100 years of football

America it seems has once again fallen in love with their national sport.  Football. Statistics for latest season as tracked by trackers that track all things money indicate that attendance as well as eyeballs on screens were up on average 5% from prior years.

When the 49ers played their conference championship last night the Levis was packed to its gills or waist? 

Super Bowl in Miami this year is already boasting of headliner singers and crooners and rappers to entertain and enthrall the people paying to attend with tickets running as high as the cost of a fully loaded Tesla X.

Hey if you got it flaunt it and then worry about debt. Right?

After watching my first season of football (purely for material) including 10 full games with eight different teams (read corporations doing business) below are some rookie (not novice - see my lingo is changing) observations -

• There are 11 supersized humans on each side that competes at any given point on the field.
• The field is a acre and a half rectangle with 100 yards length to run the ball and an extra 10 yards tacked on either end as the end zones.  What most other sports consider the goal line.
• The Quarterback is an important man on the field.  Also called QB he seems to wield a captain like power over the other 10 players on his squad who gathers his grunting members to plan some tactics before start of a drive.  Why he is a 'quarterback' I have no idea.  
• As opposed to halfback - perhaps because he is always plays from the back quarters when he aims and throws the projectile aka the ball to his receivers.  
• There are no halfbacks but there are 'linebackers'.  I will be back with more on them in another blog.  Not back to back but some other day.
• A drive is the effort the offensive team takes on against the defense in order to get the ball to the defendants end zone.  They are given four chances to move their ball 10 yards toward the defenders end zone.  If they succeed they do it again else the ball goes to the defender to attempt the same thing going the other way.
• Game runs into quarters - four of 15 min each.  Actual play time ends up being close to two plus hours given all the hissy fits and flags and injuries sustained during course of play.  The one hour event is called regulation time.  Unnecessary verbiage to sound important.
• Point scoring like tennis is meaningless.  Once a ball carrying giant gets into the opposite team's end zone they score six points.  Then they get a field kick to score an extra point making it a seven point game.  A team with most points on the board wins.  That is the basic plot.
• Speaking of giants these NFL players look like a tractor is bearing  down on you.  At average weight of 250 pounds and six foot two height most characters also sport layers of hair coming out at all angles from their skull giving them an appearance of a mythical creature.
• Then the helmets and padding and other accouterments and you have a monster mass moving at a 10 knot + clip that you may or may not see as you try and catch the ball in the air.  I would not want to be near this thing.
• The millions that are showered on the players are in part an insurance policy just in case they get permanently damaged during the course of the drives.  Drive by injury of sorts.
• As far as demographics the age of an average player seems to be 28.  Many are younger and agile and the older ones bring the wisdom gained with the bruises along the way.
• Most QB are white - there was one black dude that belonged to Seattle this season but then again he could be traded to some other business next year.  So its just a matter of which shirt brand pays the most.  On the other hand most of the other people running on the field are black.  There is no Asian or Indian or Latino player that I could tell.  I am sure there is one here or there but it is not apparent under the large helmet.  Although now that I think there might have been an Asian dude who was a kicker for some team - his job is to just come out and kick a ball into the goal and go sit down.  There are some strange rules when that happens.
• Finally there is a strange nomenclature surrounding the season's games.  Playoffs v regular season v championship games v Super Bowl.  Why they could not do the round of 16 and eliminations is beyond me.   Again something to sound different and important.  Silly.
• All in all while the game seems to require some strategy and lot of agility to play it appears to be a deadly sport with no justification for why its still being played.  Duh!  People like to watch other people get hurt and do so legally.  And in true capitalist spirit - there is a lot of money in this thing.