NFL football and college football starts up their seasons as well.
It should have me staying home with a large beverage and even larger television.
But either I am changing, or football is.
I simply don't get the same charge out of football as I once did.
College football has it's universities looking at the 'end game'.
Schedule easy opponents out of league to start the season.
Go .500 in league games.
Voila, you have made a bowl game!
Too bad that bowl games are now so plentiful and watered down that most folks don't give a rat's ass about bowl games till the big ones come next year.
The NFL is worse.
Raise your hand if you would watch a complete NFL game without fantasy implications.
Yeah, me too.
It has become a dull game.
Quarterbacks can legally ground the football.
Receivers actually try for penalties on long passes.
Defenders are confused in what is legal and what is not.
Two handed tackles have been replaced by hurtling a body at a ball carrier.
Gee, wonder why there are more injuries.
Ask yourself, who is the biggest star in the NFL...
It's a 40 year old man.
Tom Brady.
A 40 year old man should not be the headliner for ANY sport. Except maybe shuffleboard.
Most players would dwarf Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in their heyday.
The wink of the eye testing is creating more powerful forces making contact on players creating more injury, especially concussions.
Dick Butkus? He would be too small, too slow, and fundamentally, too sound to play today's NFL game.
PED's and excess working out have made the Dick Butkus style and physique obsolete.
I think that is where the rub is.
Butkus could hit a quarterback or another player as hard as possible. Without fear of a penalty.
Today's player is a victim of his own circumstance.
He's too big and can hurt the NFL's top prize. It's quarterback.
Butkus TRIED to hurt quarterbacks. Now, defenders try NOT to hurt quarterbacks.
Marveling at good hits in a highlight reel was fun. Now, they're penalties.
Worse, the NFL thinks the consumer wants to see more of this duller game.
A sport that was looked forward to on Sundays and a special Monday Night game has changed to Sunday night and Thursday night, and maybe even two Monday night games.
Get rid of the Thursday Night fiasco.
Chalk it up to a bad idea.
Admit it.
Phasing out Sunday nights would be a good idea also.
BUT, it won't happen.
The NFL is the No Fun League and the Nab Funds League.
It's all about the money.
And even though their product is producing diminishing results, the money still rolls in.
In a generation, the game has flip-flopped and is less appealing to the consumer.
After every incomplete pass play, a receiver begs for a flag.
Quarterbacks are altering cadences to try and get an off sides call.
Players are trying to create penalties.
To the fan, penalties are like a visit from the catcher to the pitcher in baseball.
It stops the game.
BORING.
But, that's the way of the game now.
NFL players have gotten bigger and faster, the game duller.
How does that happen?
Somehow, the NFL has accomplished the impossible.
And it has made September and October, for me, a little less special.
