FOOBAWL


The other day, an event occurred that rocked the entire state of Minnesota. I wondered why Twitter and Facebook went briefly insane.

I have a few observations.

Vikings fans are a godly people. I lost track of how often people would shriek out the name of the Lord.

There sure are a lot of people who wear that Vikings purple. I guess that’s OK. It’s a nice dramatic color. I’d wear it if it didn’t immediately label me a Vikings fan.*

Why do so many people record themselves watching TV? Is there a family member who is coolly ironic, watching with a sense of detachment, who knows that Uncle Joe is pretty much guaranteed to go amusingly apeshit at some point in a football game?

This is a game the Vikings were losing until the final few seconds, when there was an amazing pass and run for a touchdown (I was impressed, even). Does that mean that the coolly ironic person with the camera was watching Uncle Joe in anticipation of seeing him break down and cry? Because that puts a cruel twist on these videos.

Were they disappointed when Uncle Joe was instead gushingly overjoyed? Or did a Grinch scenario play out here? If so, we need people to start recording people who are recording people watching football games.

I am not a football fan, and I wasn’t watching the game in real time. But now I’m thinking it might actually be entertaining if there were a sports show that specialized in only showing the last 30 seconds of games. Games with dramatic conclusions like that one would be rare, with most just ending with a buzzer and one team walking off the field dispiritedly, but that would be true to the games, too, and you wouldn’t have to wade through 3 hours of bother to find out who wins.

*You can look up the official hex codes for the colors here, or the Pantone numbers, in case you want to go buy a bucket of house paint in those colors.

Comments

  1. hemidactylus says

    There’s a red zone network that highlights teams inside the opposing 20 yd line. But you have to watch the numerous postgame shows to find the dramatic last minute highlights you seek.

    I was more interested in college than pro this year. The Jags are surprisingly successful though. Hopefully someone takes out the Pats (grrrrr!).

    Your Vikings have been to the Super Bowl four times.

  2. paxoll says

    Apparently you are just watching football wrong. Imagine both teams as some population of primitive organism. Each play is a new organism trying a new mutation, in the same conditions with roughly the same goal, You could consider it a predator/prey relationship.

  3. Ed Seedhouse says

    For me the best spectator sport is still chess. Of course you have to know something about the game first, but that’s nothing that a few years of intensive study can’t cure. I have no idea why most people think the game is boring!

    Anyway, currently watching the Tata Steel tournament on line. Thrills and spills!!

  4. What a Maroon, living up to the 'nym says

    @paxoll,

    I prefer to think of football as contact ballet. (It actually requires quite a bit of choreography.)

    @hemidactylus,
    Ha! Patriots über alles!

  5. bodach says

    As a Seahawk fan, I can relate to the Vikings fans’ joy.
    As a Seahawk fan, I can also relate to the Saints fans’ utter desolation.
    Odd how something so esoteric can be imbued with such overwhelming emotion. Go Hawks!

  6. Reginald Selkirk says

    This is a game the Vikings were losing until the final few seconds

    Not so. They were winning early on, with a comfortable 17-0 lead at halftime. They were still ahead 17-7 at the end of the 3rd. Then the Saints started climbing back, and that terrible sinking feeling set in. The Saints did not hold the lead until ~3:00 to go in the 4th. The Vikings retook the lead with a field goal at 1:31, the Saints did the same at 0:26.
    The Vikings capper came approximately as the game clock expired, although by rule they had to run an extra point play.

  7. Matt G says

    This was one of those games in which you realize fairly early on that the team with the lead is going to lose. Vikings got off to a strong start but then stalled, barely holding on. Saints started flat, but then hit the gas. I had given up on Minnesota early in the 4th, not realizing I was wrong until about 4 seconds remained. The last play was a combination of a defender arriving too early and apparently trying to avoid a pass interference call (or possibly it was just poor tackling technique), a well-thrown ball, and the bad luck of one defender taking out the only other person who could make a tackle.

  8. says

    Actually I wish had footage of me during game 7 of the World Series both 2016 and 2017. (I love the Cubs, most important thing in my life, and I hate the Dodgers).

    Also the Vikings thing is important because it keeps open the possibility of a true home team for the super bowl

  9. Chakat Firepaw says

    I can give a reason some people started videoing this sort of thing, or rather 110,000 reasons:

    America’s Funniest Home Videos, from which you could win up to $110,000 for your video of uncle Joe going apeshit. The possibility of having it go viral on YouTube just adds another rasons to do it.