The NFL, America’s three-ring circus has it all: drama, violence, heart-warming personal interest stories, and big-stage festivities. As such, the buzz, in-season and out, is all about draft picks, trades, injuries, and analytics. Sport talk shows attract large audiences while commentators discuss a player’s arm length or time in the 40-yard-dash. Year-round yakety-yakety-yak pouring from our televisions and radios, all, I suppose, for our sport loving edification. America has an obvious football culture, which may explain more about us than we wish to reveal. Eugene McCarthy, former congressman, senator, and candidate for president, poked fun at Washington D.C. said, “Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.”
The gag-inducing pregame schlock for Super Bowl 2024 had all the makings of Hallmark programing. Critics crowed, “fans were deeply moved.” I did it my way, however, and had to look away from the off-putting saccharine manipulation pouring into living rooms across the nation. “I Did It My Way,” an Old Blue Eye’s song, provided the intro, which was intended to bring tears and a lump in one’s throat as viewers considered the fitting way the football season ended while showcasing the American spirit of independence and blah-blah-blah. Cathartic. Honey smeared on sugar cookies. We curmudgeons don’t much care for sappiness. While fans reached for tissues, I and those like me choked back disgust at the emotional insult and exploitation used as a preface to kickoff. It seemed to take forever for the preliminaries to conclude and the game to get underway. Then--
Time to throw bodies around the field. Time to smash people. Time to go to war! While blood pressures soared, some of us puzzled over the marriage of patriotism and football as military planes roared over the stadium after we all sang the national anthem and maybe a few stanzas of “God Bless America.” Also, we were wondering about the affinity pop music has to football, for the halftime show drew our attention on the fifty-yard line with celebrities bouncing and kvetching all over the stage. Then, of course, the climax of the afternoon, comes the grand attraction of the final half of NFL football violence delivered to the beer-sipping, chicken-wing eating viewers.
That’s America’s yearly unabashed party, the good and the bad and the puzzling. Football is undeniably an American center ring attraction. As such, it is loaded with circus acts and accompanying flapdoodle.
I’ve wondered why football has enjoyed primacy in American life. Maybe it’s the violence we love. Probably is. NFL football may be terrifyingly enjoyable to watch but is littered with triteness and mind-numbing commercials. Truly, more commercials spill into our living rooms than football plays if one were to use a stopwatch to measure time spent watching NFL broadcasts from start to finish.
Speaking of triteness, more than once an erstwhile Seattle Seahawks’ football coach said, “Good football plays are made by good football players.” He also made it a point to mention the team will play to win and losing was not an option. But, he asserted, they had to play one game at a time. Imagine that. We never thanked him for his deep-dive analysis. In case you haven’t noticed, football coaches often say funny things. As Coach Chuck Knox said, “Most of my clichés aren’t original.” Add to the chuckle-inducing quotations from football folks this gem from former Redskin QB Joe Theisman, “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
But what has struck me lately about NFL football is the “overcoming adversity” response coming from the mouths of every other coach and two of three players. When asked for their take on the game, everyone seems to find value in overcoming adversity, meaning God-knows-what. Who knows? Might be an injury or a bad call. Might be a string of close defeats. Maybe a star player came from an underprivileged family. Perhaps the lineman smacked his girlfriend in the face and had to attend anger management training. Could be anything. To the point, I don’t know any person who hasn’t faced adversity. Have you? Most of us have tried and succeeded in overcoming whatever we call adversity. And, of course, heartache and failure often produce fine lessons and improvements as they challenge us. Wonderful! We appreciate the sentiment. But enough is enough, as Bernie is fond of swaying. The tear prompting formula begins with adversity (an ankle sprain, a fumble, a charge of domestic violence, a grandparent’s death, a sore throat, a pimple on the tip of one’s nose, and so on) and ends with the team or specific player doing well on the field, thus overcoming adversity. Applause please.
After overcoming adversity, of course, the player announces he just wants to go out there and have fun. True, football does allow players a sense of community and provides a platform for enjoyment in doing well on the field. But the goal is not and never has been fun. Don’t believe it. “Sure, we did lose by 36 points, but, oh boy, did we ever have fun.”
An ancillary motive in playing the game to overcome adversity and the just have fun is the often mentioned: “We just want to prove the skeptics wrong.” Okay, so a few beer-sucking critics claimed your team wasn’t much good. The revenge factor is now in play. Go prove the silly critics were wrong. That’s motivation to prove them out of bounds and flat out wrong. Big deal! Just play the game and leave the kibitzers alone.
For now I’m taking a knee on NFL football. But still, because we all care, I’ve just released my mock draft for the year 2030.