Football and My Crisis of Faith.

[Rain Man]

I have been a football fan for more than forty years, and it has been one of the foundational interests of my life. I’ve played the sport since childhood, I’ve traveled to games, I’ve purchased jerseys, and I’ve been an unceasing student of statistics and strategies.

I’m now experiencing a crisis of faith, though, and I fear that football’s time is coming to an end for me. The catalyst was something really stupid, but it opened the door to a greater awareness that is quite disturbing and disillusioning.

The initial catalyst was the NFL’s “Together We Make Football” contest. I read about it and thought, “Wow, a nice celebration of football, and Super Bowl tickets would be a great prize”. So I wrote an essay and felt pretty good about it, and sent it in. I loved football.

The entries were posted on the site, and I read a few of them, and frankly, most of the essays and videos were pretty weak. People didn’t follow the rules or think about why a judge would pick them to win. Many of them were just pictures of people in jerseys saying, “We like football. Send us to the Super Bowl!”

But I saw another pattern, too, and it got me to thinking. There seemed to be a lot of people using disabilities or illness as an argument, particularly among their kids. “I had a lung infection. Send me to the Super Bowl!” “My son has spina bifida. Send us to the Super Bowl!” For the most part, they were not well-written or well-produced. They were requests for pity, and frankly I found them kind of off-putting. They seemed almost more like panhandling than an essay about why those people love football.

As I skimmed through, them, though, I found myself getting agitated. I’m a market research guy, and I found myself starting to read them from a marketing standpoint. I would find myself thinking that some NFL public-relations person would probably like this angle or that angle. “Hey, a disabled kid. Wouldn’t that be a great winner to use for marketing?” (Sorry if that’s insensitive, but it’s how p.r. people think.)

I looked through some more entries, and thought, “If I was a callous, cynical s.o.b., I’d bet that the five winners of this contest will be a disabled kid, an attractive woman, an inner-city African American, a veteran or active duty soldier, and then whoever writes the best essay." And then I immediately felt bad for being a callous, cynical s.o.b. and I submitted my essay.

The NFL announced the ten finalists recently. Three of the ten stories are interesting and speak to football. Three. The other seven are incredibly lame and contrived, and I think one is actually insulting to any longtime football fan. My cynical side picked wrong on the military guy, but if you look at the videos it’s pretty clear that this contest was not about celebrating football. We are not hearing the ten best essays about how football shapes and impacts people’s lives, and how they love football. We are hearing manufactured stories that are nothing more than a cynical marketing ploy to reach pre-defined target markets and serve as a p.r. tool.

Now, I mean no offense against the people in those videos when I say that. I have no doubt that nearly all of them like football, and that most of them love football. It’s not about them, or the fact that I wrote an epic, soul-shattering, thought-inspiring essay that was not selected since I don’t fit the any of the NFL’s market expansion segments.

What it really drove home was that the NFL is a business these days, and nothing more. I wanted a contest where I could write about football and how it has shaped my life, and where I could read about what it has done for others. That was what I was sold. Instead, I was used as a pawn so the NFL could sell its business.

Now, that thing is just a contest. I lose contests all the time. My years of playing and watching football have taught me to lose with grace, and I hope the winners of that contest have a great time. But it really made me think about who’s running the NFL now. I wanted the judges of that contest to be people who love football themselves, people who got into the business because they grew up passing and catching and tackling. I wanted the judges to be people who know who Otto Graham is. Who know Johnny Robinson and Doug Buffone and even John Jefferson, and who can tell you about the Sneaker Game or Christmas Day of 1971. I wanted the judges to be football people who understand what the story of football is about.

The judges of this contest were not football people. It is clear and obvious that they were p.r. people who said, “Okay, give me a person in this market segment and a person in that market segment and two more from that one, and let’s build stories around them." Those people probably don’t know Lawrence Taylor from Opie Taylor.

The NFL is run by businesspeople now. Lamar Hunt is gone. Bud Adams is gone. George Halas is gone. The league is run by lawyers and marketing people and advertisers. You could take them out of the NFL and exchange them with the industry leaders of soft drinks or smart phones, and it wouldn’t make a darn bit of difference. They’re selling a product, and I don’t think they really care what that product is.

