Looks like I won’t be watching football again this year. I’m not protesting the protesters exactly, at least not primarily. I’ve just been watching less in recent years as it became more and more obvious that the NFL doesn’t want me as a viewer, and I keep finding better things to do on a Sunday afternoon. The anthem thing is just a part of that, which I’ll write more on another time.

The bigger problem is the way they’ve been changing the game to appeal more to people who don’t actually like football, but who like big, obvious plays so they can cheer with their friends and check their fantasy team on their phone. The NFL has drawn in an audience that doesn’t want to see a team grind out a 17-play drive four yards at a time, because that’s boring and they don’t understand what those guys in the middle pushing on each other are doing anyway. They’ve introduced replay refereeing, which turns it into a reality show where the drama isn’t in the play on the field, but in the wait afterwards to see how someone in New York rules on it. And now they’ve added a “squishing the quarterback” penalty, so flags hanging from the QB’s belt can’t be far off. It’s a mess, and they won’t even admit there’s a problem with the ratings dropping, let alone do anything to fix it.

Anyway, though I won’t be watching, I do still kinda miss the game. Maybe I should catch a couple local college or high school games. Hmm, QU games are $9/seat for the nosebleed section, which means about 12 rows up. No bad seats in a D2 stadium, and I’ll bet beer is less than $10 a cup. In the meantime, something reminded me of the old Terry Tate Office Linebacker spots, so I watched some of those. They’re still as funny, maybe funnier, now that all these hits would be flagged for unnecessary roughness and then flagged again for taunting.