Football, the devil that makes us watch

Another round of breathless games deepens the national obsession

One full week into the college season, football remains the devil that makes you think twice.

So many things about it are despicable, especially the part that is so dang good.

Football is grotesque. States with brown water coming out of the faucet build indoor practice facilities that have everything but sound stages. 

And you turn it on Saturday and see South Dakota State pushing Iowa over Kinnick Stadium only to lose, 7-3, on a field goal and two safeties.

Football is tragic. I’m tired of reading obituaries of 49-year-old ex-NFL players. True, players get thrown out of games for targeting now, but somehow it doesn’t stop them from doing it.

And you turn it on Saturday and see Appalachian State scoring 40 points in the fourth quarter, missing a 2-point conversion with a half-minute to go, giving up a touchdown on its own onside kick, and then exploding downfield for another touchdown at the end and missing yet another 2-point conversion. North Carolina 63, Appalachian 61, and you wished you’d spent the day in the same room with podcasters and ex-scouts Daniel Jeremiah (former App State QB) and Bucky Brooks (former Carolina receiver), with the trash talk overflowing all receptacles.

Football is disloyal. It’s not just the coaches who go job-hopping after one season, or accept a job by cellphone on the street before going back inside for more of Mama’s peach cobbler at the table of a player they no longer want. It’s the quarterbacks who begin angling for greener pastures when they’re sophomores in high school, and then run out on their teammates during the transfer portal – or run into them, as they squeeze their way out.

And you turn it on Sunday and see Florida State getting ready to Ziploc its game against LSU when it calls a moronic pitch on the goal line, fumbles, and numbly watches the Tigers gallop 99 yards for the touchdown that will tie it when the point-after goes through, except Florida State blocks it. Seminoles 24, LSU 23.

Football is bloated. In college you have 22 positions, without the kickers. Why do you need 85 scholarships? And why are you denying opportunities to the swimmers, the field hockey players and the golfers by whacking their programs because the football beast wakes up hungry each morning?

And you turn it on Thursday and you see West Virginia’s deflected pass land in Pittsburgh’s hands for a pick-six and the essential touchdown in one of America’s great rivalries, deferred for 11 years because of conference politics.

Football is cold. Speculators who send checks to the athletic department and get their names placed on marquees think they’ve inherited the power to fire coaches who only win eight games. Not only the head coaches, but all the assistants and analysts beneath them on the endless manifest. Multiply that by all the children who will have to find new schools, wives who will be buying new houses while their spouses are flying around recruiting, phone numbers that can’t be shared, toxic Twitter accounts that shouldn’t be read by the kids, addresses that can’t be divulged. One badly-timed fumble, and your house is surrounded by jackals.

And you turn it on Saturday and Georgia’s Malaki Starks is running downfield with an Oregon receiver, and when the ball arrives, Starks jumps and fades backwards just like the receiver does, and he gathers in the pick before he hits the ground, a play that you won’t see in an NFL game if you watch every play for two weeks. Starks is a freshman.

It is the power of theater, of entertainment. We know all about the septic brew that bubbles behind the curtain of football. We sign up anyway. Last year, forty-eight of the 50 top-rated television shows in America – not just sports, but all shows – were NFL games.

Last year the pro playoff rounds left America breathless for three weekends. There were four games during Divisional Playoff weekend. The first three were determined by last-play field goals. The fourth seemed settled when Buffalo scored at the 0:13 mark of the fourth quarter, but then Kansas City tied it somehow and won in overtime.

The conference championships? Cincinnati won at Kansas City on an overtime field goal. The Rams beat San Francisco, but only got the chance because Jaquiski Tartt dropped an interception in the fourth quarter, with the 49ers leading and with the Rams out of time outs.

Then, of course, the Rams won the Super Bowl when Cooper Kupp converted a fourth down fly sweep in his own territory, then caught Matthew Stafford’s winning TD pass.

The final seven postseason games were decided by a total of 24 points. Each of them contained enough questionable calls, debatable decisions, inexplicable bounces and general weirdness to sustain nationwide chit-chat until it was time to kick off again.

Why is football, with all its nonsense, always perching on our shoulder with a pitchfork?

– Armchair expertise. Very few people, at least south of the border, are going to second-guess a power-play entry. Very few people are going to nitpick an NBA defensive rotation. Everybody, and I mean everybody, knows what to do on third-and-three, especially after the gain is only two.

– The quarterbacks. Thanks to the spread offenses and the high tempo, the QB has become the unquestioned alpha, a $40 million a year man in the NFL, an idol or a pariah. You don’t win national championships with Steve Sogge at quarterback anymore, no disrespect intended, and you don’t get to Super Bowls with David Woodley and Tony Eason. It thus becomes easy to reduce the game to my QB vs. yours, and we all like simplicity. No need to analyze spin rates.

– A sense of community. Thanks to StubHub and Southwest Airlines, NFL fans hit the road in large numbers. Kinship ensues. Parents of college players become their own support groups. Add that up and it brings back a sense of belonging that is often lost in the bowling-alone era.

– The game itself. Somehow there’s always enough time to win.  Somehow there’s a place for a guided missile like Tyreek Hill and a route-running technocrat like Hunter Renfrow. The best defensive player in the world, and maybe the best player, is a 6-foot-1 defensive tackle. The best quarterback in the history of the game was a sixth-round draft choice. It’s just predictable enough to bet on, just quirky enough to take your money.

The NFL starts up Thursday. Please allow it to introduce itself. It comes with an apple in the garden, and as many bites as you can stand.