You may not be aware that the NASCAR CUP season ended one week ago today, November 16. There will be no more CUP racing until the Daytona 500 on February 15, 2009 about 83 days from now.
So what does a Racin' junkie do on a quiet Sunday afternoon/evening with no Racin' on TV. I thought I would watch the Redskins play the Seattle Seahawks on my little HD TV. I set the ol' HD TiVo to record the game beginning at 4 PM for 4 hours until 8 PM.
Around 6:30, after watching the weather, I decided to turn on the game. I'm gonna tellya, I haven't watched a football game all season. I guess when the kids lived here, Richard and later William would sit with me and we would watch the Redskins. Must have been all the company that kept my interest in the game.
I managed to watch about half of the first quarter of the game using the fast-forward option to speed up time between plays. It was then that I realized just how droll and boring this thing called NFL football has become.
Every sequence is the same on TV:
Run a play.
Run the play again by replaying.
Run it again from a different camera angle.
Run a play.
Run the play again by replaying.
Run it again from a different camera angle.
Watching the game on the slowest fast-forward speed made this dynamic completely obvious to me. Damn it was sickening. I lasted for about 15 minutes until I fast forwarded up to the end of the recording where the game still had about 3 minutes left and I realized that even though the Redskins are my home team, I had absolutely NO interest in this game. I stopped the recording and deleted the show from my program list.
I can understand why many folks think NASCAR racing is boring to watch on TV; especially if they know nothing about the dynamics of automobile performance, the NASCAR teams and drivers or have never attended a NASCAR race in person. A large percentage of folks meet all those criteria; most are completely oblivious about why an auto performs or handles as it does...to them a vehicle is more like a sewing machine or a can opener; turn it on; turn it off. They could care less why it goes around corners, accelerates or stops, as long as it works...
NASCAR racing is much more interesting, exciting and action packed than NFL Football, even on TV (although I will admit that ESPN is attempting to ruin NASCAR TV by bringing the NFL paradigm of constant replays to NASCAR vice showing the action on the track).
I do know a bit about football, hell I've watched it, attended games and read insightful newspaper articles for over 40 years...in my opinion, the accepted paradigm used by broadcasters for showing an NFL Football game today results in a boring show unless you're a football junkie! I'm not.
Next Sunday I'll just wash my ol' van while the game is on. I actually think football telecasts were more interesting before today's devotion to instant replay and constant analysis. Might be nice if they skipped some replays and talked to some fans once in a while; what's happening in the stands??? And the half-time review/analysis shows...that's a whole other issue. Nope, just a whole lot of $$ in NFL football telecasts and we constantly pay the bill. How much of your basic cable/satellite bill goes for NFL??? Ponder it.
JD
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