And then I look at the games I am watching these days. I see rules changes that are designed for marketing value rather than sport. They’ve done the marketing analysis. If there’s more scoring, more casual fans will watch. If there are more passes, quarterbacks will become bigger celebrities. The games are cartoonish now, unbalanced scoring orgies because scoring lets casual fans know when to cheer. Defenses are being made irrelevant and quarterbacks are merely playing catch on their way to another 400 or 500 yards of showmanship. P.T. Barnum loves the aerial circus even as students of the game cringe.

And I am finally seeing the more sinister side of the business plan. I see blatant phantom penalties against the opponents of quarterbacks like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, two of the highest-visibility products that the league sells, penalties that are critical in letting their teams win and continue playing as the TV audiences surge in January. If you’re running a business, you act to maximize your revenues, and Peyton Manning holding a Super Bowl trophy will do that a lot more than Alex Smith or Nick Foles doing so.

I don’t think the players rig games. It’s realistically impossible to do that in a high-level sport on a leaguewide basis. But Tom Brady is good. If Tom Brady gets four extra downs to win a game because of a pass interference call, he’s probably going to win. You can’t rig games, but you can tilt odds with just a few critical officiating decisions.

Maybe I’m waxing nostalgic, but I don’t think the NFL always had this attitude. Back when Hunt and Adams and Halas were around, the league was a competitive sport. Those owners loved the game and they wanted to win. The money was big, but it wasn’t insane. Look at the ownership and league management today. Are they football fans who want to win, or are they businesspeople who want to maximize profit? The cash flows are enormous.

I have been a Chiefs fan my whole life. In the modern world, that is naïve and Quixotic. The Chiefs are a small-market team and none of the players do national commercials. From a marketing perspective they support a middle-class fan base that is much smaller than most other markets. There’s not much marketing value in Alex Smith holding aloft a Lombardi trophy, and in fact there’s a huge opportunity cost if it’s him and not Peyton Manning. The league’s management team does not want Alex Smith or Jay Cutler or Jake Locker to win. Maybe they’ll do it, because a football field remains a chaotic place, but if so it will be against the wishes of the marketing braintrust of the NFL, and therefore against odds that have become more steep than one team in 32.

Sometime in the past twenty or thirty years, football evolved, and not in a good way. Any given game is still fun to watch. The players still try hard to win. On a tactical basis I enjoy the show and the athletes. But on a higher level I have reluctantly concluded that professional football has ceased to be a competitive sport. It’s an entertainment conglomerate, and just like the tables in Vegas the odds are stacked in the house’s favor. The house exists to make money.

I’ll probably continue to watch football. It’s a tradition. The games are fun. But at this point I’m reluctantly going to go into it knowing that it’s not what it appears. It’s a TV show. I’m not going to buy merchandise to support a TV show, and I’m not going to pay hundreds of dollars to watch a TV show live. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll go out and live life a little more on Sunday afternoons.

There’s a semi-famous internet clip of an audience member at a professional wrestling show. He’s given the microphone and thanks the wrestlers for the “all they’ve done to their bodies”, and then tearfully says, “It’s still real to me, dammit!” Well, I’d like to thank NFL players like Johnny Robinson and Doug Buffone and John Jefferson for all they’ve done to their bodies to entertain me. I have loved football and it’s been a great run. But it’s not real to me any more.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

It's a small market. The margin for error, when it comes to filling the stadium, is razor thing.

And yes, you did see a reason. I posted it, ITEMIZED, in post #56.

Even better, you QUOTED post #56.

Why should I have to repeat myself over and over just to satisfy you're utterly stupid line of questioning?

Go back to DC dipshit. You don't belong in a football discussion.

So, they haven't drafted a great QB because they are a Midwest team in a smaller market? Because the fans don't care about winning?

This isn't a football discussion. This is a discussion about losers and conspiracy theories and how they follow a team and a sport despite thinking the whole thing is rigged with winners and losers pre-determined.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

So, they haven't drafted a great QB because they are a Midwest team in a smaller market? Because the fans don't care about winning?

This isn't a football discussion. This is a discussion about losers and conspiracy theories and how they follow a team and a sport despite thinking the whole thing is rigged with winners and losers pre-determined.

I never said any of those things. Those are all things you inferred based on things other people said.

