What's so Manly about American Football?
 

I'm watching the game tonight and I'm sorta thinking it doesn't really look so masculine....

No. wait! Hear me out...

They have shiny uniforms
... that are skintight
with cap sleeves

They have so much padding
A mommy's boy would complain
about overprotection

They make a big deal about
every single freaking yard.
Man up and go for the whole damn distance.

or at least something more than three feet

And they get free do-overs too

... and how long does it take for a tight end to become a wide receiver?

Real Men use their arms when they play sports. They play in the snow and rain and mud, and don't prance up and down the field like girly-men. They get bruises and broken bones and concussions from impacts of giant dudes running into them at full speed. They retire young because a body just can't take that kind of abuse for too long. They don't wear little shorts and t-shirts like the 4th grade girls badminton team.

;)

exactly

and did I mention the cuddling other players who don't even have the damn ball?

Snuggles.

This classic Carlin bit explains why football is manly... and baseball is not

American football is executed like an old-fashioned military campaign.

Baseball goes without saying. It's like rounders in silly pants..... and takes for freaking ever by all accounts. And I really hate that "take me out to the ballpark" song.

I'm liking the hockey, though. Although it's a little "white".

Also isn't it kind of weird that so many football players are black when the fans are white? At least that's how it looked on the tv last night.... or was that an anomoly? I'm still pretty new to this game...

this

As opposed to this. :bolt:

I love that last bit where Bill Bates clocks the old flag guy......apologizes, and puts his hat back on his head.

ƒuuuuuuckk man



1:18 Earl Campbell

YEAH. the rest of that run starts at 1:10

this guy had a couple moves

There's something about having played pick-up football as a kid.

If I have any toughness in me, it's from those moments.


== Six on six, neighborhood kids, everybody pretty much go out for passes, nobody's blocking on the line but you can rush on five mississippi. We got three plays to get to the tree, then we get a first down and we get three more plays to get to the end of the field.

Sammy got cut on a rock.

Is it bleeding?

A little

Sammy let me see that. Oh that's nothing. That's through your jeans. You walkin OK? OK, spit on it, clean it out a little, limp real bad on the next play, and the play after that they won't cover ya, and we'll throw it to you.

== This one time, there was another guy named Tony, on the other team; and he was not a big guy, but he was a little older and taller than a lot of our guys. You play neighborhood ball, you know, a lot of different age guys will come out for that.

Well this Tony took the ball on a kickoff, and he decided to see what would happen if he just busted down the middle of the field at full gallop. Instead of running it back by dodging, he would just barrel down, arms flailing, big war face on. And it worked; once he was at full run, nobody wanted to do the simple job of being the tackling dummy. Just putting your body in his way and taking the force of that full-on. (and nobody was smart enough to take him low...)

So, the next kickoff he decides to do his galloping run again. and I realize, I'm gonna have to do this: I have to step up to duty, and hit him, because if somebody doesn't stop him he'll just keep doing it.

I put my shoulder down and hit him at a slight angle. B-O-O-M. I don't know what it looked like, but to me, and to him, it was one of those highlight hits. He went down in a heap. The ball rolled away. I got up. Two minutes later he got up.

There you go: that's what's manly about American Football.

My son is never playing football.

here's some of the ugly. Of course whoever made the first video included some soccer fights which are notoriously wussfests.

and here is one of the most amazing bits of skill ever.



and some more

oh fuck, lookout. how about a broken bone gore douchechill warning on that!?

broken bone gore douchechill warning
 

I didn't find the Cambell/Lambert goal line collision, but for sheer terror you can't touch Theisman/Taylor.

seen that....saw it live.....not watching it again today, thanks.

Me too. It physically hurts to watch that. I remember getting blindsided by a replay I didn't see coming...

I almost threw up.

Damn.

I'm not saying soccer's any more manly, just I really find football like a huge pantomime. A wussy girly pantomime. They even have girly hair. And knickerbockers. And they need a break every ten seconds. To restyle it. :p

this is a troll you're perpetrating. we all know it, but we enjoy it just the same.

good. I'm in one of those moods today. But damn, I'm sure I could take it more seriously if they didn't look so silly. I'm really trying to get into this whole football lark, you know ...when in Rome and all that.....

"perpetrating a troll"? is that, like, a hanging offense?

