The Great Football Debate
I watch and follow NFL football the most, but I’m not going to say it is the best. Maybe the most enjoyable, but not the best.
College football is the superior football game for one reason and one reason only: it stands on its own. No other league can say that. The XFL, the A(rena)FL, NFL Europe all use the NFL as the gold standard. For the AFL and NFL Europe, you hear the announcers say that the league is a stepping stone to get to the NFL (or, as one AFL announcer humorously puts it, "the outdoor game"). The XFL marketed itself on being more fun than the stuffy ol’ NFL. Heck, I learned football rules from listening to the announcers for the USFL explain the differences between it and the NFL. None of these leagues can define themselves without mentioning the NFL.
College does not do this during major broadcasts (although, some of the regional networks and local broadcasts might). They rarely, if at all, mention the NFL because college football doesn’t need it. Of course, one announcer went too far on that. He said that every kid dreamed of making the big play for a major college program in a major bowl game. No, we didn’t. We dreamed of making a big play in the Super Bowl. Heck, we didn’t even know what "program" meant. But at least he didn’t break the "don’t mention the NFL" rule.
So what about the NFL? Certainly they can stand on their own, can’t they? Have you ever noticed how they always mention what college the players went to? Coat-tail riding, I tell ya! Stephanie once asked me why, when announcing the starting lineups, they often mention the college the player attended. I do not know. I asked Dr. Z, but I am one of the millions for which he has a personal vendetta and refuses to answer e-mail messages. (Yes, yes, I know. He cannot answer all the e-mail messages he receives, but it is more fun to be irrationally angry than to admit my question didn’t make the cut.)
So, even the NFL cannot stand on its own. That makes college the winner by default. I suppose if you threw in high school or pee-wee league football, you could make a case for them. Not to me, though. Not high-quality enough game. (And if I can tell that it is lower quality, it’s lower quality.)
That’s not to say that other leagues don’t have their own little beauty marks.
The thing that stands out most in my mind about the XFL was not "He Hate Me." What struck me were the sideline interviews. Specifically, please believe. It was almost as if it was in the players’ contracts to say "please believe" every third sentence. "Please believe, we’re going to win this game." Or "I’ll catch another touchdown pass today. Please believe." I had never heard that phrase used before like that; nor have I heard it since.
The USFL had a beauty mark, also. It was the hidden microphone/unhidden audience trick. Sometimes (especially during halftime) the cameras would be on the game announcers with a backdrop of the fans in the stands. The interesting bit was you could see the fans through a hole in the announcer’s chest. I could never figure out how that happened. Then I learned about the blue/green screen. Television magic included putting a color (usually blue or green) backdrop behind people. Techno tricks put footage of whoknowswhat (the White House, a weather map, spectators at a USFL game, etc.) on anything that was blue, whereas anything not that shade of blue was not re-imaged to the viewing audience. My guess is that the folks broadcasting the games did not think to have the foam covering the hand-held microphone a different color than the background screen. The computer read the microphone as the same color as the backdrop and, ta-daaa, the image of the fans was on the chest of the announcer--making him appear to have a bit of a hole through him. I had never seen that before; nor have I seen it since.
The major flaw in the college game? The Heisman trophy. The trophy is for the most outstanding college player, but almost always goes to a glamour position. Mark May almost made me puke when he said that the Heisman should go to the best college player be it "a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver." Um, what about the linemen, linebackers, defensive backs, or kickers? The queasy thing about it was that Mark May is a former offensive lineman! I guess you forget your past when join a broadcast studio. So, the Heisman Trophy has gone "Hollywood" on us. But the rest is pretty good.
One thing I like about the NFL is that it only has around 30 teams (32 now, but 28 when I started watching). With a minimum of 3 games per week, you’re bound to see your favorite every once in a while. With over 100 teams (and that is only counting Division I), the same cannot be said for college ball. Having weak talent-scouting skills, I root more for teams than for good play. With teams having more exposure, I can follow the NFL better than I can follow college. Of course, this was when we had three network channels and no cable. It’s a bit different now.
I do have a bone to pick with the NFL (and I’m a vegetarian, so this must be important). Each season, every team gets a bye week--a rest week when most of the other teams play but they don’t so they can better last to the end of the season. This year, the Raiders and the Vikings have the same bye week. A travesty! You cannot tell me that commissioner Paul Tagliabue doesn’t know that I choose my fantasy football team mostly from the Vikings and Raiders rosters. (Okay, you could, and you’d be accurate if you did. Still, this is more fun that rational discourse.) I had to dig down into my second tier of teams for this year’s roster. I feel unclean.
One view to which I do not subscribe is the perception that college players only play for the love of the game and pro players only play for the love of money. This is heard, in every sport, mostly around the time of strikes and lock outs. "You’re going on strike? Well, I’m going to stop buying tickets and watch the college games because they only play because they love the game." Certainly, money influences the game at the professional level. No one in any career or job wants to be relatively underpaid. But there are many professionals who love the game. (And many who love the money and many who have played all of their lives and don’t know what else to do.) And there are a lot of college players who are looking forward to the money (or are already receiving it from booster clubs) and who wouldn’t turn their noses up if it colleges were allowed to pay their players. Remember, the greedy NFL players didn’t just appear from nowhere. Almost all had been college players. A quick scan of five NFL rosters (Ravens, 49ers, Bears, Bengals, Bills) found no one who hadn’t gone to college. However, about ten didn’t have birth dates listed. So, clearly, you’re much more likely to be on an NFL roster after not being born than after not going to college. It difficult for me to believe that these players can excel at football the way they do (with year-round training, meetings, practices, etc.) without having some sort of love for the game. Of course, I also have trouble understanding why drunk, stoned, nearly OD’ed rock stars are able to play infinitely guitar better I can, but they do. I may not be the foremost authority on this.
In the end, I believe money is just a part of the game in the NFL, much like scholarships are in college. Training, working out, practices, meetings, getting an agreeable contract: it’s all necessary.
Speaking of necessary, here are my predictions for the NFL this season. Rather than the la-dee-da division winners and Super Bowl champion, here are my predictions for the last place team in each division and the team achieving the first overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft (otherwise known as the worst team):
AFC East: New York Jets
AFC North: Cleveland Browns
AFC South: Tennessee Titans
AFC West: Kansas City Chiefs
NFC East: Washington
NFC North: Chicago Bears
NFC South: New Orleans Saints
NFC West: San Francisco 49ers
First overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft: Cleveland Browns
Please believe.
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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.
© 2005, Mark Wentz