Did you know that what you silly Americans like to call ‘football’ is broadcast live on Dutch TV? It really is! I’m watching the Houston Texans-Buffalo Bills game right now. The score is something for somebody. I think. Because that little bug on the bottom of the screen displays this:
7-3 16 3rd 3:30 40 3rd down 20 5-5.
So, that’s very helpful.
Also, this: ‘ball 1 of 3 noun (1) ˈbȯl often attributive. Synonyms of ball 1: a round or roundish body or mass: such as a : a spherical or ovoid body used in a game or sport .’
From your Websters. You see that, Uh-merricuns? ROUND, being the key word there… A ‘ball’, is ROUND. Yes? Yes. So that weird thing those guys over there are messing around with is NOT, by any definition, a ‘ball.’ It’s called a prolate spheroid, in actual fact. But hey, I can imagine that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue that nicely for your commentators: “…and there goes Jackson, and here comes the throw, the prolate spheroid is tumbling through the air…” So you call it a ‘ball’ That’s fine, I guess. Just as long as you know that it isn’t. Right? Right.
Also, that throwing around of a prolate spheroid that you all seem to like so much can’t really be qualified as ‘sport,’ as such, did you know that? Not if you categorize sport as ‘physical activity,’ at least. Because there isn’t really all that much of that going on, is there? No, there’s not. You see, actual European football kickball is played in two halves of 45 minutes. In those two halves, we see 22 fit, lean, young people run across the field, trying to KICK (with your FOOT, hence the NAME) an actual ROUND ball into the goal of the opponent. Yes? THAT’S football. And sport, as well. Standing around and talking on a field for three and a half hours with a bunch of guys who weigh an average of 245 pounds, interrupted every three minutes by commercials, ladies and gentle people, is NOT considered ‘sport.’ Well, at least not by us, the rest of the world.
Finally, then, it is my understanding that that prolate spheroid thing has that shape because it’s easier to hold that way. Yes, I get that. Then, there’s the thing with the helmets and all the padding and protection. What’s that about, hm? It’s as if at some point in the past someone thought, “Hey, you know what? Crashing into each other at full speed hurts like hell! It breaks bones, cracks open skulls… It’s horrible! So, we do helmets from now on. And all sorts of soft cushions…” Bunch of pussies, is what you are…
Those English ladies playing rugby would waltz over your defensive line like it wasn’t even there… And since we’re thinking along those lines, why not take it all the way to its conclusion, then? To the end zone, if you will. So wrap those guys in giant hamster balls of foam rubber, and cover the outside of those balls—and that stupid prolate spheroid—with Velcro. Sport!
So, to conclude, then: American football is not a sport, played with not a ball by a bunch of pussies who would lose to English girls.
Leave a Reply