Go to one of the pee wee games Ive been going to all season - the sound of these 10 year olds smashing into each other is bone chilling. And they hurt each other... wind knocked out, teeth knocked out.... coach picks them up, dusts them off, smacks them in the head and they GET BACK OUT THERE!! Tougher than woodpecker lips these little kids are, I tell ya.

the hazards of football, an article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2..._fact_gladwell

well it's about time something was well hung around here, cause those footballers sure ain't.




btw "Peewee" is not manly. Who TF thought that was a good name? it cracks me up that the hockey players go from mini-mite to mite to squirt to peewee -whiich is middle school age- :lol:

Ours are mighty-mite, mite, and midget - I just like to say peewee.

read the article--it's scary.

What's manly about inviting brain damage?

nothing. don't let your kids grow up to be footballers.

fixed that for you.

Imagine an article written in the same style about people driving cars and getting in crashes.

sure-fire way to get a footballer is to ban them from playing, I reckon :lol: Everyone told me the last thing I wanted was a hockey player... but I got one. Sure, I'm worried about his teeth and brains and limbs, but if I stop him rather than support him, the damage mey be even less fixable.

we need something like that. so much uproar over little things, when we are wilfully blind about a practice that kills thousands of people every day.

there are plenty of articles like that. We just ignore them because we have to to continue our everyday lives with some shred of sanity.

Limbs heal. Teeth are replacable. Only brain and spine are really crucial and vulnerable. Helmets help.

I think your management strategy is wise.

thanks ...but you wander off in the bush alone. Now that is manly, but.......

(and we really need a pic)

Football is carefully designed so that the damage only occurs to parts of the brain related to feelings, hygiene and dress sense. How much more manly do you want?

No, manly is taking a bulldozer, or better yet a tank, and taming that damn wilderness. :haha:

Sorry, didn't even think about it. You did watch the good clips though, right?

You could always fall back on this...

http://www.irb.com/

Old time hockey was the best!

Soz to reignite this, but hey - it's fun cultural discussion after all (Flint hasn't turned up yet).

Rugby comes top in manly field games. We don't count blood sports like cage fighting and extreme wrestling and all. I'm not a fan of either Rugby (sorry Merc) because it was a posh boys game and I never learned the rules. It was taught at my secondary school (12-18) but my male friends and my bro hated it with a passion - although they were not unsporting types.

Australian Rules second. I know even less about it, hence its second place - but what I know is vicious. In fact I'd put it in third place just out of spite, because of the Antipodean men I've heard say, "Rugby? That's a gay sport! You wanna watch..." etc etc etc. But I'm not that shallow.

Football third. It can be the roughest, toughest game in the world. No, really - it is the beautiful game and you would get it if you watched our local team on Boxing Day. Always a local derby, often on hard/ frozen ground. Personal insults shouted. Both teams castigated and wildly applauded in turn. Passion that could run a small town if it was tapped, usually for a result that doesn't affect either team. And supporters, like me, my bro, my SIL, stamping our feet in the winter chill, sun already setting, for a 0-1 match. And players launching themsleves into grazes and sliding into bruises and being whooped at for wearing leggings under their shorts.

I adore it.

Merkin Football fourth. Too much stop & start for me. Four seconds of play then stop. No better than cricket.

I think here are some things you have to be born into to appreciate. Some people cross over of course. My bro just spent a fair few pounds to see an American Football game in London. And he loves (real) football - aka soccer. And after all many Americans love Monty Python. But I bet you'd be diffident about Benidorm for example

So I'm being diplomatic.
But yeah, what is manly about American Football? ;)

I'm going to invent a special keyboard that breaks your fingers when you type my name.

I watched a little American Football on TV last night.

It pretty much confirmed my existing opinion that the actual action bits are pretty good, but there are far too many breaks in play. In Rugby Union, once the player with the ball is tackled, play does not stop, but rather the tackling player must release and roll away, and the ball-carrier must immediately play the ball (generally by releasing it on the ground behind him - whichever team gets numbers there first gets to pick it up).
After all the stop-start of American Football, I was staggered to see that the coach can call time-outs! WTF? Isn't this game slow enough already?
And then my jaw really dropped when one team was penalised for "delaying the game". That made me laugh.

This allows us loudmouth Americans to opine on each play ad infinitum, drink beer, fart, and burp.