38 dumb things about the NFL
The National Football League can bring many people joy, but there are many ways that it's also the worst, according to Tribune News Service.
The fourth preseason game
Preseason games are generally a waste of time as they're glorified B team scrimmages that aren't at all a barometer for regular season success. But the throwaway fourth game is a particularly sorry money grab.
Naming rights on stadiums
Looking at you, Denver, with your "'Your Name Here' at Mile High Stadium." These name changes are exhausting, and a 2007 study found that there's no evidence at all of permanent, positive impact for companies that shell out hundreds of millions for naming rights.
Owners
Many owners are jerks with too much money — except the people of Wisconsin.
Sub-.500 teams make the playoffs
In 2011 the Seattle Seahawks became the first losing team in a non-strike year to go to the playoffs with a 7-9 record. Unfortunately, that wasn't a one-time fluke, and more sub-.500 teams have gotten to keep their seasons alive.
The Pro Bowl
No one cares about the Pro Bowl, and yet it makes a profit, so it keeps happening. The league can barely fill up two rosters, with the best pros passing on this joke of a game.
The catch rule
Forget the letter of the law. Dez Bryant caught that ball. Whether a ball moved or was jostled or was controlled through "the process" of a catch or whether a player is capable of performing a "football move" is all gibberish. Unless he dropped it, he caught it.
Over-the-top draft hype
There's absolutely zero need to spends hours and hours over-analyzing what NFL rookies could possibly do. Wait to get worked up until they prove they can actually hang in the NFL.
Super Bowl halftime shows
More often than not, the halftime show is overhyped, disappointing, awkward and tone-deaf (see Justin Timberlake's Prince tribute). Plus it triples the length of halftime during what should be the best game of the year.
Taxpayers fund patriotic displays
No matter how much it might try to convince fans it cares, the NFL is all about the benjamins. It accepted more than $700,000 of taxpayer money paid by the Department of Justice to fund patriotic displays, including color guard presentations during the national anthem and unfurling giant flags on the field. It only returned the money after a public shaming. Classy.
Roger Goodell's salary
Roger Goodell's latest five-year deal is reportedly worth up to $200 million for him to tick off fans and pick fights with players?
The draft lasts three days
The pageantry of the NFL draft is all fluffy filler meant to make money. Just wait to check the results once it's over.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day football
Heaven forbid you have to talk to your loved ones instead of watching a mediocre game.
The racist Redskins mascot
"Tradition" isn't a valid excuse when a tradition is rooted in racism against a historically oppressed group of people. The Cleveland Indians wised up (sort of). Your turn, Washington.
Thursday night games
Thursday Night Football has ballooned from filler for the NFL Network to hundred-million-dollar prime-time TV. What's ridiculous is the constantly reshuffling of broadcast and streaming rights on a variety of platforms, making fans scramble to figure out how to watch a game.
Cheerleaders
Cheerleaders are legitimate athletes. But that's not why NFL cheerleaders are there. They're unnecessary, underpaid and objectified eye candy.
TV coverage of the NFL combine
Watching a wide receiver do a three-cone drill is less interesting than watching the national spelling bee. These drills also reveal nothing about how a player will actually do in the NFL.
Contract holdouts
Fans and the media get worked up over contract disputes, despite them happening every year like clockwork. C'mon, guys; just make a deal. There's plenty of money for everyone.
Instant replays that take forever
In theory, instant replays should make the game better, but they often painfully slow down the game and can ruin a team's momentum.
Instant replays that still get it wrong
Technology is only as useful as the people using it. So even after they take forever watching instant replay, officials can still get it wrong, especially when it's still debatable what a "catch" is.
Over-the-top Patriots hate
Some would argue this isn't a thing. It is. And to be fair, there's plenty to hate on, such as Spygate, Deflate-gate, the "tuck rule," the team's coach, their owner, their obnoxious fans. But mostly it's their unprecedented success that makes them an easy target for people to hate.
Over-the-top Patriots love
Some would argue this isn't a thing. It is. The Patriots get the maximum prime-time games possible and tons of media coverage. Fans defend their behavior blindly and would follow them off the edge of a cliff. According to a Public Policy Polling survey, Tom Brady is both the most loved and the most hated player in the league.
