NFL Week 9: Patriots on Bye, Taint Free to Focus on Election

[Valmy]

I just figured it was because I just was older and had shit to do. I barely have time to watch more than a game a weekend anymore and it used to a non-stop extravaganza from Saturday morning to Sunday night.

[dps]

I just figured it was because I just was older and had shit to do. I barely have time to watch more than a game a weekend anymore and it used to a non-stop extravaganza from Saturday morning to Sunday night.

I think that might be a big part of what got me to where I am right now.

Up through late 1984, I was either in school or just out of school and had time to watch football all weekend (keeping in mind that at the time, we didn't quite have the wall-to-wall college games like we do now).  From late 84 until a couple of years ago, I usually was working on the weekends, and getting time to watch a game other than MNF was a treat (and that made MNF and even bigger deal).  Somewhere in there, I stopped following the stats, the trades, etc., as closely as I had used to, but since actually watching a game wasn't something I could do all the time, I didn't really notice that my interest had waned.  Last couple of years, I've had weekends off, but now that I have time to watch a lot of football again, I find I'm just not all that into it.  Whether it's just a general loss of interest or a result of not having time to dig into the stats and stuff like I used to, I'm not sure.

[CountDeMoney]

25 years ago, I would scrounge news stands for every bit of information I could get.  I'd buy those season preview and draft mags by the stacks the moment they came out in the early summer, from Street & Smith's to Lindy's.  I'd have to wait for the Wednesday edition of the Baltimore Sun for the complete week's statistics, and The Sporting News was the only drop of water in the desert of the offseason.  During the season, my sister would mail me cassette recordings of Browns broadcasts since she didn't have a VCR, and I'd listen to them in the car.  I can tell you more about the AFC Central 1988 season than what happened today.

And college football? I'd be in lockdown mode from noon until the PAC wrapped up.  I didn't even know Alabama and LSU played last night.

I just don't get as mental about it anymore.  No energy for it anymore.  Too much else to do.  Too much else to worry about. I have bigger problems to worry about. Whether somebody can make the wild card is a distant second as to whether I can make my mortgage.

[Valmy]

I will say this about the 80s. I LOVED the NFL back then. So many teams and players I loved tuning in to see. Just in the AFC Central you had the Bernie Kosar Browns, the Boomer Esiason Bengals, the Warren Moon Oilers. Holy shit I loved those teams and knew who most of then players were and would honestly get excited to see those teams play. Granted that was good since we got fed a steady diet of Oilers games in central Texas.

And that is just the AFC Central. Hardly even the most compelling division in the NFL back then. Maybe it is just my old man talking but outside of Tom Brady there really is not really anything that juicy in the league anymore. Thank God we have a guy who will eat nothing but lettuce all year, deflate balls, and scream like a little girl when his team wins. I will remember him, the rest of them probably not.

But it could just be me. There could be some teenage kid out there who finds this all the coolest shit ever just like I did back then.

[Valmy]

I can tell you more about the AFC Central 1988 season than what happened today.

I can still rattle off the entire starting line up of the 1987 Redskins (the official ones, not the replacement players ). I have watched the Skins play several times this year but I doubt I could name half of them.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm curious how many here watch sports in the company of others.

I suspect this factor has a strong influence on enjoyment.

[Syt]

I used to watch way more sports in the past. Especially in winter, TV would show a variety of winter sports from morning till evening that I would leave on in the background on weekends. Or Olympic Games, or Track & Field Championships.

I used to follow German Bundesliga, but barely do it anymore. It was great when you had one match day when (almost) all matches were held (Saturday, 3-ish pm). You followed the conference broadcast on radio (later on pay TV), then watched the match day summary, and you were done. It was a great reason to get together with friends, too.

For the sake of TV coverage this has been diluted - now you have 1 match on Friday, 5 in the old time slot, 1 immediately after, and 2 consecutive matches on Sunday. If you want to follow this live, the time required is significantly higher, or you just pick and choose and piece the rest together through a variety of post match shows or online articles. And we haven't even talked about Champions League or UEFA League yet.

It doesn't help that while in most sports the level of play is much higher than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago, there seem to be far less interesting and unique characters to watch and follow. Not to mention countless corruption scandals in various sports.

[Liep]

Dirty Danes 96.51 - 79.13 Frozen Wetbacks