Not trying to be funny but,seriously,just what IS the attraction?
That’s a fair enough question Adje, which I will try to answer:
I followed the NFL casually for years from about the mid 80’s when C4 started showing it and the Bears beat the Patriots in Superbowl XX but it’s only in the last 10 years that I have really got into it. During that same period of time my interest in the Premier League has gradually dwindled to just above zero. Maybe I needed to fill that void? I don’t know.
The NFL at its best is incredibly exciting. A quarterback throwing the ball 50 yards or more to a wide receiver to run in and get a touch down with seconds remaining. A running back breaking 5 or 6 tackles and gaining 40 yards. A game winning field goal from 55 yards with zero seconds on the clock. A line backer intercepting the ball on his own goal line and running it back the length of the field for a touchdown (this actually happened in the Superbowl two years ago) and so on and so on….
The players are unbelievable athletes. Receivers who can run the 100 metres in 10 seconds (maybe less) running backs who could run almost that fast with you and me each holding on to one leg. 350 pound line men who can bench press their own weight but at the same time can out sprint almost any regular person.
One of the main reasons I love the NFL though, is the concept of ‘parity’. Every team has to comply with a rigidly enforced salary cap. This means that if the star player for, say, the Dallas Cowboys is coming to the end of his contract, they will have to consider carefully whether or not they can offer him a new deal on the kind of money he would demand. They’ve got money coming out of their ears and could pay him whatever he wanted.
However the salary cap means that if they do that, they will either go over the salary cap or will not be able to re-sign two, three or four other players who are out of contract as well. So they have no choice but to let him become a free agent and sign for another team who perhaps have more cap space available. The other key point about ‘parity’ is that the worst team in the NFL every year gets to pick first in the draft in April (the second worst team picks second and so on). So the worst teams get the pick of the best players coming out of College (The concept of College sport in the USA is a fascinating one and one that takes some getting used to. It is something else I am extremely interested in but I won’t go into that now).
What all of this means is that you do not get one team dominating the rest of the league year, after year, after year. Similarly, a team that has an absolutely dreadful season can, through good drafting and acquisition of free agent players get to the play offs or even the Superbowl the very next season. You might say that this makes the NFL all a bit random and maybe even a game of luck. Ultimately though, you still have to have to have good coaches getting the best out of the players and good scouts enabling you to draft the best players. There are always certain teams who are better than most and certain teams who are worst than most. But a fan of even the worst team can have that hope of winning the Superbowl in their life time.
Another thing I love about the NFL is the history and the ‘lore’ of the game. People think that American football and American sport in general has little or no history or tradition but nothing could be further from the truth. The Green Pay Packers for example have been in existence in one form or another since 1896 and the first college game was played in 1869. All the other major US sports by the way, go back a similar length of time.
Finally, football (as opposed to ‘soccer’) is basically, a very, very simple game. Team A is trying to score in one direction and team B is trying to stop them. Team B will then get the ball and try to score in the other direction and team A will try to stop them. You can watch it on that level or a much more advanced level of slants and screens, zone blitzes, naked bootlegs, nickel and dime packages and God knows what else (I’m somewhere between basic and advanced)
I suppose that’s the best way I can explain it really. At the end of the day, if you’re not into something, you’re not into it. Golf and F1 leave me cold. To millions of others they’re an all consuming passion.
What I’m saying I guess is, ‘each to their own’