Fans caring more about fantasy than players
While it's both heartless and cliche, somehow after someone gets seriously injured, some fans take to social media to complain about someone's incredibly painful injury ruining their fantasy league. Some of these "fans" even have the audacity to tag the player's handle.
Special uniforms
Most "special" uniforms that teams debut are ugly money grabs. Throwback styles went out of fashion for a reason, and "color rush" looks are not only a visual assault on sighted viewers but also actively impossible to distinguish for color-blind fans. Raising money for a good cause like breast cancer is noble, but can more effort go into the campaign than simply lazily dashing pink everywhere in a half-hearted spectacle?
The 5-page uniform policy
No one gives a flying flip whether players are wearing the right height of socks, yet the NFL has a laughably self-serious, five-page uniform policy. The rules are inconsistently enforced and lead to stupid bureaucracy that bloats the organization and distracts from the game more than a pair of mismatched gloves would.
International games
International games are all about earning money and fans abroad. After the first game in Mexico, most other games have been in London. According to Bloomberg, they almost sell out every time, yet still lose the league money. And they've all been dull blowouts not worth waking up to see if you're an American fan.
Refs aren't full time
Officials for every other major North American sports league work full time. NFL officials are part-timers who need to have day jobs. Never mind that the NFL's rules are far more complicated than those of the NBA, NHL or MLB. The league finally set out to hire about 24 refs full time in 2017.
Fair catch free kick
The NFL has an obscure "fair catch free kick" rule whereby a team can fair-catch a punt, then attempt a field goal from the spot of the catch on the next play, with the opposing team forced to line up 10 yards away from the kicker and not allowed to block the kick. This tactic has not been successfully used since 1976. So why does it even exist?
The myth of the Madden curse
While it's true that some players like Shaun Alexander, Michael Vick and Rob Gronkowski didn't have great seasons after being featured on the cover of Madden, most players at the height of their prowess have nowhere to go but down. The majority of cover stars fair fine, though, so this "curse" has been debunked for years.
The 12th Man
Every team needs a rallying cry. It's too bad Seattle had to steal one from the borderline cultish Texas A&M fan base, who then sued, forcing the Seahawks to pay a lump sum of $100,000 in 2006 plus a yearly royalty fee of $18,000 until 2021.
Measuring
In an era of advanced technology, the NFL still measures first downs with two poles and a chain.
The NFL was a 'nonprofit'
The NFL League Office, which managed the league's affairs, used to be a tax-exempt nonprofit. A bunch of people misunderstood this and got up in arms, prompting the office to willingly give up its status in 2015. Because of this, the NFL no longer has to disclose how much top executives like Roger Goodell make.
Players can't dunk through the goalposts
Thanks, Jimmy Graham.
Scrooge-like fines
The NFL is already petty and inconsistent when it comes to fines, but the league takes it a step further by being a total fun-sucking Scrooge. It penalizes players more than $6,000 for tossing a ball to a kid in the stands or fines players for honoring dead friends or family members in their eye black. It took until 2017 to even allow players to celebrate a touchdown freely.
Updated football theme songs
Despite being dating and grating, Hank Williams Jr.'s "Are You Ready for Some Football?" was the iconic sound of Monday Night Football. After getting the boot in 2011 for comparing Barack Obama to Hitler, Williams returned in 2017 with a remixed monstrosity featuring Jason Derulo and Florida Georgia Line. As for Sunday Night Football, the theme wasn't broke, but that didn't stop Carrie Underwood from debuting two mediocre alternatives.
FOX's game graphics
FOX ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ invented the on-screen scoreboard yet managed to totally muck it up with overly simple, unreadable redesigned graphics. And let's not even discuss the ridiculous Cleatus the Robot.
The name 'football'
"Football" as it's known to the rest of the world was first named so in mid 19th-century England, whereas the American concept of football wasn't invented until 1892. When the U.S. split from England during the revolution, we bothered to give our country a totally new name. We should've done that with our sport to prevent ourselves a world of confusion.
Boltman
Dedicated superfan Dan Jauregui dressed as this insane-looking, juiced-up lightning bolt from your nightmares for 22 years in San Diego because the Chargers couldn't be bothered to develop an official mascot on their own. With the team's move to L.A., Jauregui sold the costume and rights to the character on eBay.
Breaking up officiating crews
NFL officiating crews work together all season, building a rhythm and team dynamic, and then they're ripped apart for the playoffs, the most important games of the season.