Thankfully, it's because of how busy I've been mentally prepping to move, getting ready for a new semester at school, being an e-flirt, lots and lots of Warhammer 40k, and following coverage of football's lockout ending.
I've been salivating. It's so delicious. Watching this quarterback carousel, all the free agent talk, imaging how crazy this season will be for the team fielding lots of rookies and rookie head coaches... God bless the NFL. Honestly, it's the best televised sport ever.
Football wins the sports battle for some very key reasons. Let me give you why I think it succeeds over other sports.
5: It's a real team game.
This is where basketball falls short. It's a game dominated by individuals rather than team fundamentals, although I suppose the latest NBA champions might argue that one. Still, look at the greatest teams in the history of the game. The casual fan can't remember more than maybe three names off any given roster in champions past, and with teams currently.
4: Danger
There is the risk of injury in all sports, but none so prevalent as football. Guys run as hard as they can and knock the stuffing out of each other. It's brutal and unforgiving. The average career of NFL players is significantly lower than in the other major sports, so we're more ready to accept greatness however fleeting it might be.
3: Watchable
When the action is happening, it's hard not to stay glued to the screen. Granted, the fact a play happens once every 40 seconds as all and is often and anticlimactic dropped pass or short yard run can be a little slow but overall, there's just action and explosive moments the other sports lack. Baseball, you have diving catches and the longball. Great when it happens, but the build up to it is not quite so exciting. Hockey, you've got guys checked into glass doors, the occasional fight, and goals often times missed by the naked eye. I think the fact the athleticism of hockey is lost to a large majority of people (I know how to run and catch a ball, however slowly and clumsily I do it, but I can't skate on ice) is a major hinderance for the sport's popularity. Basketball probably has the most action of any sport and requires the most sheer athleticism of it's atheletes, but because it's so constant, there isn't as much build up to the big amazing exciting over-the-top crazy play as football has. It's the right combination of excitement and lulls in the action to make excellent television.
2: Strategy
Watching the battle plans of a headcoach as he chalks up the X's and O's of how he envisions a play to progress is simply incredible. It's wartime tactics, except with human battering rams instead of catapults and crossbows. There is definintely strategy in the other major sports, but it's less "Okay, we're gonna do this. Damn, didn't work. Well, let's run the same thing again but alter this here and oh man we just got a giant play! Woo!" Baseball's strategy is all about the pitcher/batter duel. Great stuff, but it's individual, more tennis-like than grand scheme. The strategy in hockey and soccer and basketball, as all three of those sports is pass the ball/puck around until there's an opening or simply be more athletic than the other guy as you put it in the scoring receptacle. It's great to watch, and I appreciate the sheer talent of the guys that do it.
But it's not a mind-game. It's not a thinking man's spectator game. The fact it appeals on a cerebral level as well as the kind of thing you can enjoy while drunk and disorderly is awesome. That generates more mass appeal than a 7 hour baseball game that ends in a score of 4-3.
1: Less is More
Simply put, football is the most fun of the other sports to watch on TV, and we only have to do it once a week for 4 hours a time. The rest of the week, you get to soak in the highlights and salivate over the next match up. Every game has such high stakes the emotional investment, the highs and the lows, is that much greater. Your team loses a baseball game? No biggie; 160 to go. I remember the Red Sox started out abysmal this year and people were freaking out because they didn't play well the first two weeks and now they're stomping people and crushing fools. A team starts 0-4 in football, it's nearly impossible to recover. The other sport seasons feel so long, and it's impossible to care about every single team. The fact I've got an entire week of football highlights to soak in means I can feel connected to every single team, every single game, every single player in a way the others can't offer.
Here's to hoping for a great season. Let's go Steelers!
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