Football (american)

[Felonius_Monk]

[striker2550]

Monk, its kinda hard to explain.

For many, like myself, who played its part of our blood. Its what I like to call the first "extreme sport". I dont know many other sports where u gladly sacrifice the health and well being of your body to play. ( except maybe rodeo bull riding or boxing)
When you are playing the game, its like a "high" that can be achieved by NOTHING else!

So, watching a game brings back lots of great memories.

Also, at least in rural America, Friday or Saturday nite high school football games were the main thing our social life revolved around. High School dating, drinking, drugs, sex, and rock n roll baby.

Again, watching a game brings back great mammaries.

And there are many subleties (sp?) that u may not understand about the game unless u played or grew up watching it.

anywho, thats my 2 cents

[iceman5]

I played football and baseball growing up. I was pretty good at football but not fast or big enough to continue. I was VERY good at baseball and did flirt briefly with the idea of playing pro baseball. I was invited to a Class A ball minor league team but decided against it for personal reasons which seem very stupid now. I played shortstop on an Army softball team that travelled Europe.

I saw all that to say this. Even though I was much better at baseball, I am an absolute football fanatic. I crave football. I live and breathe football. I seriously have withdrawals when football sesaon is over. I feel slightly depressed when its over, because sundays during football sesaon are a ritual at my house.

I have a whole pregame routine I go thru. I even have my wife who doenst know a thing about football wearing a Steeler sweatshirt for luck on sunday. My 6 year old's bedroom is painted Steeler gold and it has a Steeler wallpaper border.

Theres just something about football.

PS....in case you never learn anything about poker from me, let me teach you something right now. NEVER make a decision that will change the course of your life based on anything to do with a woman that youre not married to.

[Molina]

[Xaston]

UFC or Pride? How can you even compare them? Pride > UFC by a longshot in my book. I like K-1 more than UFC too. UFC is boring. Stand around for 1 minute, throw a jab a foot away, both throw a jab at same time and shoot. One lands on top and does some ground and pound for 4 minutes. Repeat for a few rounds and declae a winner. Now Pride and K-1 are some entertaining shit. I would pay bucko bucks to go see Mirko Filipovich or Kazushi Sakuraba fight live.

[stickdude]

Forget football. Please explain cricket to us on the other side of the pond.

[Felonius_Monk]

There was a thread about this a while back where I had a go at it. I'll have a look tomorrow and see if I can find it.

There's no greater site in the world than watching 6 foot 7 men trying to knock each other's heads off with a leather-covered piece of cork, whilst trying to flay it into the crowd with a blunt piece of willow. Terrific

If I get time this year I'll try to catch some of the NFL and take a bit more interest in it. I guess a full-length game might be more involving. The only players I remember from it being on tv over here are Dion Sanders, Emmitt Smith, Drew Bledsoe and, erm, that guy who used to be QB with the Broncos, the famous one. I didn't like baseball much until I got a bit more of an idea of the game and watched some matches, so maybe NFL will grow on me.

Shootfighting stuff is quite entertaining too; I used to be into professional wrestling in a big way and there's some crossover between the two, in terms of the reasons why people watch (and even some of the people in it - Ken Shamrock and Dan Severen were UFC champs in the mid-90s I believe. Is Royce Graysie still around? He was the big man a few years back when I used to occasionally catch a UFC show.

[Xaston]

"and, erm, that guy who used to be QB with the Broncos, the famous one."

Awww you are adorable Ian.

[Kuso]

xas, i love k-1, too. i've been able to go to some live matches... fun stuff.

i actually ran into one guy who was a wrestler who did k-1 one time in an airport business lounge. nice guy. dude was bigger than life, but he gave k-1 the short stick. he did some "shows" (i.e., wrestling matches) the week leading up to his k-1 match (against hoost or bonjasky) and was weak-legged. he got dropped within a minute, iirc.

anyway, back to football. there is a lot of subtlety in football that is completely missed if you don't know what you are looking at. furthermore, the way they do the cameras completely sucks. the REAL action is almost never where they are looking. thank goodness for replays. anyway, most of the fun action, at least for me, is on the line of scrimmage (e.g, blitzes, mismatches on blocking, etc.) and downfield/edges (running good routes, overloading a zone with receivers, a great downfield block, jamming a receiver at the line, etc.). You get some of this on replays, but only a fraction of all the action.

i have to think that digital tv will eventually allow you choose your camera view. i don't think i would ever choose the one they run live.

video games are a good way to learn, and espn (u.s. version) has some great commentary that looks at specific matchups (teams and individuals) -- i think it's "nfl today" or something like that.

also, college football is MUCH more fun to watch, imho.

[Molina]

Xas,

You're right Pride is way better than UFC, standing the fighters up when there's little action on the ground and the fact that they have the depth of talent to have 16 man tournies. I can't wait for the Gomi/Sakurai fight, the last fight I was that excited about was, oooohh, 2 months ago with the Fedor/Crocop fight which was superb. Plus having Bas commentate is always a good thing.

That said, the UFC 56 card looks like their best card in a long while IMO.

Monk,

Royce Gracie fights about once a year now, usually against former Sumo wrestlers or 7 foot freaks, though they're easy opponents and the $1million paychecks help. He's kinda old now and the sport has evolved beyond him now, but he's definitely a legend.


I've seen a few K1 events and I do like them, but anything that is standup only now seems somewhat incomplete.

[SideSwipe]

Monk, it's a pity I don't live in London anymore, we could of helped each other out with our sports problems.

We're both English? (I assume you are).

I LOVE American Footbal, but just do not get Cricket. I could get into the 20-Twenty stuff.

You LOVE Cricket, but can't get into American Football.

It would of been easier to go down to a sports bar with you to watch one of the NFL games and I could explain all the stuff you didn't get. Not just all the rules, but all the other stuff as well. Rivalries, history etc... Then in return, you could of taken me to a pub to watch a game of cricket and explained to me what 'silly mid-off' actually is.

So all I can say is find someone who is hard-core NFL fan and go down the pub.

[Cactus Jack]

In an attempt to re-hijack this thread...

Monk, I think you're asking for the impossible. How do you explain football passion to someone who didn't grow up with it? Most of us had fathers who were football fans. We were given helmets and footballs when we were very young. We played football in the backyard and in vacant lots. High school. Go to most major colleges in this country and Saturdays revolve around football. Hard to be a male in the U.S. without a pro team to root for. It's a huge part of our culture, now, more than ever.

If you have never played it, you just can't know what testosterone means. The feeling of making a big hit on another player. Catching a pass in the endzone. The level of athletic skill involved is enormous. Gladiators. Man reduced to his elements.

If you had seen the USC-Notre Dame game on Saturday, you'd be a football fan for life.

CJ

[Kuso]

CJ, i gotta disagree with you on this.

i think rugby might be a bit more of a gladiator game than football -- no shortage of testosterone there (i've played both). and, um, as much as i hate to say it, the english created the game.

[JDLush]

[Rhound50]

Monk I think its just a matter of what you have been brough up with. I have watched football on sundays for as long as I can remember. One of the first things I can remember from my childhood was watching football with my dad, it just becomes part of your blood. I have heard the same things about baseball, but again its the same thing. I love the game I can watch baseball for hours.

I am the same way you are with our football with soccer. To me its really boring, I have a freind who is a huge Arsnal fan he has been trying to get me into it but I guess I dont understand or appreciate the game enough to really like the sport.