Pro Football and the State of the Nation

What does the NFL tell us about life?

Teamwork is important. Pretty self evident.

Whoever wins in the trenches wins the war. Basic military strategy.

Sometimes you place your team’s fate in the hands of a pretty boy who can’t make good, if not any, decisions under pressure. Sound familiar?

Sometimes you place your team’s fate in the hands of a coach who forces a pretty boy to make absurdly complex decisions when easier ones will do. Overcoaching is a big problem during campaign season. See Gore, Al and Wolf, Naomi. See also, Tax Code, The, and Cheney, Dick.

We celebrate the accomplishments of those able to get a 7 yard head start to utterly demolish a man looking the other way. If you don’t get him, he’s gonna get you. (That's the kind of preemption you can tell the Palin family loves)

When you put 22 guys into a weird choreography of motion, each with different assignments, but the same goal, anything can (and often does) happen. Our globalized economy, in a nutshell.

The governing body creates stupid rules, legislating with surprising (and silly) exactitude how one can celebrate his accomplishments (See: TD celebration involving hands on ground = penalty) that for some strange reason seems to always be called on black players + banning un-harmful substances that could actually help a player endure the rigors of playing, especially after retirement + Owners who blackmail local and state governments for tax subsidies to improve their ability to make money in the “free market” + Players union that ignores the plight of the worst-off among them. Ladies and gentlemen: Rethuglicans and Dimocrats!

The sanction of a stupid monopoly that only allows a person with an untrammeled view of space to watch all the NFL games, unless of course you live in Canada or most of the rest of the world.

An absurd reliance on technicalities of the law: the Tuck Rule, plus so many rules and distinctions made that a patently unfair outcome is inevitable. See the Chargers/Broncos game yesterday, where Denver QB Jay Cutler fumbled the ball with less than a minute left and it was recovered by San Diego. Given that there was only a minute on the clock, and SD was ahead, a turnover meant SD wins. But the ref blew the whistle immediatley, thinking it was an incomplete pass. Therefore, the ruling on the field was an incomplete pass, not a fumble. BUT!! San Diego challenged the call, and on instant replay it became clear that it was a fumble, therefore SD would get the ball...BUT!! the NFL competition committee changed a rule during the offseason, which held that in the event of a quick whistle when no one has possession of the ball, the result of the play will be whoever garners possession, which means: SD ball...BUT!! the Rules committee also said that this rule does NOT apply if the fumbler happens to be a Quarterback!!! You following at home? So...Denver ball. and Denver scores and converts a 2 point play to win the game with seconds left.