Me neither. I’d much prefer to watch football than any of the other shit that passes for programming on a Sunday evening.
But i think that, even for football fans, the game would be improved considerably by reducing the number of stoppages and delays in play. Not just because it would make the game a more exciting and sustained spectacle, but because it might mean that the night-time games finish early enough so that people on the east coast don’t have to stay up so late when they need to get up for work the next morning.
Look, i recognize that football is, for the TV stations and for the NFL, all about making money. Both groups care about the fans only insomuch as we make it possible for them to sleep in beds stuffed with cash. The NFL would happily cancel all football games if it would make more money that way, and TV stations would happily screen 24 hours of commercials a day if they thought we could be convinced to watch them.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we should just shut up and take what they feed us. Take my example of the two-minute warning. Sure, there might have been a reason for introducing the rule in the first place (a silly reason, but whatever). That reason no longer applies, though, and so there’s no need for the rule. I think it’s pretty sad that so many football fans have not only internalized the rule, but actually argue that it improves the game by rewarding “clock management.” Jesus, talk about drinking the Flavor-Aid. In what other sport do people actually look upon pointless, intentional, game-disrupting breaks in play as something to be admired? In what Orwellian world is a break, where no play occurs, actually taken by fans as a marker of good play?
Sure, good clock management might be an admirable skill, but it should be one that is demonstrated on the field, not arbitrarily helped by a pointless ad break. I’m impressed when a team marches down the field by going no-huddle, by making short passes that the receiver takes out of play, and by keeping the defense on the back foot with good play calling. I’m impressed when a defense counters this by keeping the ball in bounds, by hurrying the QB, and forcing the run. All of THAT is good clock management. Any defense of the two-minute warning is nothing more than a case of gullible fans who have been eating a shit sandwich for so long that they think it’s actually bacon.
Not sure anyone has actually made that claim. Certainly, no football fan in this thread has made that claim. But stacking up breaks that are actually detrimental to the game, just because you can and just to cram more ads in, sucks.
I feel the same way, by the way, about the fact that MLB agreed to longer breaks between half-innings in the LCS to allow FOX to shoehorn more commercials in. That’s why, in last year’s ALCS, we had a 2-0 game that took 3:25, and a 4-2 game that took 3:48. In the regular season, both of those games would likely have been over in comfortably under three hours.
