Football -- A game of adult tag for hyper-aggressive, hormone-infused men.
Alas, football! When millions of potato-shaped Americans enthusiastically plop on over-strained sofas bearing the weight of wrinkled obesity, slap on their favorite jersey stained with loose droplets of dried-up buffalo sauce, and guzzle cheap beer that tastes as sensationally as my grandfather's piss jar -- in anticipation for a weekly competition of a well-marketed game of adult tag. They shriek boisterously at their television screens as oversized men in spandex wrestle each other to the ground; They cheer like a swarm of teenage girls festering at a Taylor Swift concert when someone runs to the end of a fancy lawn; They cuss incoherently when an opposing player is doing an adequate job at work -- all while attempting to conceal the growing erections I believe is growing in their work jeans, judging by their level of excitement, before silently sobbing in each other's arms when their team loses a meaningless game, as if the outcome somehow affects their monotonous lives.
If you boil football down to table salt and deflated footballs, it is a nonsensical game of seasonal tag for hyper-aggressive, hormone-infused adult men who would rather chase around slippery mid-20s athletes for 2 hours than to pursue a fulfilling career that impacts lives -- other than the dismal lives of emotionally-unstable middle-aged alcoholics who drunkenly yell at their television sets. The rules are simple. A handful of large, sweaty men aggressively attempt to relocate a small leather object to one side of a large field, while another group of large, sweaty men attempt to tackle anyone in possession of a small ball in a manly display of testosterone-filled masculinity. That may sound homosexual, but they are wearing tight spandex, so it is, in fact, homosexual. But the task is not so simple; the large, sweaty man wielding the sacred ball must first dash around a thick line of corpulent men eloquently selected to act as slow-moving barriers that obstruct the line of passage -- like giant chicken nuggets employed to obstruct an infant's airway. If penetrated, the man carrying the hot potato must outrun a handful of slightly-smaller-but-faster adults who will hunt him down with the ambition of a mid-sized African cat pursuing a fearful gazelle following a 3-day, unintentional fast. If the runner proves to be evasive and reaches the end of the well-trimmed lawn, he is allowed to dance, jump, twerk, or throw-up gang signs in the endzone, so everyone knows that he is content with the outcome.
Training regiments are typically existent, to some degree, in most positions on the football field, but due to differing functions and bodily geometry, training regiments vary for all players. Similar to how you would not train a mosquito to function as a bear, you do not train a lineman to move more than 30 yards, or a cheerleader to put on a sweater. A running back prepares for quick, sporadic movements, and a lineman only requires a couple coupons for the local Chinese Buffet and a cardiologist to inform him when his career will end from premature heart conditions.
The primary line of defense is a heavy-breathing line of large, flappy men spanning the short length of the football field, serving only as simple obstructions preventing opposing players from crossing to their side; like a picket fence installed by the US government to mitigate illegal immigration. But like most walls, it can be penetrated; linemen can be bypassed by darting around obese men with the cardiovascular health of a baked potato, and Mexicans can evade the elaborate wall by opening an unlocked door. The ideal physique of a defensive lineman is not rock-hard pecs or bicep veins -- they strive to maintain a gut with the diameter of 1/7 the length of the football field. So instead of performing countless sets of deep squats or hopping on an elliptical, linemen perform high-repetition chicken nugget lifts to their eternally-drooling feeding portals, to properly expand their diameter across the field.
Quarterbacks, the main cheese of a football game, the all-known hero after a successful game who receives all the glory and a couple cheerleaders. Their job is to chuck objects in the general vicinity of one of his coworkers, which accidentally navigates towards an opposing player after being offered a bonus paycheck from a mysterious man underneath the bleachers. Since quarterbacks train their arms to move with rapidity of a hummingbird's wing, it is no surprise that other players are defensive over their quarterback's arm. Training regiments are disguised as gym routines, but there is only one reason why a man would have one extremely fast, highly functional arm; not from bicep curls and punching bags, but from midnight loneliness and marital strife.
Running backs are smaller, more agile participants, specifically conditioned to dash away from rapidly-approaching large, sweaty men with the passion of a confused 7-year-old girl after being promised free candy from a dirt-stained minivan. They do not need to be large or strong; their only job is to not be touched by men who are trying to touch them -- a skill not yet mastered by my ex-wife. Most running backs acquired their evasive abilities by performing aerobic exercises, such as high-intensity interval training or escaping police officers after a botched heist.
Some well-pillared men are hired exclusively to kick the football between two vertical beams. This is it, their only job is to kick a ball within the confines of a floating square, a handful of times per week. There are no changes to his schedule and no cognitive requirement to the position; kick the ball and get off the f'cking field.
Americans are infatuated with adult tag because, deep down, they love watching large, sweaty men in spandex. They delude themselves into believing they enjoy the aggression and high-quality tackles, but nothing makes a room full of American men more excited than large men in spandex chasing other large men in spandex around a large field. They hype each other up, while casually hinting at their self-proclaimed masculinity, to deflect from the reality of the situation -- a spectacle so wildly popular, yet simultaneously bizarre.
For the price of two mid-sized SUVs, an individual can observe the final game of the season in a cramped stadium with too much noise and sub-par hotdogs. This game is cryptically dubbed "The Super Bowl", and is designed to reward Tomy Brady with a new, shiny ring -- a man who has collected so many Super Bowl rings that his wife divorced him for having a larger jewelry collection than her. Instead of being responsible adults, thousands of riled-up observers will willingly dole out one year's rent to squint at a large field in a fruitless attempt to decipher the event and determine who wields the ball -- while their credit cards remain maxed and their wives need a second boyfriend to cover the utility bill.
Though I make critical comments about an American's infatuation with football, it is an entertaining pastime, that, even I occasionally partake in. It may be bizarre -- more the passion that the simple observation -- but indulging in sports is a way to be involved in something, it provides something to talk about, and functions as a great method of escapism from the monotonies of life. So, to all the drunkards who yell at the television sets on Sunday nights: enjoy the break from work, bills, and the burdensome children dwelling in your living quarters, because when the game ends, reality begins again.
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