Football is ridiculous

I never watched or understood football* growing up, and it didn’t help that the 49ers sucked for most of my adult life…why bother watching when you don’t have a team to cheer for? But more importantly, why waste 3 hours in front of the TV to watch literally 11 minutes of actual play time? (For context, it’s ~18 minutes for baseball.)

A friend once told me, “I only got into football after getting to know the stories of the players and coaches.” I didn’t understand what he meant until the drama unfolded with then 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh and backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Long story short, starting quarterback Alex Smith had a concussion, Kaepernick took over, and Harbaugh made the decision to stick with him at starting QB even after Smith recovered a few weeks later.

Somehow I got caught up in the story as the 49ers continued to do well — maybe it was because Kaepernick seemed like an underdog, and I wanted to cheer him on. When the 49ers won the conference championships that season, I did the unthinkable: I bought a Kaepernick jersey. It was the first (and only) time I bought any kind of sports memorabilia, and my friends legit wondered what happened to me.

Mind you, I only had a rudimentary understanding of football at the time**: I still remember asking people what offsides meant while watching the Superbowl that year (while wearing the jersey). Despite my lack of knowledge of the sport, I wanted to show my support for the local team, and desperately to fit in with other bandwagon fans.

I continued following the 49ers after that heartbreaking Superbowl loss, but eventually lost interest when Harbaugh left and it became clear that Jed York was a terrible owner. It was then that I started to realize how ridiculous football was — and specifically, how ridiculous the ever-changing rules were.

I’m not going to pretend I really know what the rules are (or what they should be), but let’s just start with the penalty for defensive pass interference — it’s an automatic first down at the point of the foul. Is it me or does it seem unfair for a highly subjective call to swing the game for a pass that may never have been caught?

Then there was the whole “what’s a catch” controversy. I don’t even know what the controversy was, but it seems highly problematic that there’s so much confusion around what appears to be a key element of the game. Even the current “simplified” rules seem like a mouthful — it’s also >300 words. Like, seriously?

Fast forward to last weekend, when the Chiefs-Bills playoff laid bare yet another inexplicable NFL rule: a coin flip decides the outcome of any games that go into overtime. I’m told “it used to be worse,” as if that makes situation any better…but I suppose that’s more a statement about how completely inept the NFL is at making up rules since being founded 102 years ago.

Having said all of that, maybe you’re wondering if I’m planning to watch the 49er-Rams conference championships this Sunday. Truth be told, if it weren’t for Covid I’d probably join some kind of watch party with friends. As it stands I’ll likely watch the latter half of the game outdoors with a few friends. If the 49ers win, though, I might just go get a second jersey in time for the Superbowl.

*this also applies to most other sports
**this also applies to me in present day