Let American Football Die as a Sport

Football features two of the worst aspects of American life, violence and committee meetings.
George F. Will


Pity all the poor owners and players in the National Football League. Why, they just can't seem to come together on an agreement to divvy up all those hundreds of millions of dollars in a way satisfactory for them all. It, it, simply brings a tear to the eye.

Not. Most emphatically not.

So the NFL players association has decertified itself. Big whoop. The owners have instituted a lockout. Double big whoop. So now the players can sue the NFL as individuals against a monopoly. Really big whoop. You mean it wasn't effectively a monopoly anyway? Just like the players union itself was not a monopoly? By all that's right in the world, there ought to have been a Detroit Lions union (okay, so that does invite all kinds of jokes, buy let that be as it may) or a Green Bay Packers union rather than one big union anyway if monopolies weren't involved.

The best thing that can happen now is for the entire 2011 season to be lost; indeed, for modern professional football as a sport to be knocked down a few pegs. The league, the players, and the very game have become far too arrogant and self aggrandizing. Celebrating savage hits as something to marvel upon? Life threatening injuries are interpreted as 'part of the game'? Incessant trash talk and unsportsmanlike conduct on the field (too many actions on the field are nothing more than in your face insults which no true sport ought to tolerate). Why not let's go back to the Roman Colosseum for our blood for sport?

Why, football is such a great game that it can only be played once a week. That's a testament to how big and tough football players are, to be sure. Yessir, we're big and tough, not like you baseball and hockey and basketball weaklings who play several times a week. Real men, we NFLers are.

Let the NFL die, and let its fans watch it decompose. They may find that there are better things in life. Such as getting one.