Some reflection on the latest football season finally coming to a close…and what we’ve learned from watching the recent Super Bowls. That is, if we really pay attention.
Look, even a lowland gorilla could have read last week’s column about watching the Super Bowl and figured it out (Give Me One Good Reason…). A little tongue-in-cheek, if you didn’t get it.
But, wow…social media is such a wonderful thing. The word got around, and the word got back.
Some ‘F’ bombs…as in, keep your #^%$* opinions to yourself.
Some expressions of disgust regarding alternative activities on Super Bowl Sunday…as in, why take it out on the squirrels and rabbits?
And some questions about local women and their affinity for eating at Frisch’s. (Seriously, name me one man, woman, or child in America who doesn’t like the ‘Big Boy’?)
To the person who shared that some people like the entertainment of a long halftime show, and Justin Timberlake, because we’re not all like you, I want to say…I found some of his CDs in Half Price Books recently for a dollar. Listen to them while you drive tomorrow and keep halftime at twelve minutes. Just play the game.
And to that seriously narrow person who wrote to tell me that my comments about Max McGee were just awful…because I “commended him for drinking before the game” and sitting naked for interviews while smoking a Marlboro…well, it was the truth. The stuff of football legend that we say we like so well. And…won’t the truth set you free? We say it does.
I’m taking my tongue out of my cheek now by admitting to you that I watched some of it. But, I did spend most of my day working around the house. I paid attention to some of the commercials and wondered why they would try to sell Ram trucks with Martin Luther King. By and large, every year they go farther and farther beyond most people’s ability to comprehend…and probably too far away from Clara Peller (Where’s The Beef?).
But I’m vindicated, too, by Monday’s numbers that said the ratings for the Super Bowl were down this year…about 3.4%. Still, there were 44.6 million viewers, but overall ratings for the NFL are down about 20% over the last two years.
Why?
The games are too long – too many commercials – a disjointed thing to watch.
The NFL itself – bullyish, boorish, full of bad actors, and full of political commentary that simply wears on the average person’s patience. I repeat, we don’t watch on Sunday to feel quilt or be lectured.
People don’t understand the rules in the NFL. What constitutes a catch? Your guess is as good as mine.
The money grab? I equate the NFL with the federal government for its shameful fleecing of the public.
Physical violence towards women…and men, for that matter. I contend that I’ll live long enough to see someone like Brandin Cooks actually killed from a hit to the head during a game. It was there in Sunday’s game. He just didn’t die, thankfully.
Finally (and this has nothing to do with the Super Bowls)….too many teams, like the Bengals and the Browns, have crossed that threshold of convincing the fans that they’re just not in the same league with Philadelphia and New England. One called in to a Columbus radio station Monday and concluded, “Never in a hundred years could Marvin Lewis try a pass to the quarterback on the goal line…and make it work…like the Eagles did with Nick Foles. The Bengals are the equivalent of Double A baseball.”
And the Browns are 1-31 over the past two seasons!
No, the Nagurski (look that one up) neanderthals can write and drop all the ‘F’ bombs they want. The NFL has serious issues and work to do if it’s going to re-sell many of the traditionals, or compete for the attention and money of the millennials (who aren’t watching) that it claims as its future.
They’d do well to study the example of high school and college, and you know they’re already doing that or they wouldn’t be playing on Thursday’s…and soon, Fridays. Wait and see.
The problem is…they can’t play with high school players, who play for fun, and not to maim and kill. They just like competition and the atmosphere.
Kids that don’t need a new Ram truck, because…..?
They’ve already got one!