Football and Showbiz

There's been a lot of talk lately about sloppy football. Tom Brady said it earlier in the season, and in the wildcard playoff round I heard an announcer say the same again. Across the board, from players to coaches to referees, the lack of fundamentals is pretty obvious. You see a lot of guys missing tackles and calling dumb plays and missing blatant rules violations. Football isn't what it once was, and I think that the NFL and collegiate conferences are pleased about that.

Football has always been a spectacle: twenty-two hulking men bashing heads like American gladiators. But in the last decade or so, the game has transcended the field. No longer are there just two sports networks and a few journalists in a few dozen national markets. The internet allows everyone to be a Monday morning quarterback, and above all else, the MMQB's chief trait is outrage.

A few generations of sports fans, raised watching Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn, now have the means to broadcast their own opinions. Not only that, but they can get on Twitter and spat with the heels of sports media. The leagues are not only well aware of it, but they also celebrate the kayfabe. Above all else, the NFL loves drama. All press is good press, so whenever controversy arises, business is booming.

I just watched the AFC championship game between the Chiefs and the Bengals. Setting aside the fact that I live in Cincinnati and have grown to be a fan, I also pride myself on being a fan of football, the game, above all else. I want to see good, clean football. All drama comes from the competitors themselves.

There were a number of questionable calls in the fourth quarter, along with a totally bizarre sequence that gave the Chiefs two shots at third down. Not too long before that happened, I tweeted that I would not complain about poor officiating, but that there is certainly too much officiating these days. The referees have become stars in their own right, so much so that the TV networks all staff rules analysts to comment on the zebras' performances.

Some time, probably about 15 years ago, instant replay really took off. The cameras  and video transmission tech got good enough that they became tools to review plays during the game. For a while, coaches were permitted a pair of appeals, which triggered the process. After a while, the leagues began instituting automatic review procedures, meant to verify scoring plays and other key moments.

That's led to a lot of sloppy officiating. This was pretty clear in the college football playoff, where officials would let play continue, just in case. It's an innocent until proven guilty strategy, requiring play to be constantly interrupted so that New York can give their take. No longer are games played out between two cities, the commisioner's office must mediate games in their entirety.

The league loves that people hate it, just like the heels in pro wrestling. Millions of people, within and outside Cincinnati, are pissed about the role the refs played this evening. Everyone feels like we didn't get to see a fair matchup, that there was something else that got in the way of true competition. And I have to say: I agree.

It feels to me that the sport I love so much, the sport that has given me so much, has lost it's purity. And those aren't just my rose colored glasses. The game has been professionalized for quite some time, but even as a kid it seemed to have a certain rag-tag charm that's gone now.

Football is no longer a game. It's now a commodity; just another product of show-business.