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I Evolved: Why I Cannot Watch the NFL
by viking64@home.com

I just can't watch NFL football anymore. Don't get me wrong, I used to love NFL football, but the game of gridiron is gone forever, and I just can't watch what has replaced it anymore. I have evolved to soccer.

The level of play in the NFL is so bad, it would be difficult to describe it. The quarterbacks break like glass figurines in an antique store, and receivers are totally inept, dropping balls like their hands were covered with gloves. Most of the running backs are not the running backs of lore, that took a hit and made you pay. The rare talent that is there, is drowned in a sea of incompetent blocking. You can count on seeing a good run from scrimmage called back, because inevitably the play was made possible by a holding penalty, committed by a lineman weighing just over the legal limit for tractor-trailers on Interstate freeways.

Defense in the NFL is about as valued as defense in the NBA.  A proficient offense that scores three times in a game is doomed to failure because the defense couldn't hold water with a cup. This is primarily the fault of rule changes designed to pull in more fans that never understood the game as it used to be played. The NFL might make more money, but it's ruined gridiron. What defined gridiron has truly disappeared from the game: the art of being a lineman.  Back in the days of true gridiron football, offensive lineman had to use their shoulders, their heads, quick feet, and their hearts to block. They could not extend their arms and open their palms, attaching themselves to oncoming defensive lineman. This was the heart and soul of the game of gridiron, because it was the supreme test of smarts and quickness over strength and weight. Offensive lineman of olden days were clever, ruthless, and supremely skilled in making contact, using leverage and drive to force holes in a wall of bodies, freeing the likes of Gayle Sayers, Jim Brown, Paul Horning, and the other greats of gridiron glory. Even Walter Payton, perhaps the greatest of all, had to begin his career with lineman that were not allowed to hold on every play. And they did it play after play after play, interrupted by the end of the quarters. A team without a line was a team that could not win games. Today, teams throw passes on first down and run when they want to rest. How pathetic.

Anyone who played football under the old rules knows full well that blocking with your arms extended and your palms open is holding. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a poser.

This, and the other bogus rules of modern pointyball, are the product of greed. In the days when I watched real gridiron, the quarterback that was chased from the pocket was a carcass on legs, desperate to get to the sideline or heave the ball in the direction of an eligible receiver, of which there were usually three. Middle linebackers, defensive ends, and  tackles would wet their uniforms with drool at the prospect of a filet de quarterback. The greatest photo stills and highlight films used to be quarterbacks facing death in the form of a flying Jack Ham, Alan Page, or Dick Butkus, standing tall in the pocket, nailing a post pattern an instant before everything went black.  Today, the quarterback cum-prom queen takes two steps to the right or left, throws it anywhere, and "the Steve Young" rule mysteriously applies.   Give me a break ! Do you think Terry Bradshaw, Fran Tarkenton, Ken Stabler, Johnny U, or Y.A. Tittle would have chosen that?  I've given up on NFL football because it's become a joke, a characture of its past greatness. Defensive lineman are only allowed to push over or hug the quarterback. How can you play gridiron and not be allowed to maul the quarterback? The essence of football is tackling the other players to prevent them from scoring.  Don't get me started on the "defensive specialists" that play one or two downs per series. They burn more calories entering and leaving the game than actually playing.

For me, the game has lost purpose because the lie behind the modern game is that the new rules make scoring more likely than not scoring. Scoring against long odds would be one thing, but today's NFL closely resembles The Arena Football League, much more closely than it resembles the NFL of 1970. An expert on Arena football told me that to win, you have to score every possession. He used the terminology "don't let them break your service," like in tennis. How quaint.

Just a few years ago, the Green Bay Packers (God, have we so lost our souls!) admitted that they allowed the other team to score a touchdown on a goal-line stand, rather than resist, because they liked their chances better to score a touchdown than stop the offense. What do you suppose Ray Nitchke thought of that?  This isn't gridiron football, it's a joke.  And this slide to Arena football is not an accident. That's what Miller and Budweiser, and SportsCenter want you to watch 26 weeks out of the year, because that makes them rich.

I will concede that gridiron is still played at the high school level. High school football is mostly unchanged since gridiron was invented, and your typical high school player demonstrates greater professional demeanor, decorum, and composure than the millionaires with the maturity of eight-year olds. They aren't as fast or as flashy, but a number of them know how to block. And unlike the pros, they don't spike the ball. How can a pro who scores a touchdown weekly have the urge to spike the ball after two or three years? Because it's a show. It's not about the accomplishment, it's the show.

I had the misfortune to be in front of a TV during two recent NFL football games. Dreadful affairs these two, the game is a mere shadow of what it once was. My once beloved team had a pathetic defense that could not have stopped a stiff wind or their own piss. Massive offensive lineman would fling their arms at their blocks, trying desperately to hold themselves upright on the charging lineman. Time and again the opposition carved up the field and scored. This was matched by the offense of the good guys, who responded on cue providing good video spacers for the main event: commercials. You can't watch an NFL football game ten consecutive minutes without a commercial break.  How can anyone say they are watching a football game, when over half the time they are seated in front of the box, they aren't watching one? Games have been won and lost because commercial interruptions have ruined the flow of the game. It says a lot when a commercial is more important than the integrity of the game, people !

Do you know why a quarterback that spikes the ball to stop the clock is not called for intentional grounding? Because it makes the game longer, and there is more opportunity to run more commercials. Want to know why so many fat guys are on TV during NFL games? So guys that spend their time slugging beer all day in front of an NFL game don't get up and try to exercise.  Is it any wonder that the Superbowl is now more popular for it's commercials than it's football? For 26 weeks out of the year you are treated to an overpowering barrage of commercials that rival the "product" you have been lured in to watch. Is it any wonder that some of the ads are more entertaining than the NFL football. Then in the final week of the season, you all wait for the next big commercial to come between clips of a game of impotence. Good thing
the Viagra ads come often.

I said "you" in the previous paragraphs, because I have gone to support soccer.  I have gone in deeply, becoming a money-spending, soccer-loving, soccer fanatic. I have spent several times the money supporting soccer in seven years than I ever spent supporting gridiron. And I get more value for my money than I could ever get at a (sigh) football game.

Having been nurtured and raised on true gridiron, I have no other choice but to support a sport that is fast paced, relies on speed, wit, guile, grace, and guts, but has not become a commercial attraction who's sole purposes is to sell liquid bread. Yes, world soccer is awash in money today, but it won't last, and the rules of the game will remain largely unchanged. Even if the evil money changers manage to interrupt the game for an ad or two, the simplicity of the sport of soccer protects itself from the ridiculous. You cannot bastardize soccer, as has befallen the once mighty gridiron football. I pray I never have endure posers showing up at the soccer field expecting to watch a bastardized version of a once great game.

See you at the soccer grounds.