I said the cards are stacked against them. And they are.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

I never said any of those things. Those are all things you inferred based on things other people said.

I said the cards are stacked against them. And they are.

So what is the reason the Chiefs haven't drafted a good QB? Because the cards are stacked against them? What does that mean in regards to drafting a good QB?

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

So what is the reason the Chiefs haven't drafted a good QB? Because the cards are stacked against them? What does that mean in regards to drafting a good QB?

Because EVERY decision the Chiefs make, personnel-wise and otherwise, is weighted against those factors. Financials, fan base, etc. It tends over time to produce low risk, low reward behavior.

[ILChief]

Man if we'd have only drafted Christian Ponder we'd be a dynasty

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by ILChief

Man if we'd have only drafted Christian Ponder we'd be a dynasty

The best straw man ever.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Because EVERY decision the Chiefs make, personnel-wise and otherwise, is weighted against those factors. Financials, fan base, etc. It tends over time to produce low risk, low reward behavior.

It's generally too early to be drunk, so you have to just be dumb.
I asked why the Chiefs haven't drafted a good QB. Your answer is a bunch of gibberish.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

It's generally too early to be drunk, so you have to just be dumb.
I asked why the Chiefs haven't drafted a good QB. Your answer is a bunch of gibberish.

You're a bigger ****ing moron than I originally thought.

[-King-]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

You're a bigger ****ing moron than I originally thought.

No you're just not making any sense right now.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

That makes absolutely no sense. You're under the impression that there have been a lot of butts in the seats the last few seasons?

They obviously had much bigger issues, and there were still ~63,000 seats accounted for in the last home game of the season last season, even if some of those were paid for by KCTV.

Outside of those other issues, going into each season, you can start a rookie QB with the expectation of being terrible for at least one year, if not 2-3 years.... or you can sign a retread QB with the expectation of being mediocre and at least being able to compete for a playoff spot.

Sure, there are a lot of variables, but because teams can spend years trying to find a franchise QB, why waste that kind of time when you can take the low risk option and be competitive much sooner?

It's only been a trend for ~40 years, so I'm not sure how anyone couldn't spot it... sign retread QB, be competitive until the ship sinks and fans get angry, sign another retread as a quick fix watch season ticket sales increase, be competitive and watch ticket sales sky rocket until the ship sinks and fans get angry, sign another retread....

[Nzoner]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

Anyway, wouldn't it have made more sense to fix the game for a New York team since they were the city attacked?

Originally Posted by Rausch

Exactly...

No,because if you recall the Patriots were introduced before that Superbowl as a team instead of individual players.So here's a team called the Patriots in red,white and blue being introduced as one because "united they stand,divided they fall." What greater story for a nation that had just experienced the worst terrorism attack in its history.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by Nzoner

No,because if you recall the Patriots were introduced before that Superbowl as a team instead of individual players.So here's a team called the Patriots in red,white and blue being introduced as one because "united they stand,divided they fall." What greater story for a nation that had just experienced the worst terrorism attack in its history.

A greater story might have been a team from the city that was attacked.

Bottom line is that a very good team won the Super Bowl that year and that team went on to be the best team of that decade.

[Nzoner]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

A greater story might have been a team from the city that was attacked.

Bottom line is that a very good team won the Super Bowl that year and that team went on to be the best team of that decade.

So which team do you choose?The Patriots were the perfect team for a "feel good story".

[ILChief]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

The best straw man ever.

How? You say we can't win because we won't draft a first round qb. There's a qb we could have had. Maybe ej Manuel, geno smith, Brandon weeden, jake locker? I guess those guys would have us headed to the super bowl

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by ILChief

How? You say we can't win because we won't draft a first round qb. There's a qb we could have had. Maybe ej Manuel, geno smith, Brandon weeden, jake locker? I guess those guys would have us headed to the super bowl

Everyone knows there aren't any guarantees... that's why they won't draft one. Teams try for years to find the right QB, but at least those teams are trying. It's high risk / high reward.... and the reward is much higher than drafting even a guaranteed 15 year Pro Bowl OT. It's also pretty much guaranteed that the team will go through a shitty season or two, so there's no point in taking that risk if you can be competitive with a retread much sooner.