NFL: Still Not the American Pasttime
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by MattB15
Many people like to make the arguement that the NFL is now the pasttime in America, for my money, it's not the NFL, not even a sport. Anymore it seems like the youth is much more interested in TV, video games and the computer more than sports. But that is beyond the point. Baseball is still truly America's pasttime.
People who argue that the NFL is a full-year round sport are idiots. It's exciting for 5 months of the year. Those months are September, October, November, December and January. The regular season is great, no arguements and I don't count February, because football is non-existant during about 25 days of February. Two days for prepping for the Super Bowl and one day of the Super Bowl.
The NFL is shooting themselves in the foot by trying to advertise the NFL as a year round sport, the NFL Network is making their reputation a lot worse on my part. It's okay to have a television station dedicated to the league, but to put on some of the great events that fans look forward to on their is wrong. The NFL is depriving about 80% of their fans, who don't have access to the station of fun events like the Hall of Fame game, and even a few regular season games and the night Thanksgiving game. The NFL's offseason is like watching paint dry.
The draft is cool...when you read about it the next day in the paper. To watch 15 minutes between picks and listening to the waning voice of Mel Kiper for 12 of those minutes is as annoying as it gets. The last big trade was Portis for Bailey...not a bad trade, but the in the other leagues a trade like that happens 2-3 times per year, this was the biggest move of the past 5 years.
Edgerrin James and Thomas Jones have been 2 of the biggest names to change location during the past 2 offseasons. Edge did next to nothing in his first season on the West Coast while Thomas Jones is a solid RB, but far from a superstar. Then comes the rookie signing period, oh joy. Watch all the defensive players and offensive lineman sign quick, and have it drone on until the big-name high profile divas at the skill positions hold out. You know that they'll sign quick, most likely in the first season, and if they don't, they get a reputation.
Adam "Pac Man" Jones and Cedric Benson had long holdouts during the 2005 season, see where that landed them? Adam is the most controversial face in the NFL right now, screw Vick, it's Pac Man and alot of people I've seen actually point to his holdout. Cedric was a great talent who made a great tandem with Thomas Jones in the Bears backfield but this pri-madona Benson made little prissy fights with Thomas Jones and Thomas eventually left.
NFL Network is good, but NFL, you're a good company making lots of money, don't make people pay so much extra money per month just to get a better cable package to watch 6-7 games/year. Also, baseball is still the pasttime. The All-Star game is the only all-star game that's worth watching in all of pro sports. The season is packed with huge surprises and great moments past the steroid investigation. People love baseball to the point that mostly all of the fans came back from the strike which cut the 1994 season short and the steroid problems.
NFL has yet to have a problem like that, but if they did I'm sure that fans would come back - and sadly the main reason they'd be coming back is for their love of not the game of football, rather the aspect of Fantasy Football. Baseball cards still heavily outsell football cards, although baseball only has 2 companies selling cards licensed by MLB now (Upper Deck and Topps) while football has those two plus Donruss. Little League is also showing how much the youth loves baseball. Little League versus Pee Wee football is not even a competition.
My opinion may be controversial to some, but I'm just voicing my opinion. All arguements welcome, thank you.
And let me just assure you, I'm a huge football fan, but baseball is more appealing to myself.
