The Saturday after I got back to Houston I had a pleasant realization: after a year in a country with limited access to [real] football, I was back in the US of A on a Saturday afternoon during college football season. For the rest of the day I sat on the couch flipping between ESPN, ESPN2, NBC, CBS, and any other channel that showed any type of college football game, no matter how insignificant the teams were. It was awesome.
After this gluttony of sport, I decided to explain why I love real football so much more than any other sport.
First and foremost, I consider football the most intelligent sport to watch. It is a chess match between the two coaches and the two teams. Each side is trying to guess what the other team will do next. Some teams are good at running the ball, so the opposing defense knows what to expect. They can put more guys on the line to stop the running back. The offense may know what the defense is doing and find that it has to throw the ball. At this point the offense could get stuck, or the quarterback may find that there are fewer defensive players in the secondary so that it is easier to throw. There are trick plays like the draw or the play-action-pass that makes the game more exciting as the offense tries to trick the defense. Likewise, the defense has different plays like the quarterback trap or the zone blitz that tricks the offense. All the while, the opposing coaches are guessing what the other team is trying to do next, finding weaknesses in the other team, exploit those weaknesses, and then recovering from the other team's gains. It's a war, and I can't think of another sport that really compares.
Soccer, baseball, hockey, and rugby do not compare in strategy in the same way... at least not as far as I can tell. They are simpler sports that are easier to learn, but football's complexity makes it fascinating. When watching soccer, everyone knows what the two teams are going to do. Don't get me wrong, I have watched several other sports and done my best to understand them. I like watching some of these sports. However, football is much more interesting.
Here are some other reasons why I love football:
Defensive games are awesome. When the defense does well in other sports like baseball and soccer, it can be a boring game. In football, defensive games are the most exciting. The sack and interception are the best parts of football.
College teams are incredibly passionate, especially since many of the players don't have to worry about playing for several years. They can throw their bodies into the game and not worry about multimillion-dollar contracts because the bowl game will probably be their last game. Professional players often hold back so that they don't ruin their careers with an unnecessary injury.
The game still changes to make it more exciting. The Miami Dolphins came up with the wildcat formation to put their two best play makers on the field. The formation was legal, and the defenses didn't know how to deal with it. Then there is the pistol formation, which makes running the ball a bit easier while still keeping the passing advantage that the shotgun formation gives the quarterback.
Here are a list of my favorite sports to watch on tv:
1) Football
2) Hockey
3) Rugby
4) Tennis (women's- only for 30 minutes at a time)
5) Baseball
6) Soccer (national games, like the World Cup)
7) Basketball
8) Tennis (all other)
9) Soccer (non-national games)
10) Golf
Please note that I don't consider NASCAR and other motor racing worthy of this list.
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