NFL v 'Soccer'...

The NFL kicks off today so here's my chance to set out my views on American football as against association football, and why, contrary to the current of opinion, the latter has nothing on the former, and I'm firmly in the small band of limeys (David Bowie, Ted Heath, er, and all the others...) who love the game. Here's why..

Length of Season/no. of Games and Competitions
The NFL season is just 17 weeks long (used to be 16 but with all these expansion teams since the '90s it's increased by the one week) from early September till the new year, with the playoffs lasting about another month, culminating in the Superbowl in early Feb. Add to that around 4 pre-season games and you're looking at about six months in all.
This meansthat during  half the year, you don't need to think about the game at all and can get on having a life. Compare that with the English leagues (admittedly the longest and most arduous of them all) which start when summer can still be at its height, progress through autumn, winter, spring and end in early summer with the FA cup final in May...then if there is an interational competition (which there is every other year), there's about a month's respite until that starts...then about another month's respite until the next season. Each team is likely to play a minimum of 38 games (more in the lower league) since they have to play everyone twice, then there are two European competitions with about a squillion more games, the FA cup, maybe still the league cup, I don't know if they have that any more, and, for the lower divisions the promotion playoffs.
Add to that international matches and it makes up for just far, far too many hours of watching what most of the time is a rather drab affair anyway.

Climactic Differences
This can happen in the European football competitions when Barcelona have to go and play FC Godthab or something, but generally if it's wet and cold in London it's the same in Manchester or Newcastle (or more so). It's rarely cold enough to stop play, but there is none of the extra dimension added when, say, the Miami Dolphins have to go and play one of the Great Lakes teams in minus 20 blizzards, usually dying a million deaths in the process.

Variety
The Superbowl has been won by roughly 20 different teams (of currently a total of 34) since its inception in the late '60s. Compare that with the premiership or, before that, Division one, over the same period and the figure is about half that. Even more disturbing is the fact that since the premiership was founded in 1992 there have only been four winners, and one of those (Blackburn) only once (c.f. a whopping 14 different S'bowl winners over the same period). Admittedly the dominance of the 'big four' (or the big two in Scotland!) is criticism of some standing, but nothing much seems to have been done about it.
The NFL draft system, whereby the poorest performing teams get first choice from the cream of the college players in the off season, no doubt is a factor, but in any event it's quite normal for a team to have been consistently shite for many years to win the Superbowl (as in the New Orleans Saints last year) or vice versa, a once great team to be continual pariahs (e.g. the Chicago Bears). Only the Kansas City 'Griefs' seem to buck that trend by never winning anything, ever..

Rules of The Game
Up to a point, gridiron is the yankee's revenge on cricket, but nevertheless it doesn't require an above average IQ to grasp fairly quickly. At the same time, the constant stop-start nature of the game, precision of field positioning, clock time (no accusations of the watch being stuck somewhere in the match official's anatomy here), wholesale changing of players depending on who's in offense and defense, make for a highly nuanced and subtle game of tactics, again, as in cricket.
Compare this with the round ball game, where not much seems to happen for incredibly long periods of time (a phenomenon lampooned in the 'soccer' episode of the Simpsons) and matches with no score whatsoever are regarded as perfectly acceptable.
What I like most is that referee/umpires are answerable to the crowd, routinely giving an explanation of themselves. Compare this with shocking and inconsistent refereeing, in particular at international level as was seen at the last world cup. Despite being about 80 years old and wearing clothing from the 1950s, and the collossal size of most of the players, the American football officials  don't take shit off their charges in the same way that seems to be the case with soccer (yes, I call it that) either.


To be continued...