#3: Football

We are now two weeks post-Superbowl and I am have already having withdraws from the absolutely FANTASTIC game of American football. I get that soccer is the "original" football because it actually uses feet and is the world's sport and ya, ya, ya, but let's be real: what sport is as great as football?

As huge of a sports fan as I am, I am also a girlie girl, so I will start with the most obvious aspect of my heterosexual love of a sport: football pants. Which of course go hand-in-hand with some of the specific position players' builds: quarterback, tight end (literally, hehe), wide receiver, cornerback... to name just a few. Six foot something men without an ounce of body fat on them in spandex capris: you won't hear me complaining. Personally, I have yet to find a sport that has better looking players than football... seriously (not to mention my older-man crush on Joe Montana; he still looks THAT good!)

The tackling: it's the most civilized way to settle a score (literally again, wow, I'm on a roll!) in the oldest way known to man. Defense says to the offense, "you've got something we want" (the ball) and "I am now going to take you down so we can get it". Simple concept... complex execution.

The game itself: of the main sports that don't run continually during game time (i.e. basketball) all others, save football, are chasing a little white thing... does anyone else find that boring after oh, say, 10 minutes? Soccer, baseball, hockey... little white thing being chased by grown men in games that drag on forever. Not football! Football games are long enough that they make it worth your while to make the effort to go to the game or somewhere to watch the game, they keep your attention even though play isn't always continual amd again, they wear FOOTBALL PANTS. (Frankly, that in and of itself should be enough!)

Finally, I don't know if anyone besides me has noticed this (not because I'm so smart, but because of the misfires in my brain, I think of random stuff...) but for the most part (I didn't do enough research on this to find the statistics, because there are bad apples everywhere) players in the NFL aren't/don't seem to be in trouble nearly as often as other professional athletes. Now, again, I give the disclaimer that there are plenty of NFL idiots (I mean, what do you expect... they get hit in the head all the time!) who drive under the influence, beat their wives/girlfriends, allow their ego to drive their manhood, etc. However, Roger Goodell (the NFL commissioner) doesn't mess around with punishments: you screw up, you pay. Big Ben is a prime example. Brett Favre (who almost single handedly derailed this argument, given that despite his genius on the field several years ago, is a world-class idiot) is also a case of punishment being enforced. Good work, Rog! Whereas the MLB seems to constantly have steroid issues on top of the aforementioned bad decisions, the NBA seems to have become little more than street ball of ego-maniacs like Lebron James. Doesn't anyone remember when the NBA was cool? When it was Reggie, MJ, Scottie Pippen, etc.? You know, guys who actually knew how to play the game and had some fundamentals (again, not to say they weren't idiots off the court, but at least they weren't when they were on the court!) Furthermore, a lot of the "do-gooders" in professional sports today come from football, and have come from football in the past, I could write a long list of NFL players involved in doing the right thing and being the right person for the right reasons: find me three in one sport alone (save Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers because he's a cut above most people in general, let alone professional athletes or baseball players) because I couldn't come up with three in other sports.

So as unorganized as the idea of number three is, I am extremely grateful for the game of football, its hitting, rule enforcing, good-doing PANTS.