It’s Playoffs time again in the National Football League. http://www.nfl.com/
Ever since I put SiteMeter up on my blogroll, I have kept an eye on which posts of mine generate the most traffic. The NFL/ Gridiron Football category is pretty popular. And since I have pretty much stopped following the NFL (except for when my hapless Buffalo Bills are on), and have no desire to delve deeply into the over-commercialized miasma that is the NFL today, I decided to whip up a map from the halcyon days of the late 1970’s in the NFL. [ If anyone wants me to do another one, with a specific NFL season in mind, don't hesitate to put in a comment. ]
In 1978. the NFL expanded the regular season from a 14-game to a 16-game schedule. The playoffs were also expanded, with an extra wild card team from each conference qualifying for the post-season. This increased the playoff teams from 8 to 10. Here is Wikipedia’s page on the 1978 NFL season {Click here}.
Here is a real blast from the past…the intro for The NFL Today on CBS, circa 1978 {Click here (Youtube) }. This show started a half hour before the first games on Sundays, not an hour before. And as smarmy as Brent Musburger was, he and his colleagues did not shout over each other and engage in the sort of banter suitable for junior high schoolers. Why are the co-hosts on the pre-game shows on Fox (and CBS these days) always so hyped up ? There is zero sense of decorum. And back then there were no freaking fantasy football stats continually cluttering the screen and the show content itself {see this (SI.com/Don Banks-Inside the NFL) }. And there was no ridiculous Fox Network football robot {see this [Rant: NFL on Fox Robot] }, jumping up and down and pointing at the viewer, appearing on the screen before and after every commercial break, which means every few minutes…{see this {Bleacher Report/ Dan Mason) }. I am sorry, but these days the NFL is mostly unwatchable {see this (Musings From the Coast) }. The sheer volume of television commercials the NFL and their complicit networks are able to cram into a game is stupefying. I used to think it was pathetic that European football (aka soccer) teams had to resort to putting sponsor advertisements on the front of their jerseys. It took me a few years to realize that the trade-off for the fan was that they still got to watch 45 minutes-plus of a sporting event completely free of commercial interruptions. And sure, there are TV time-outs in other North American sports, but not to the blatant extent that there are in NFL broadcasts. And with baseball on TV, you know every half-inning there will be one minute and 30 seconds of ads, plus ads when there is a pitching change. This is not a problem; it actually is convenient, if you want to get something from the refrigerator, etc. But it is a common occurrence in NFL broadcasts for there to be a punt or kickoff, then another round of commercials. It’s like they are holding you hostage. And don’t get me started on the commercials themselves, with their infantile points of view. It just got to the point with me where I said ”enough”. Watching the NFL on TV these days literally sucks the life-force out of me.
Thanks to the Helmet Helmets Helmets site {Click here}.
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Pingback by Pages tagged "blogroll" — January 10, 2009 @ 8:49 am
<p><p>I <em>used to think it was pathetic that European football (aka soccer) teams had to resort to putting sponsor advertisements on the front of their jerse</em>ys.<br /><br />
That “the game never stops” also goes for stock-car racing. Contrast with gridiron, aka American football, which is a particularly American combo of “mass violence interspersed with committee meetings” (no cite, sorry). Therefore, we have plenty of opportunities for commercials to interrupt.
Answer: And the NFL makes even more opportunities with their “TV timeouts”. If one attends an NFL game, it becomes obvious how crass the league is, because there are many, many times throughout the game when the players are just standing there, for like 2 minutes, because of a TV timeout. But going back to the stock-car reference…don’t NASCAR broadcasts feature cut-aways from the live racing to go to commercials ? Sure, US broadcasters tried that with the World Cup, like 15-20 years ago, but no broadcasters I know of cut away from live soccer matches these days.
Comment by ThresherK — January 11, 2009 @ 12:15 pm
Thresher, that quote is by George Will — he hit it right on the head
Commenter’s site: http://www.ojogofeio.blogspot.com
Answer (Bill T.): Thanks for finding the attribution to that quote, Steve, and thanks for also making a comment on the EPL Talk interview
http://www.epltalk.com/billsportsmaps-interview-with-bill-turianski/4076#disqus_thread
Comment by Steve Malbasa — January 14, 2009 @ 6:25 am
[...] got incredibly nostalgic looking at NFL helmets. http://billsportsmaps.com/?p=1967 Elway wore that helmet in the snow on my born [...]
Pingback by Map & Produce » Article » just got incredibly nostalgic … — January 16, 2009 @ 9:06 pm
<strong>NFL</strong>
2. Arizona– This is the team with the biggest“ curse” in the NFL. No matter what they do, what players they get, who they get to coach, it always falls apart. This team should be a playoff team, except they are the Cardinals. Whisenhunt brings a …
Commenter’s site: htt”://www.nflpredictionsweekly.com/
Trackback by NFL — February 1, 2009 @ 11:35 am
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Comment by findmusiccouk — August 23, 2009 @ 2:33 pm