I’ve been watching professional (American) football pretty closely since 1958 when, as a little kid in St. Louis, Missouri, wearing my Cub Scout uniform, I attended my dad’s U.S. Army Reserve year-end party at the Reserve Center on South Kingshighway.
They held the party on 28 December, the same day as the NFL Championship game at Yankee Stadium pitting the Johnny Unitas led Baltimore Colts versus the Y.A. Tittle led New York Giants.
As the party went on in the big room, a bunch of us took our paper plates of food into a smaller room nearby, where we huddled around a grainy black-and-white TV to watch the end of the game.
When the Colt’s fullback, Alan “The Horse” Ameche, busted into the end zone to score the winning touchdown, ending the first overtime game in NFL championship history, Colts 23 v. Giants 17, it marked a turning point for the sport.
It was the first NFL Championship to be seen nationwide on television (NBC), and many consider it the greatest NFL game ever played, the game that eventually led to the gridiron replacing the baseball diamond in the hearts of the American sporting (betting) public. In 2019, a panel of sportswriters voted it the best game in the NFL’s first 100 years.
Fast-forward 64 years to this morning, 24 January 2022. Today, people are already calling yesterday‘s division-round playoff game between the Patrick Mahomes led Kansas City Chiefs and the Josh Allen led Buffalo Bills perhaps the greatest playoff game in history, with its three lead changes and 25 points in the last 1:54, and unbelievable play after unbelievable play leading to the Chiefs 42-36 win in OT.
And they’re calling the four games played this divisional weekend, two on Saturday, then two more on Sunday, perhaps the greatest weekend of playoff football ever.
Recency bias, anybody?
OK, I will accept the weekend proposition. All four games came down to the wire, the first three ending on a last second, walk-off field goal by the visiting team.
But let’s at least be honest with ourselves. Why do you think the game on the field resembles the game on PlayStation monitors? Why all the wild, exciting plays? Simple. It’s not the same game it once was. And I’m not talking about playing both ways like in the Ice Age of the early NFL years.
Let’s see, you eliminate the concept of defense and then tout how great the offenses are. Of course, we all understand why. Kind of hard to sell brain damage and shortened lifespans. Bread and circus, and all that.
Hey, I am addicted to it, too. And it may be a beautiful game to watch in high-def, but the brutality is right there for all to see, as well. And maybe – no, definitely we don’t have the stomach to keep watching football the way it was once played, especially after the money grew so large and the attention to weight work, PEDs, diet and violence became so extreme that lives were at stake.
Moms weren’t letting their kids get involved anymore. Pop Warner Football altered their rules to reduce the violence as numbers dropped precipitously after the onset of concussion data began to circulate.
Hell, even now, when some poor guy gets laid out on the field, the announcers quickly throw to commercial as they cart the poor soul off the field and into the blue tent on the sidelines or to the locker room to get X-rayed. And when we come back, it’s like – poof! – it never happened.
So they had to do something to take the Uber violence out. But what they’ve done is turn the game into a bowling alley without gutters, a pinball machine without a gap between the flippers.
So, yeah, it’s fun to watch, as long as you don’t linger on the hospitalizations. But there have to be other ways to offset the violence and still retain the essential game.
I wish they’d just go back to no face guards and less impactful helmets. That would take care of a lot of the violence right there. Hard-shell, high-impact composite helmets with steel cages bolted to the front aren’t protection devices, they are weapons. Players don’t feel the danger until they’re seeing stars or can’t feel their arms. Then, it’s too late.
If they wore less severe headgear, they wouldn’t be as likely to lead with their noggins. They’d feel the risk and tackle differently without having to be told to.
Imagine if in world football (soccer) they eliminated the offsides rule, THEN widened and heightened the goal? Lots more scoring, yeah, maybe even a lot more exciting, too. But not “The Beautiful game” it once was.
I’m not really saying American football should go back. But let’s at least tamp down our hosannas. It’s like getting overly excited about all the running records being set these days.
Well, when you change the fatigue factor and energy return via shoe technology, it would be more surprising if the records didn’t fall. Not that we don’t love seeing them. But let’s not compare apples with oranges and then give apples all the credit for being red. Just saying’
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Specks In a Jaundiced Eye 
Pretty interesting observations Toni. I think, as you illustrated that in the long run we can agree on one thing–the game has changed. It was a great game in an era for sure. The game has been “calmed down” to protect the high asset/$ skill players and offense is what matters. Basically, forget purity of the game. The goal in sports is and always will be to entertain at any cost. The NFL has mastered that to a maximum degree and we ain’t going back.
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