It's probably best to begin by letting everyone know that this column isn't about politics. Whenever I write anything about the National Football League, my comments section is stormed by an army of conservative keyboard warriors who, in their Colin Kaepernick-filled rage, are all too eager to unload on Roger Goodell and the organization over which he presides.
Trust me, dear readers, I have plenty of bad things to say about Roger Goodell, but they're mostly about the game of football. My lament comes from a place of deep, lifelong fandom and is triggered by the fact that I don't believe that the NFL is very much about the game of football anymore.
That's kind of a dig at Goodell. We're off to a good start.
Given the pace at which the powers that be are trying to ruin the game, I could write a weekly series on what's wrong with professional and collegiate football. While venting would give me some temporary relief, it would eventually send me to a dark place where most of my free time would be spent self-medicating with strong beer and watching YouTube videos of the days when defenders were allowed to hit quarterbacks.
I am a diehard Pittsburgh Steelers fan (weird story), and I was in high school for most of the team's early Super Bowl success. That was my first exposure to the social beast known as the Super Bowl Party (SBP). It was a nascent cultural phenomenon at the time; the gatherings were more focused on the Super Bowl than the party. If there were 40 people at the party, 37 of them were true football fans, and the other three knew enough not to irritate everyone with non-football crap.
In the 1980s, the Super Bowl went from being the most important football game of the year to being the most important television event of the year. There was a decided shift in focus, with the party taking precedence over the Super Bowl itself. The beginning of the end, in other words.
Because I was a 20-something entertainer in the '80s, my recollections of exact timelines can be a little fuzzy. I've heard rumors that 1985 was absolutely wonderful. Anyway, I can't put my memory's finger on the precise point in time that SBPs began being polluted with people who were there for the food and — because television eventually ruins every sport it touches — the commercials.
That's how insidious all of this is — people began looking forward to advertisements. What a sick, sick world.
Real sports fans loathe commercials. In fact, if there were an Olympic event that involved racing to grab a remote and mute an ad while we're watching a game, we would all be contending for gold medals. Heaven help the person who gets between me and the remote as a football broadcast goes to a commercial about medication for leaping chlamydia.
At many SBPs here in the 21st century, people will chatter all through the game, then shush everyone during the commercials. I honestly fear that I am maybe one or two SBPs away from a mugshot because somebody shushed me directly. I'll give you "mayhem," you football agnostic ad fanboy.
The greatest evil visited upon us by the non-fans who have taken over the Super Bowl is the halftime show abomination. The NFL rulebook states that, "Between the second and third periods, there shall be an intermission of 13 minutes." Again, that's from the official rules. Because the Super Bowl has very little to do with football, the rules are tossed out the window in order to appease the television network programming wraiths whose offices are in the ninth ring of Hell. The Super Bowl halftime show finishes a few minutes before Opening Day in Major League Baseball. A slow learner could get an associate's degree during the Super Bowl halftime.
No true fan wants there to be extra time between the action of a football game. Oh, and we don't care about the party cuisine either. Get the Lipton's onion soup mix, make some dip, and get your idiotic commercial-loving butt away from the TV.
Since I don't believe in coincidences, I read a lot into the rise in popularity of the Super Bowl and its attendant parties happening concurrently with the wussification of the game of football. Within ten years, I swear that the defenders will have to seek verbal permission to come in contact with the offense. In an effort to bring more fans to football, the NFL apparently believes that gutting everything that's good about the game of football is the key. Roger Goodell (told you I didn't like him) probably dreams of the day that NFL scores look like NBA scores.
I know that we real football fans will never get the Super Bowl back. Goodell's vision board probably sees a day when there are four quarters of halftime performances, with 13 minutes of flag football between the second and third, and the games will be played in Stockholm or Buenos Aires (a rant for another day). Perhaps I'll start a company that organizes Super Bowl parties for true fans. Membership will be predicated upon things like knowing the difference between encroachment and offside, or being able to name at least five players from the 1950s and '60s.
Anyone caught watching one of the commercials will immediately be shown the door.
I will leave you with this palate cleanser from a bygone era:
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