What sparked me to write about it now was the recent game between the Pittsburg Steelers and the Denver Broncos. Or at least that's who I thought was playing... The Broncos won and it was some sort of 'play-off' game which means the Steelers are out. Imagine Chelsea getting knocked out of the FA Cup by Everton for all you 'real' football fans.
But apparently, the final touch-down was from an illegal play by the Broncos. Something like, they had six men in a line rather than the regulatory five. I suppose it's the equivalent to putting an extra man in a rugby scrum, right? So it was unfair and no the Steelers are pissed off. I don't know American Football too well, but it looked like they were being well and truly beat anyway.
So my opinion on the sport? Well first of all, it has a stupid name. It is not 'football'. Football is football (which is soccer for you Yanks). Why didn't you call this sport soccer? Or handball? Or anything other than something that is already a name of another sport?
I don't quite get the rules either. It's far too technical and all 'stop-start-stop-start'. If you throw the ball out of bounds, it's somehow still in your possession... Odd. And the whole, 'you must get this far in this amount of time' is just weird.
Another thing I don't like is the idea of specialised players. The kicker comes on just to take a penalty, I feel like we could utilise David Beckham like this when he's in his forties to just take corners and free-kicks. But they can change players whenever and however they want, as many times as they want. Unlike 'real' football where you are limited to three changes throughout. And the pay of each players varies drastically. A quarterback will be paid loads, whereas, the fat guy who just smashes people is probably receiving an average wage. At least show some consistency, I mean, in 'real' football, we over-pay all the players. Yeah, players like Rooney and Kompany are on wages above most others, but it doesn't depend on their position.
One thing I do like about American Football, though, is that it has a lot more pride involved in comparison to baseball, basketball and hockey. Fans will actually follow their teams and show support. However! (They're had to be a however.) The support shown is still nothing in comparison to 'real' football. We use our sport and team as a lifestyle and it seems as if nothing else matters when our team play. I remember not going to a party once because United lost to West Ham and I was just too depressed to do anything. Damn Matthew Upson.
I think American Football could be improved by making it an international sport, so the U.S can play against other nations. There's no better tournament than something like the World Cup or the Olympics. But who in their right mind would want to see that happen? A world-wide American Football tournament? Americans would. The rest of the world would just turn the TV over to something more entertaining, like Loose Women...
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