Our Football Fascination: Here’s The Thing

As the Chiefs and Eagles prepare to battle in the next Super Bowl, with all the attendant passion, pain and pageantry, let’s take a time out for a moment of reflection. Not on the game’s socio-political or human health dynamics, or other impositions on the fans’ enjoyment, but with a dive to the heart of what truly makes football the USA’s dominant pro sport. 

As the “excitement” of the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament fades, growing interest in the other football is notable, but most of us still don’t understand it and there just isn’t enough scoring. A French player scored against the US in its final game, and the announcer said it was his first goal in eight years. I rest my case.

We do understand what makes American football the football here. With almost 150 years of it in our blood, it’s more than a sport, it’s a ritual. It’s a full-on tradition, with growing interest across the world. The media ecosystem churns out mountains of news, data, opinion, documentaries and more to feed us, but none of it gets to what is the singular force behind this relationship, this game, this inspiring, complex, emotional life force that is an undeniable plank in our national ethos and culture.

Is it the meritocracy – the raw competition that yields winners and losers, or the improbable winners, such as Tom Brady who was drafted low and then earned the GOAT title? 

Maybe it’s the sheer athleticism, the combination of strength, agility, speed and skills that create an inspiringly intoxicating cocktail of wonder about the human body’s potential to perform amazing feats?

Is it the violence and risk – the danger facing courageous men whose ability to run, dodge and dart is juxtaposed with the physics of an immovable object encountering an unstoppable 240-pound high-stepping force? 

The list of “it” candidates driving our love of the game is long, from the fans’ camaraderie – especially when we’re winning — to the combined suffering and hope that wracks us when we’re not, to an innate thrill humans feel at the taking and defending of land. But one could say many of those can be owned by fans across the sports spectrum. 

Let’s not overthink what makes football the best sport to watch or play — it’s hiding right there in plain sight:  It’s The Ball.

In the early days, the ball was a pig bladder encased in calf skin held together with laces —  thus the nickname “pigskin”.  When the forward pass emerged around 1905 and became a growing part of the game, it launched a continuous evolution to enable the throws. Today’s “prolate spheroid” shape of the ball has been around for well over half a century, and it is arguable that no other sport is played with an object quite as interesting, quixotic, mystical, mesmerizing and sometimes maddening. 

When I played, I lived with the ball’s potential for both precision and chaos. I worked with it every day — throwing, catching, pitching, tossing. I fell in love with the ball itself, but realizing its singular, special place at the core of our football fascination emerged slowly.

The biggest influence that dragged the ball to my football front-and-center is NFL Films. Dramatic plays in historic games unfold in slow motion, given color and emotion via the Voice of God-like narration of the inimitable John Facenda. He described the ball being thrown beautifully, rising to the heights of the cheap seats, spinning, floating, spiraling, sometimes wobbling, then dropping into the hands of a pro flying high above the turf with a defender draped all over him to win a playoff spot. 

It’s compelling athletic drama, accented by voice and music, but let’s face it:  the ball is the star, conjuring a sense of something hypnotic, even hallucinogenic.   

The ways to pass it are many (see the creativity of Patrick Mahomes) – soft tosses, longer, tighter throws just over a linebacker, long, strong bullets to the sideline, and of course, the bomb. It’s an array of performances by the ball; on one play it’s artistic expression, on others it’s deadly artillery. Then there’s the quirky adventure of its crazy bounces or sudden inexplicable escapes from a player’s hands, or its often-erratic trajectory when kicked. 

At practice, the ball is always with you. You’re throwing it or twirling it in your fingers or chucking it into the artificial turf to catch the bounce. Sometimes you just grip it, enjoying how utterly natural it feels in your hand and breathing its earthy leather scent.

For every quarterback there are a few most memorable throws. One for me occurred in a Turkey Bowl game with some knucklehead boyhood friends. A receiver broke across the end zone with defenders converging. I fired the ball to an open space, tightly spiraled, and my receiver leapt to meet it and pulled it down. 

In the film “300” King Leonidas heaved his spear – not unlike Brett Favre working a fourth quarter comeback drive — and it grazed Xerxes’ cheek. My Turkey Bowl pass would have hit him in the nose.

It happened in a neighborhood park, not a stadium, but for whatever reason I’ve always remembered that moment and the passion I felt for the game. And for The Ball.