I have had almost the opposite experience of Alex, who yesterday panned America’s favorite sport with a post entitled “Why I Hate Football.” I was born into a family where nobody cared about sports, and I only made an effort to understand the basic concepts behind football so I could beat my friends at Tecmo Bowl.
Growing up in Kansas City was probably similar to growing up in a lot of mid-size Midwestern cities with NFL teams where everybody is insane for their team; the fans come off as loutish, drunken boors, with Bud Light fetishes, greasy mullets, rusty pickup trucks and coon dogs. I actually don’t know what a coon dog is, but I’m sure you can find them in abundance tailgating in the parking lot at Arrowhead Stadium, also referred to as “Camarohead” by anti-football snobs (my former self included). I hated everything about football and the ignorant buffoons I imagined were its players and devotees.
At some point a couple years ago I began noticing that people who I considered intelligent were following the sport, even obsessively. They would discuss detailed strategies and player formations. Mysterious phrases like “Cover Two” and “Quarter Three Deep” piqued my interest. I discovered that the game was not only appealing to the reptilian brutality center of my brain, but to the intellectual side, too. Finally, I began hearing people discuss fantasy football, although I was sorely disappointed to learn it had nothing to do with ball-carrying half-orcs slicing linebacker trolls open with axes.
At any rate, my dislike for the game faded and I viewed it with new eyes. The long, boring interludes between plays became barely enough time to adjust the strategy and try to predict what the opposing team would do. I love soccer, and I have grown big soft spots for footy, (Australian football) and rugby, but these sports do not allow for nearly the depth of strategy you see in NFL football. The precision with which offenses must execute complex plays that often involve multiple layers of misdirection can not be matched by any sport, and is only possible due to the stop-and-go nature of the game.
I learned that the players, particularly the linemen, are not the blubbery oafs of legend. They are intelligent and meaningful contributors; their blocking schemes are surprisingly varied and complex, changing from play to play. On offense they have to open holes and passing lanes while sniffing out blitzes, and on defense they need good instincts to anticipate where the ball is going to be and sniff out misdirection. If they don’t perform well, the team is in trouble.
Of course, the best part of NFL football is the homo-eroticism. No other sport requires its players to wear pads which are obviously intended to enhance their manly, broad-shouldered appearance while also requiring them to wear tights and slap each other on the butt meat. And of course the quarterback: lined up under center with his hands lovingly cradling his teammate’s nuts, ready to toss his rock to the tight end… Does it get any better in the sporting world?
So in two posts we’ve determined that football is both too gay and not gay enough.
Also, I used to get so angry to discover that the term “fantasy” football had duped me again (I had the same vision of orcs and swords), just like I kept being disappointed to discover that my step-dad’s “RPG” books were about programming mid-range IBM computers.
There’s gotta be a videogame out there that incorporates elves n’ shit into a football game. If not, it’s about damned time.
I love football because it is such a subtle sport (and partly because i too grew up in KC). At first glance it is no more than a mob of beast-men man-handling one another, but the more you watch, and the more attention you give it it becomes so much more than the civilized WWF Royal Rumble that it appears to be, it is a true thinking man’s game that requires as much strategy and cunning as coordinating a battle plan in an actual war.
That brings me to another point - why I hate Madden (the video game). It thoroughly pisses me off when I put so much thought into my game plan only to have my opponent call a hail mary every play and end up scoring on almost every possession. I guess that is what happens when the only person you have to play Madden with is your wife.
The way to kick ass on Tecmo Bowl, if I remember, was to be one of three teams, The Raiders with Bo Jackson, the Bears with Payton and Singletary or the 49ers with Rice and Montana.
That flea-flicker play with the 49ers worked everytime. God I loved that game.
Hey Tony, there was actually a Tecmo Bowl tournament in NYC this past weekend. I wish I had to time to drop in. Bo to the outside, mofos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutant_League_Football
I spent a large part of my childhood playing Mutant League Football on my Sega Genesis. While not quite orcs and elves, it’s got fucking monsters, trolls, and robots. Exploring footballs, trick plays involving the killing of the opposing team, exploding mines and fire pits on the football field, bribing (and killing!) the refs, 16-bit blood and gore… It’s my second favorite football game of all time, right behind Tecmo Bowl.
I had never heard of Mutant League Football, but my life has now been consumed with finding a Genesis emulator and a ROM of MLF.
Of course, you’re only allowed to play grab-ass if you’re on the team. They seem to not take kindly to opportunistic attempts to join in by over-enthusiastic spectators. Inconsiderate gits.
Mutant League was a series of games, a buddy of mine had Mutant League hockey, and it was truly a wonderful experience.
In terms of fantasy football featuring elves and such, Games Workshop the company that does Warhammer 40k had a football game based in the Warhammer (not 40k) world available probably 10 years ago. It was a dice centric table game, but none the less fun for what it was.
Mutant League was awesome. I purchased it recently, but then it came up missing after I moved to a new apartment on the other side of Brooklyn.
I loves me some old school sports games. One day during the spring/summer I’m going to organize an event a nyclan.net.
O-H!
I-O!