Dear American Football
Dear American Football, Please consider this my official Dear John letter to you. I have, over the last several weeks and even seasons become really dis-enchanted with most of your purported sport and have finally reached my last straw. I will no longer be a general watcher of your sport going forward. I have been coming to this break with your sport for some time now, but events over the last several weeks have just completely cemented my choice to abandon you. Honestly, I have never been a super big fan, other than the shared something to do in an often social environment, so my abandonment comes easily enough. After all, no big fan of any one team, but rather the fan of any game that offers a good level of competition. I am sure you are perhaps finding this as a surprise and maybe I am just catching you off guard completely, so I will fill you in on a few details as to why we are reaching this end of our sometimes Saturday and Sunday relationship. First there is the whole mess of this thing with the college system. I know the BSC system is supposed to be a better process for determining a champion of the season and that it really should put to an end all the questions about that other team and so forth. Bottom line is this though, until you have a play off there are always going to be teams that are left out because of the conference they play in and there are always going to be other teams that get in that really should not be there at all.
And the heck is up with this whole bowl system qualification process. I like to think that maybe one of these years that UK will do some great things in football and I agree that big steps forward were made under Brooks (I think Joker will turn those back before all done, but that is my opinion). But we have a UK team this year that can score but they can not stop a score to save their lives. They have only one win against a worthy opponent and the rest are all give me games. Okay, I admit that South Carolina was a big upset for UK, but then again SC just came off a big upset with Alabama the cards just fell right. Aside from that win name two other teams they have beaten for the five wins they have? I have to think hard to get the Louisville Cards and EKU Colonels. No offense, but beating the Colonels does NOT make UK bowl worthy and with how the Cards have looked the last couple of seasons that is no longer a bragging right either.
Transitioning from college to pro, what the heck is up with the referees anymore? I have seen so many just pathetically called games in both college and NFL that my stomach just can not deal with it anymore. It is like they just miss calls on purpose to see if the challenges will be thrown or not. Touchdowns clearly not scored are called and ones that probably in are not. And everyone knows the call is questionable at best and maybe just a give me – so they hurry up to the next snap. Look, either do the replay or do not do it. Get rid of it being the coaches job to referee the game for the referees who are so far unable to do it. Also, ever notice depending on who is in what positions how things are called? I will not name quarterbacks, but some will get hit with questionable defense rush for rougher the passer or hitting defenseless player ten times a game with no call and yet one even close rush of a late hit when some other QB on another team will get the call every time.
Add to that this whole business all the sudden of we are playing to rough and hurting people so we are going to start penalizing people. But hey, lets only penalize them with fines off the field and only when it seems right to do it with popular sentiment. Players need to understand that they are playing a rough contact sport and there is a chance of injury. On the other hand maybe it does need to be toned down just a bit. But if you are going to do that, do it consistent and make it count right then. If someone does the helmet spike – they are ejected from the game as well as the fines. Bottom line though, I do jousting and know every time I go down that lane something could go wrong and I could have a horrible crash and end up hurt. Man up and play something different is what I say.
My last thing and probably the biggest complaint? Football is not so much about football anymore as it is about what is going on off the field. It is like the people involved are more concerned with what is going outside of the grid iron then about the actual game that takes place on the field each week. Okay, yeah, I understand that some of these guys are celebs in their own right and make the big bucks to keep the folks interested. But really, I do not care about what they are doing outside of the game. If they are being thugs and criminals that prosecute them and get them out of the game. If they have sex scandals take it civil – but do not keep these non-football things in press week after week.
Anyway, I got plenty of work to do either upstairs in the office on the computer or downstairs in the shop/garage on any given Sunday (and Saturday too for that matter), so farewell football…
** – Image from totalwealthcoaching.com
