The NFL and the Cult of Superstar

I'm going to start this off by saying I am reconsidering my almost 3 year long boycott of the NFL (yeah, it's really been that long).  My demands simply aren't going to be met and other leagues are mimicking the NFL for exactly the same things I left it.  The NCAA may be an exception, but they have their head so far up their ass, at least organizationally, that they're really not worth defending.

So why not simply address and try to understand why the league acts the way it does (in this blog post, that is, stating the issue to the NFL themselves would endear you to them much as Pete Rose endears himself to Bud Selig).

The NFL does all of these crazy rules because of their cult of superstar.

You can't hit the quarterback -- because they're the superstar.

You can't chop down a wide receiver with your helmet -- because they're the superstar.

Note: I actually kind of agree with the last one, but not because a football player should not be on the receiving end of a tackle, but because tackling at the NFL level is really subpar -- running at high speed and hoping it makes the other person fall down.

But it continues with new rules they've been putting in place even more recently since the lockout ended.

Two-a-days are now a relic of the past -- despite being the standard in High School and College.  Why?  If you're already an awesome player, you don't need the extra time to get more awesome -- you're just more likely to get hurt.  Nevermind that borderline players need the extra time to make their case for a roster spot -- make their case for a pay check -- we can't risk losing a whole season of Chad Ochocinco quips because he tweaked his knee running that extra route.

The other rule change is the kickoff being moved 5 yards closer to midfield.  Basically this means every single kickoff will be a touchback.  "Oh, but Knuttel, aren't kick-returners superstars too?"  This is where it gets tricky.  A very excellent kick returner may get to the level of celebrity of a regular starter within the team's fanbase, but it is rare that it extends beyond that.  Kick returners are usually listed as the 4th or 5th wide receiver on the depth chart, or the 3rd runningback, some back up defensive back -- you get the picture.  They are on the field for only a handful of plays.  It's like if kickers had athleticism -- and no one likes kickers.  Basically this eliminates the position -- the roster need of a pure athlete, someone who could work on his route running, his catching, his tackling, but in the meantime, can run and juke like a motherfucker, so you want to get him on the field some.  The thing is, not a lot of players get beyond that, even the good ones.  For every Steve Smith, who began his pro-bowl wide receiver career as an undersized pro-bowl kick returner, there's a million Brian Mitchells and Eric Metcalfs that can't put everything else together on an NFL level.

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this culture in the NFL though is the huge lack of creativity.  Any new ideas are crushed at the first sign of failure.  The most recent breakthrough in offense is the West Coast offense of the early 80s -- most offenses simply do a variant of that.  The two biggest defensive fads (cover-2 and 3-4) have their roots in the 70s and 80s likewise.  There's two reasons for this -- owners and gms are short-sighted, and short term failure all too often leads to long term failure in their logic; and the stars of today MUST be compared to the stars of yesterday.

This about it.  You can think of any star player nowadys, and you can probably draw some sort of comparison to any other player since offensive linemen were allowed to engage blocks with their hands.  If someone baffles THAT much, you can just combine two.  All sports coverage reinforces this concept.  The game can never change too much, because if it does, then how are we going to know if Dan Marino really was the greatest quarterback never to win a super bowl?

Frankly, I don't get it.  Developing new ideas prevents the other teams from predicting what you're going to do, and my god, have there been any decent running backs after 30 besides Emmit Smith in recent history?  Isn't that an alarming trend the league should look into?  Or is the damage too drawn out to cause a sudden dip in stardom?

And with only 32 teams, we need to see new ideas executed.  This isn't baseball, where there are only so many ways to run in straight lines around the bases.  This is football, there's an entire field width-wise and legnth-wise, and theres 4 downs to get 10 yards (3 if you're in Canada).  I want to see an NFL coach who refuses to run the ball like Mike Leach, or refuses to throw the ball like Paul Johnson (the fun part about ignoring one of the two conventional ways of moving the ball is you have to then move it the other way unconventionally).

Come on

-- The Knuttel