Like sschind I've always been a Packer fan rather than a NFL fan. So, as long as the Packers still interest me, that's all I care about. And when it comes to the Packers, so far I've pretty much been able to retain my interest despite all of the following which I despise about the game's evolution:
1. The legalism. The rule book of football should neither look like, be as long as, or read like, the US Tax Code. It should be nearly as simple as the pick-up games we played when I was a kid. Simple 5 or 15 yard penalties for offsides, illegal procedure/motion, holding, clipping, too many men on field, delay of game, pass interference [I
would support making this one a 15 yard penalty], intentional grounding, personal foul, unsportsmanlike conduct. Late hits/taunting, celebration, whatnot either fit easily in a basic fairness interpretation of one of the last two or aren't penalties.
("Basic fairness" and "interpretation" being applied as if the big kid referree were a local magistrate untrained in the law rather than someone who thinks like a lawyer.)
2. The legalism, part II. Approaching rules like perfect justice is possible. Bad calls will get made, some of them that will forever go down in history as "my team got screwed by the refs". Tough. That's the way ordinary life works. And this is just a damn game. Worrying about getting a game perfect when real life is never in this world going to approach perfection is just damn loony.
3. The marketing focus. Virtually everything not determined and argued about in the manner of bad lawyers is determined according to the worst of corporate marketing philosophies. Uniform police. Playing games on plastic. Players and execs who bitch about the condition of the field or the rain.
4. Dumbing down the game. MNF booth shots/interviews and ESPN "reporters". Sideline "commentary." Play by play and color commentary: "Starr. Dowler. Touchdown" is all you need for video. Radio that describes the formation and substitutions and evolution of play as it happens is good. Frank Gifford pre-game highlights or Howard Cosell halftime highlights are good. Everything else is crap and more crap. .
4. Dumbing down the game meets the marketing focus. If I want to listen to Hank Jr's or PRince's singing, I'll listen to a CD or go to a concert; if I want to ogle Faith Hill's legs, I'll watch a you-tube video. It's about the damn game. It's not about simplifying the game so any braindead couch potato can stay awake enough to drink a 12 pack and eat two family-size bags of potato chips. Anyone who takes a little bit of time thinking about the game (a little bit of time means "have played or supervised to pickup football games between 10 year olds twice", knows that football is more than having ten touchdowns a game and protecting prima donnas so they can have 4000 passing yards every season.
5. Getting rid of end-zone to end-zone bump-and-run coverage. Do you realize there are 51 players who have more total receiving yards than Ray Berry? How many of them do you think would still exceed his total had they, as he did, played his entire career before the stupid league started adding to the illegal contact rules. People like to say today's players are better blah blah blah.....well, I beg to disagree. Jerry Rice might have still made the Hall of Fame. But he would never have had 2.5 times Berry's passing yards. (Similarly, Peyton Manning may well still have been a first-ballot HOFer; but would he have been able to last long enough to enter Johnny Unitas's neighborhood in either TDs or yards? I'm skeptical.)
6. The incredible lack of a sense of history going back more than a decade or so. Packer fans and (IMO the team itself) are so far above the league average in this respect it is just incredible. I venture a guess if you did a representative sample of NFL "fans" who pay regular attention to what the idiots in the "color commentator" parts of the press box and who sit at "Sportscenter" desks, you'd discover that less than 10% of them even know who Ray Berry was, much less how much he did under the old rules of wide receiver protection. And while more of them would know who Unitas was, how many know what he managed under the old non-pass-happy rules?
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)