I've always been a HUGE football fan. I've ate, slept, and dreampt football since I was 8. I've followed the phins since '91, been running a family fantasy football league since 2000, and read about the phins EVERY day.
But lately, I'm just kind of getting tired of the NFL in general. The NFL is changing, and with it, my attitude. I used to tune in for football games, enjoyed the breakdowns of opponents, but lately it seems that I can't watch a weekend without getting upset. And it's not just about this past week (I actually missed the game if you can believe it).
-We go into this season with the dark cloud of a lockout next season
- Megatron caught/didn't catch a TD that fueled crazy amounts of Drama in week one. A team lost as a result of a highly questionable call
-Defensive players seemingly can't hit opposing QB's......ever. I watched as a defender got pushed into Tom Brady, who in turn looked at the ref and essentially threw a flag on the play himself
-The league is starting to fine and suspend guys for hitting too hard...HITTING TOO DAMN HARD!
-Last year the we knocked a ball out of the endzone against the saints in a play that could have swung the momentum our way. They called it a TD....I initially thought "that sucks, but everyone makes mistakes" until I saw the two page spread in SI....the mother ****ing ref was standing RIGHT THERE! That's not a ****ing mistake! That's mother ****ing ignorance!
-Now we have a game where ref's called the play over BEFORE it was finshed which cost us a TD.
-The problem is extending to the "amature" sport of College football where college athletes are on the take. These players reap huge benefits while the programs left in their wake face the devastation. Scholarships for innocent high school athletes are revoked while the players on the take go on to make millions in the pros.
-And people defend this saying that Universities...which are offering a FREE education (I know the price of education...and I'd do about anything to attended school for free) have the audacity to make money off of the athletes.
-And schools with rivalries spanning back 80+ years are jumping conferences to create a good 'ole boys club of high earning schools which neglects to reflect quality of the schools education or athletic programs other than football. Instead it reflects only the amount of TV sets that a school can brink.
More and more the game is being taken out of the hands of players and being decided by ticky tacky calls by the ref's, insulting rules put in place by a clueless management system, and just plain luck.
Maybe it was because I was a kid, but the game has lost a lot of luster for me. I have a hard time sitting through pre-game conjecture on how great of a comeback a rapist is having, how great Bret Favre is, or whether a guy should be suspended for hitting a WR too hard that was running full speed down the field.
More and more football is becoming an ugly mirror reflecting the turmultuous world around us. We're watching a once great game become overrun by clueless execess. A game which used to be decided by talent is being decided by PC moves and ruined by greed.
I for one have drastically reduced the amount of time that I spend following my team. I spend weekends working on hobbies, rather than watching football, and I spend more time reading about investment strategies than the miami dolphins. I'll always root for them, but I'm really starting to feel a detachment from football as a whole.
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