A 12 year old boy is in a park yelling to himself. “Red 82. Red 82. Set, hut.” The boy then throws the ball up in the air just out of his reach so he can run under the ball and dive to catch it himself. He dives and makes the catch. His jeans get grass stains from diving and then he yells, “touchdown! we win the Super Bowl!” The boy then dances and pretends the football is a basketball and fake dunks it over the imaginary goal post. The boy is having fun pretending he made the game winning catch in a Super Bowl. He gets a euphoric feeling and precedes to dance and celebrate as a kid would do.
This type of reaction isn’t applicable to just football, but to all sports. Isn’t that what we do when we accomplish something great? Celebrations aren’t something that ever go away. As a kid we celebrate everything, no matter how small or how big. As we grow older we celebrate less and less but we still do so. We celebrate graduating, weddings, birthdays, holidays and work promotions. There is a little kid inside all of us waiting to celebrate at any chance we get.
Sports are fun and we learn it at a young age. Football has taken this away and at the end of the day, the game these men play on the gridiron is just that, a game. Fans loved Brett Favre more for his little boy demeanor sometimes even more than for his play. His actions made watching him enjoyable. Every week Favre showed that he truly loved the game and he wasn’t just playing for the money.
The NFL use to be fun as well. On a Sunday once upon a time, you could turn on the T.V. and see T.O grabbing a cheerleader’s pom poms and start dancing after scoring a touchdown. You could see Joe Horn lift up the padding around the goal post and grab a cell phone to make a pretend phone call. There was a possibility Chad Johnson “Ochocinco” would be putting on a gold jacket predicting his future hall of fame induction.
There was so much drama and excitement over what might be done next. Fans sat on the edge of their seat waiting for every touchdown to see what the next creative idea would be. Ochocinco gave CPR to the football, Randy Moss mooned the fans in Green Bay, T.O. grabbed popcorn from a fan, or who could forget Steve Smith changing the diaper of the football. It added something extra to the game that brought uniqueness and creativity. It showed us the little kid inside all of these amazing athletes.
There was so much entertainment, but now the National Football League stands for the No Fun League. Allowing a man to celebrate in a kids game would help the ratings. It would be highly entertaining to see what kind of prop Odell Beckham could turn the football into after he takes one of his slants for 60 plus yards to the house.
What would be even more fun than seeing what Odell would do would be to see what a defensive back like Josh Norman would do in response. Players would be trying to one up another and the drama of it would have any fan hooked. All players can do now is dance, and although some of the dances are good, most are eye sores. As a fan of the game it would be better to see the old celebrations of the likes of Steve Smith, Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens. It is wishful thinking but c’mon NFL, stop being the no fun league and give us the personality and entertainment these players can provide.