Maybe it's for the Best

I miss American football. I like a lot about living in Europe, and I already had a strong appreciation for soccer before I came here, but the National Football League is special, mostly because of the short schedule. Games are concentrated principally to one day a week, and they have so much more importance because the season comprises 16 games. That tranlsates into a distinct part of the calendar, as well. The NFL starts at the end of the summer, colors autumn, and concludes by the end of January.

There are not games all year long, and when there are games they are not played every day of the week. It sustains interest. Fans, even those outside the country, stay interested. I have the interest, I just can't watch the games. As a result, I am not making Monday Night Football picks this year. What's the point if I can't watch the games?

Therefore I can't tell you how happy I was to learn that the Dutch FOX network secured the rights to televise one game every Sunday night this season. I still am. The most noticeable drawback is that games do not start until about 10:30 on Sunday night. I catch maybe the first half before I go to bed. There are others, though, that I didn't suspect would be there, and they stem mostly from television.

I have discovered just how painfully slow an NFL game moves. There are simply too many damn commercial breaks, and they are far too long. Dutch television has less commercial breaks than the US in any case, so they tend to fill up the time that the US is using for commercial by broadcasting studio banter.

That would be fine, but the banter is without replays, the endless series of pointless statistics that I like so much (Wow, these guys have the worst point after touchdown conversion rate in the second quarter of any team in the league this year), or even computer genertaed animation of colliding and exploding helmets.

All they have is three guys at a table and some NFL jerseys behind them You can see the clothes-rack that they are hanging on. It's sad, in a way. So I would like for FOX to donate some exploding helmets, cheesy graphics, and meaningless statistics to their Dutch branch offices. It would mean a lot to me.

Strangely enough, although the games are supposed to be live, I saw a final score on CNN World for the Dallas-Arizona game while I watched the second quarter of the match. Oh well. For now, I will make due with what I have: maybe half a game, late on Sunday, on tape delay; a small plate of nachos (not too much close to bedtime); a poor studio show; explanations of all the rules.

It may be for the best anyway. If I stay away from it a while, like I did most of last year, maybe I can gloss over the misery that is the Philadelphia Eagles.

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Last Updated:7 October 1999
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