Football-inspired stupidity

It’s that time of year we’re reminded of the human capacityfor stupidity specific to football. American football that is - not European football or soccer as it’s called in the US. While I discuss the American phenomena of football-inspired moronics here, I will openly admit this is oneof the few times I must judge European football fans much worse than Americans– often riots break out and attending a ‘football’ game in Europe especially when it’s a game between 2 vicious rivals can literally be dangerous. The fans reach a level of nuts the Americans have yet to master but something to which to aspire. While not nearly as insanely combative, the American counterparts doa pretty decent job of exhibiting a category of stupidity I can only classify as ‘sports-specific stupid’ especially when it comes to their beloved football.

Take a stroll through the average American supermarket on a Sunday before a football game – especially in a city with an NFL team and youwill surely witness some, if not all, of what I’m about to describe. If you’re not ‘one of them,’ you probably observe as most do animals in zoos – curiously puzzled by the inexplicable behavior by what are supposed to be: intelligent life forms. Be prepared if you do your grocery shopping on a Sunday during football season because the obsessed football fans transform the store into the football zone: a land of dolts yammering onfrom aisle to aisle in football chatter as if their lives depend on the outcomeof the GAME. You’d hope as their team of choice dies off as the season progresses, the chatter would dull but NO. The wishy washy fans then abandon their usualfavorite team and adopt a team that continues to play once their usual team has been eliminated. By the time we reach the weekend of the world’s most important holiday: Super Bowl Sunday, fans simply substitute their new favorite team’s name into their usual mindless banter about their old favorite team (ie the teamthat failed to advance to championship games but still secretly remains 'the best' and only failed because of bad calls by unfair referrees). Amazing how quickly football fans learn stats and player names of the new team yet their brain fails them on much simpler things like not getting into the ‘10 or fewer items’ express lane with 500 items in their shopping cartor how to pay with their debit card. No grasp of such simplistic concepts yet we can talk the football talk ad nauseam in preparation for every fakin game.

Yes, that’s right folks, it’s a fakin GAME and unless you own the team or have bet your house on the outcome like a truly stupid fak, the outcome doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. While not a sports fan, I can understand some people enjoy watching sports or playing sports as a form of recreation. There is nothing wrong with that as long as we keep reality in check. It’s this over the top obsession ‘suffered’ by such a huge population that puzzles me. What the fak is SO stupefying about football that it turns otherwise reasonable individuals into a sort of caveman/woman species who cannot accept the reality that it’s JUST a game and that it doesn’t really matter to the overall state of the world or their lives? For the sake of the argument, I will refer to fans as males although I’m very aware there are plenty of females just as stupid over sports. From more observation than I’d like to have year after year, I’ve simply observed more males acting out their football obsession than females.