The American professional football season begins today. I hate the NFL, both the institution and the sport it pushes. My distaste for the NFL is best expressed in bullet points:
- To start, the word football utterly fails to describe the sport being played. Even recognizing the increased role the foot played in early football, this is a stupid name. And of course, the rest of the world uses football to describe the most popular sport in the world. The Aussies recognize this, and their version of football (played with a lot more foot) is universally known as Australian Rules Football. Americans insist on confusing the world resulting in awkwardly constructed sentences like 'American football, as opposed to football, or soccer as it is known in the U.S.'
- It takes attention away from baseball, at the very moment the baseball season gains intrigue. A ravenous baseball fan, I have ignored the dull roar of pretend football games and "news," but sports coverage is now saturated with football coverage. Without any data (games), the coverage is the worst kind of sports journalism: speculative. This relates to a point below, but the excess of pre-game, post-game and mid-week analysis seems unique to football. The constant droning of catch phrases from semi-intelligent "analysts" may be the lowest form of television. I am constantly amazed at the sports television industry's ability to find people who perpetually speak as though the current topic is the most exciting and important thing in the history of the universe. Speaking of which:
- Chris Berman
- The culture promoted by the NFL is corrosive to a healthy society's values system. Violence is at the core of the game, brutality is rewarded. More than in any other major sport, the goal is not simply to defeat your opponent, but to dominate them. Behavior toward this end is glorified, and emulated endlessly by fans of all ages. Surrounding the games themselves is a dazzling panoply of images promoting women as sex objects, lite beer as life-improver, and fanaticism as reasonable behavior.
My objections extend beyond typical braying about the coarsening of our culture. For the next five months sports coverage, and a fair bit of news coverage will be dominated by a sport that offers visceral thrill on par with the Christians and the lions at the coliseum, and little else. That this sport plays such a central role in our national experience and is so embraced by so many demonstrates our savagery as a country.
- My moralistic objections aside, sport itself makes no sense. The objectives are varied and convoluted. In basketball, you score by putting the ball through the hoop. In baseball, you score a run every time a player touches home plate. While there are many ways to achieve these objectives, there is only one objective. Let's review the ways to score in football:
- "Extra Point" - Kick the ball (held stationary by a teammate, rather than dropkicking) through uprights on the play immediately following a touchdown: 1 point
- "Safety" - Force an opposing player to the ground in their end zone while they are in possession of the ball: 2 points
- "Two point conversion" - Carry the ball into the end zone on the play immediately following a touchdown: 2 points
- "Field goal" - Kick the ball through the uprights in any situation other than immediately following a touchdown (see below): 3 points
- "Touchdown" - Carry the ball into the end zone in any situation other than immediately following a touchdown: 6 points
Some might call this nuance. I call it moronic. What basis is there for assigning the different point values to each act? A "safety" is far more difficult to achieve (or is occurs less often) than a touchdown. Why is it only worth 1/3 the points? Why is kicking, a very different skill (evidenced by the physiques of kickers compared to other football players), even an element of the game? After 300 pound men spend an hour pushing each other around in brutal and disgusting ways, the victor is determined by whether a 150 pound guy can kick a ball straight and far? Seriously?
- Ignoring the quality of the officiating, sometimes a very difficult thing to do, the enforcement of the rulebook completely disrupts the rhythm of a game. Is there any other sport where there are unplanned breaks in the action of ten minutes? A play happens. There is or isn't a penalty called. Officials huddle. A coach throws a diaper on the field and the officials spend the next five minutes watching television. A conclusion is reached. It is announced. The ball is placed on the field and the teams are encouraged to line up and resume play.
Then the officials realize the ball may not have been placed precisely enough. More television watching ensued. I've begun searching my room for things with which to stab myself in the scrotum. Eventually I just pass out/have an aneurism. When play resumes, the end result is nothing happened. Time is put back on the clock. The ball has not moved. How football players navigate such a universe without existential crises astounds me.
- Too often arbitrary events determine the outcome. The placement of the ball on the field can have dramatic ramifications on the outcome. One inch in either direction may determine the victor. But the idea that an official can accurately place a ball currently resting under 1,500 pounds of flesh is laughable. Even instant replay does little to resolve this problem, creating myriad problems of its own.
It is cliché that a holding penalty could be called on every play. But cliché for its truth. There are dozens of situations in a game where a penalty called or not called impact the outcome. While I believe referees to be impartial, their judgment too much determines victory.
I keep harping on the way in which the victor is determined in football. Why? Because that's the point of sport. If the outcome is largely arbitrary and we just want something violent then aren't we're better off watchingBumfights and admitting to our barbarousness?