Fun:American Football
Note: This article no longer describes "real" football, some wandal shifted its focus to American "football."
Football is a manly sport for real men. Men who don't like football are panzies. Football is played by normal people who are too smart to play panzy-ball. Football lets you injure small people and get away with it. Especially if you're big.
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[edit] Why it is crappy
Football is like rugby, only with body armor shoulder pads, helmets, press agents and a rest every 20 seconds. Pedicures are not uncommon.
[edit] More reasons it sucks
Despite being called "football," the ball actually comes into contact with the feet of the players very rarely, mostly being carried or thrown. A professional American football "team" actually consists of at least two different teams (defensive and offensive - very offensive), as well as enough specialist players to make up a third team. These teams are switched out constantly throughout the game, creating considerable confusion amongst spectators. The ceaseless traffic of players on and off the field of play means the game proceeds in extremely staccato bursts, with micro-moments of action interspersed with minutes of extreme boredom for all involved.[1][2] Commentators attempt to fill these minutes with obscure, heavily statistic-laden jabbering, while television fills them with expensive advertising.
[edit] While it sucks, here's something worse
The boredom of this game is in stark contrast to the overwhelming explosiveness of that other pastime, which has thrilling nil-nil scores and, if one is lucky, can even end in the incredible, cardiac-arrest-inducing excitement of a possession-oriented draw.
[edit] Even more stupid things about the game
Football players are referred to as "athletes," but very little athleticism is involved in the sport. Players stroll on the field, dressed in enough padding to ensure their survival in rare occasions where a tornado picks up the stadium, and transports it to Antarctica. This has happened only twice in the history of the sport. They then proceed to line up, and run two metres yards down the field where they collide cuddle messily with a member of the opposite team. The process is then repeated after a 5 minute break. After half a dozen repetitions, the ball is handed to the opposite team and play proceeds in the opposite direction.
If one player manages to carry the ball past a thick white line on the ground, he will then do a goofy dance and thank Jesus for making the other team's defense screw up giving him this great accomplishment.
[edit] Another reason it is stupid
Tactics play an important part in American football. Every team has a hundred or so coaches who are employed to come up with so-called "plays" which all amount to running two metres yards up the field and colliding messily with a member of the opposite team. These coaches, together with the thousand or so players on a team contribute considerably towards full employment in the United States, while helping the economy as each player who makes millions of dollars and puts ALL the money back into the economy. Many football players go bankrupt after their short careers are over.
[edit] Football is bad for football players
A disproportionately high number of NFL players who play for more than five seasons don't live to see their 60th birthdays. Many others develop mental problems like dementia and/or memory loss and/or dementia and/or memory loss. Others develop neurological problems like Parkinson's disease. Concussions during games are common.
American football is one of the most injury-prone team sports. One of the most famous injuries occurred on 18 November 1985; Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann received a career-ending compound fracture of the right tibia and fibula when New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor tackled Theismann from behind and rolled over the back of his lower leg.[3]
[edit] It also fucks up schools
For reasons it is difficult for rational people to fathom, high school football programs are very popular in America. Instead of putting the money to academic pursuits, schools spend tens of thousands of dollars on stadiums and uniforms[4]). This worship of the sport and its players creates some ugly scenes.[5]
Football-induced bullshit is much more obvious at the university level, where coaches can command seven-figure salaries and one can grow to wonder whether the university has an affiliated football program or the football program has an affiliated university. This is terrifyingly common in The South[6] and finally resulted in some well-deserved karma in 2014.
In Steubenville, Ohio, two star football players raped a drunk girl at a party and received great sympathy from the town and local police. Many townsfolk in this good small town were resentful at any prosecution as it would ruin the football team's season. Only after an international media outrage and intervention by Ohio Governor John Kasich were the two rapists brought to trial. One of the numerous rapes of the victim actually occured at the home of the Jefferson County Prosecutor, who not too surprisingly wasn't very keen on investigating. Despite this, many locals blamed the victim as she was drunk, and both Kasich and especially Attorney General Mike DeWine remain despised in some circles in Steubenville.
[edit] See also
[edit] References, notes, and random snark
- ↑ American football mimics war in this manner.
- ↑ George Will (of all people) once said that football combines the two worst aspects of American culture: It's violence punctuated by committee meetings.
- ↑ This ESPN video of the injury is not only NSFW, it is also NOT for the squeamish. At 0:54, you can clearly see his right leg bend almost 90 degrees about halfway between the knee and ankle.
- ↑ There are too many corruption scandals on this to even be worth sourcing.
- ↑ PZ has the goods.
- ↑ The ratio of median athlete-to-student spending is 6:1? Hell no, let's double it!