10 Reasons to Become a Football Fan
With the NFL regular season over (and the Bears out of the playoffs at 9-7), I have a little extra time to reflect on why I think football is so great to begin with. I could have called this post “10 Reasons to Become an NFL Fan,” but I realized that my second favorite sport is college football. So here are 10 reasons to become a football fan.
1. Join the monkey tribe.
Watching sports is like an outlet for our inner caveman tendencies, and the aggressiveness and violence of football makes it the perfect sport to do so. I can’t imagine anyone getting all paleolithic over a double in baseball. When you watch a football game with other fans, you get a 3-hour respite back into the goofiness of acting like monkeys, or, if you’re in a bar, high-fiving perfect strangers.
2. It fits into your schedule better.
Baseball’s dumb, because at 162 games that go through basically over half the year, there’s no way to keep on top of your team without devoting daily attention to it.
Football, however, is cooler because it’s difficult enough to only play once a week, and this once a week is much more convenient, and most of the year is the off-season anyway.
3. Know what you’re talking about on Superbowl Sunday.
Is there anything more annoying than going to a Superbowl party and hearing someone say “Oh, the Giants - are they good this year?” Yeah, they’re good, they made the Superbowl. “Is Phil Simms still their quarterback?” Aarrrrghhh no, everyone who’s not a moron knows that. Yes, you’re trying to make intelligent football conversation, but it would help if you actually knew what you were talking about.
Whichever team goes to the Superbowl this year, I’ll know who plenty of their players are, who their coach(es) are, and I won’t feel lost. And considering how many people watch the game, if you’re an American, there’s a good chance you’ll end up watching it, too.
4. Draft Day.
Witness the pure joy and endurance test that is the NFL Draft in my brother’s 2007 Draft Diary.
5. Playoffs.
Unlike the other major sports, the NFL playoffs don’t involve a “series” of games during every round, but instead one exciting, season-on-the-line game that you have to win. Needless to say, this makes things more exciting - about seven times more exciting than game 1 of a seven-game series.
6. Video games.
Football video games have reached a much higher level of sophistication than their other sports counterparts because so many more people care about football and want to buy NCAA and Madden every year.
7. Sunday Morning pre-game shows.
Sundays during fall and part of winter are ridiculously fun. If you get up really early, you can catch “NFL Matchup” on ESPN. Football programming starts at 10:00 a.m. here in the central time zone and goes pretty much through midnight, if you have NFL Network, with post-game shows and analysis.
8. Southern women.
I really know nothing about this, but from what I hear, in the south, college football is a way of life. Southeastern Conference teams like Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and LSU often get more attention than the pro teams, and along with all the attention come the belles of the south, all concentrated in one area - usually around the stadium.
9. Everyone will think you’re gay if you’re not.
How can any professional male answer “Oh, I don’t really watch football” if somebody asks you what you think of the Bears this year? How dare you! As a co-owner of a business, I consider my knowledge of football part of my business acumen. If a client brings up a certain team, I’ll know what I’m talking about, and I won’t arouse suspicions of secret womanhood.
10. You understand the movie “Rudy.”
I can see a non-football fan’s reaction to the movie “Rudy” as being, “hey, why does he care about playing for Notre Dame so much?” Of course, this will meet odd stares from football fans.
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