Guys, I'm really depressed here

[burghboi]

I'm just 19 and I feel as if the game is passing me by. I don't know where the game of football is headed and it worries me. Week by week I feel we are seeing a more and more jaded NFL. It's the calls, man.

Those God Damned how in the world is that a penalty calls is what has me so down and out all of a sudden. Where are these calls coming from? How did they come to be? Where is the line drawn or is it just going to get worse and worse for the players, coaches, and, in particular, for me and you, the fans of the National Football League? I wish I knew.

For the first time in my young life I have asked myself on a game by game basis how many more plays I can watch without picking up the remote, pressing the power button, and walking away from the game that I once believed to be a sort of heaven on earth.

I once thought I knew the game well. I once thought I knew the ins and outs, but now come to find I only know the game inside the game. I no longer know the game outside of the game. Allow me to correct that, because I do know what the game outside the game should be.

First, let me desribe what I mean when I say what the ins of the game. The ins of the game is the game of football, itself. We are talking about what the players do. They are executing schemes, fighting to beat the guy across from them, and, if all else fails, they are looking to light someone up. That is God Damned football, right there. That is what I want, and what every person involved in football should want.

The outs of football is where I am lost, or maybe they, the commish and other league officials, are lost. It appears that the commish and his right hand men have determined aggressive play on the field is off limits. It appears as if they are ignoring the essense, (the ins), of football, as Troy Polamalu stated a number of weeks ago. And it appears as if we will soon be witnessing defenders playing two-hand touch with Quarterbacks.

These are sad days for me, and for you guys reading this right now. Ask me what football is anymore, but I do not know guys. I really don't.

[Finnegans Wake]

Preachin' to the choir, bro.

The game changes, there's no stopping that: but the pansification of the league seems to really have gone over the cliff this year especially. 

[Merman1983]

I hear you man. As some one who was uphappy with alot of the rules as they were in previous years (i fucking HATE the spot foul on pass interference) this year is driving me crazy. There are people like Hines and Silverback who aren't going to change IMO, thank god. But the new breed, younger guys, are going to be becoming less and less agressive, which as you said, ain't football.

Alot of average working joes like many of us see these 10k fines as chump change to people making millions a year, but to someone like Woodley, who's on his rookie contract, that shit adds up. It's got to be in the back of people's heads and it WILL temper agressiveness.

And you know this shit is a result of the golden boy's knee exploding.

[aj_law]

For the first time in my young life I have asked myself on a game by game basis how many more plays I can watch without picking up the remote, pressing the power button, and walking away from the game that I once believed to be a sort of heaven on earth.

Eh, just pick the thing up and whip it at the nearest wall, much more therapeutic.  Expensive, but therapeutic nonetheless.