Couch Slouch: Replays and fantasy teams ruining NFL viewing experience
As America’s Viewer for parts of two centuries, Couch Slouch is a trusted voice for generations of couch slouches. I don’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater unless there is a raging inferno or unless I see Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless walking in with bullhorns; in either case, my charge is to protect the public from imminent danger.
So, dear readers, you should not take my words lightly when I say that, as a lifetime TV devotee of the NFL, two things are ruining – and I mean ABSOLUTELY RUINING – the viewing experience:
Replay and fantasy.
Over the last 20 years – which encompasses a couple of marriages, a couple of dogs, a couple of jobs, a couple of midlife crises and a couple hundred bouts of IBS – I have watched games every NFL Sunday with a couple of friends, Don and King.
(Those are their real names – I have no reason to protect them.)
The first few years, we all gathered at a sports bar to take in as many games as we could. But then Don got tired of driving to the gin mill and mingling with strangers, so he bought eight TV sets for his den, and, coupled with eight DirecTV receivers, created his own at-home sports bar. Then King decided eight was not enough, so he went with 10 TVs and 10 DirecTV receivers, and we moved our operation to his decadent domicile.
And there we have been, three sedentary stooges – accompanied by donuts and pizza and Fritos and Diet Mountain Dew – absorbing more football per week than a tackling dummy.
But over the past decade, the nature of our viewing has changed.
Don – and this coincides with the growing presence of replay – comments on perceived officiating blunders every several moments.
King, a longtime sports bettor, has morphed into a sports bettor and fantasy monger – he’s in multiple leagues – and now concentrates on touchdowns, fumbles and yardage totals.
Me? I stew in silence, with an occasional eruption about bad announcers.
Officiating is not necessarily worse than it was, say, 50 years ago, but attention to officiating is much greater.
Before we got multiple angles of every snap, a bad call would come and go without fanfare. Nowadays, a bad call is seen again and again in its immediate wake, then discussed so endlessly during “SportsCenter,” by Monday morning America doesn’t care so much about ISIS as it does about a clock malfunction in the Steelers-Chargers game.
In sports bars, “They’ve got to challenge that!” has become as common a cry as “Bring us another bucket of Bud Light!”
Watching football through the prism of how it is officiated destroys the pleasure of the game.
Would you go to a four-star restaurant and, rather than revel in the quality of the food, obsess on the silverware or study busboy efficiency? How enjoyable would it be attending a Broadway show such as “A Book of Mormon” if you were focusing on sound and lighting issues?
Yet Don sits there shouting about missed holding penalties; he knows the names of virtually every NFL referee. He says stuff like, “Aw, man, Tony Corrente is calling this game – I’m screwed,” or “Every time the Patriots get Jeff Triplette as ref, we lose.”
Meanwhile, King has two smartphones by his side at all times – one of them is dedicated to fantasy dealings only in which he calls in player transactions or talks to his team’s co-owners about in-game developments.
(I have banned King from conducting fantasy business in the viewing area, a controversial ruling considering it’s his house.)
Sport has always operated with a simple component for fans: You root for your team to beat the other team. Fantasy shatters this element – you care not who wins or loses. The final score is incidental; all that matters is statistical debris, signifying nothing.
Plus fantasy contestants are forever conflicted – if you’re a Falcons fan but the Saints’ Drew Brees is your quarterback, you’re an emotional wreck when Brees throws the game-winning touchdown against the Falcons.
(On the other hand, when one of King’s fantasy guys scores for a team on which he has a point-spread bet, he does a little dance that rivals any stripper working any pole in Las Vegas.)
Anyhow, I’ve reached the point where, if Major League Soccer can guarantee me it’s replay- and fantasy-free, I make the jump tomorrow.
Ask The Slouch
Q. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred decided not to lift Pete Rose’s lifetime ban for betting on baseball. Can Rose ban Manfred for life for MLB’s partnership with DraftKings? (Anthony Hughes; Indianapolis)
A. All gambling is not created equal.
Q. Bubba Watson says he would quit if he ever became the world’s No. 1 golfer, so he could walk away on top. If you ever became the No. 1 sports columnist in the world, would you hang it up? (Rob Mendelsohn; Chicago Heights, Ill.)
A. Damn – I was supposed to quit?
Q. What is the concussion protocol in boxing? (Bob Mitchell; Cheney, Wash.)
A. Pay the man, Shirley.
You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway. Just email asktheslouch@aol.com and, if your question is used, you win $1.25 in cash!