringing. But just take a look at this: http://nflcrimes.blogspot.com/
From DUI’s to attempted murder, there’s whole lot of wrong-doing among NFL players. Perhaps it’s just so tough being a celebrity, but I’m having a hard time feeling sorry for them. Considering the fact that there are a total of about 1700 players for the NFL, this certainly seems like a group of people who are above the national average when it comes to crimes-per-capita. ‘Nuff said.

We worship them because they can throw a ball. We pay them huge sums of money because they are big and fast. They get roles on TV and film because people know their names and no other reason. I think it’s sad the way someone can go to eight years of med school, save lives on a regular basis, and get paid less than the Millions a year a professional athlete gets for how well he can throw a ball.

I’m not saying these guys are dumb, they’re college graduates, after all. But that’s not what they’re famous for and that’s not what they’re paid to do. As Bill Cosby said: "Run ball, get Check. Catch ball, get check. Kick ball, get check." Am I jealous? Hell yeah, I’m jealous! If I were 6'6" and a superb physical specimen, perhaps I could get that kinda doe. But, just like me, they had no control over who their genetic donors (parents) were, so why pay them for it?

Part V: I’m an individualist.
I used to get mad when the Mustang Club would put a flyer on my car’s windshield. I owned a mustang. I bought it because it was cool, different, and it made me feel good. If I went to a meeting of the Mustang club, my car would look like everyone else’s. Why would I buy a car that stands out, then go someplace where it wouldn’t? Comparisons would be made for the fastest, the loudest, the best paint job, etc. Why would I want to go to a place where suddenly everybody had their rulers out measuring dicks? No thank you. I’ve often said that if I had a Harley Davidson, the last place you would find me is at a Harley rally. Again, why go where you’re just a face in the crowd?

Yeah, I’m building up to something.

Where’s the fun? Where’s the originality? Why do we have this herd mentality to dress like everyone else and stand shoulder-to-shoulder to simultaneously scream? Worse yet, why do we feel the need to sit still for three hours on a Sunday to yell at a TV set? (Psst! They can’t hear you, you know.) As I’ve already discussed, it has nothing to do with you, so why give up your identity to be lumped in as "just another fan." Maybe I’m just insecure, but I like being different. I’m sure there are things that I’d feel so strongly about that I’d jump at the chance to be with like-minded people, but that sure as hell wouldn’t be a football team.

Part VI: I’m not competitive.
I don’t care about winning or losing. I seriously don’t understand it. Team A plays Team B. Team B loses. What does it mean, really? Nothing. Team A was better that day than Team B. Period. Next time, it might not be that way. So, why chear on a team for a game that matters not-at-all?

Some of the most fun I had as a teenager was when we would go over to the middle school on Wednesday nights to play volleyball. We got the people in charge to change the rules so that me and my pals could all play on the same team. We never won a game. Even to this day, when we play rec volleyball we don’t keep score. It’s about the fun, it’s about the playing, not the winning or the losing. I’ve said it many times: I’d rather play something well and lose than play crappy and win.
　
I think most people agree that it’s the playing of the game that is the exciting part. How do I know? Because football fans watch the game and don’t simply check the scores the next morning INSTEAD of watching the game. But I've also seen people seriously PISSED that their team lost. Why let a thing like that ruin your day?

In conclusion, I don’t hate football, I’ve just never seen the point of liking football. Have I ever watched a game? Yes. I may even have enjoyed it. Again, this little rant was not meant to change your mind about how you feel about it. I couldn’t if I wanted to. So, why type it out at all? Because maybe there’s somebody else out there who feels bombarded and inundated with all of these profile updates that are football-related. Just wanted to let you know that even though you’re the minority, you’re not alone. The whole rest of the world could give a rat's ass.