Will there be any NFL football coverage on TV this weekend?

By now you have no doubt noticed that my blog entries are sometimes serious, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes silly, and sometimes a combination of the three. With that said . . .

When I was a boy, I loved watching NFL football games on Sunday afternoons. I can remember getting home from church at about 12:45, which was great because I could still catch the last fifteen minutes of the thirty minute pre-game show. This was back in the 70s—the crew at CBS was Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, former Miss America Phyllis George, and ol’ Jimmy the Greek making his predictions.

My, how times have changed. Back then, there was a thirty minute pre-game show. A half an hour, that was it. Then it was off to New York, Chicago, Green Bay, or wherever the 1:00 game was. As a quick aside, back then, John Madden was the slightly crazy head coach of the Oakland Raiders who always had a tag hanging from his clothing (does anyone remember that?). Now fast-forward thirty years. I think I can say with very little exaggeration that nowadays, NFL coverage is round-the-clock. With ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, Fox Sports, and an array of regional television networks, you can find coverage of your favorite team in the most excruciating detail. Oh, I almost forgot—a few years ago the NFL Network was launched, a cable channel devoted exclusively to the league. Am I the only one who thinks our country is getting a little carried away with all this?

When I say “excruciating detail,” I mean exactly that. Just a few weeks ago, I overheard an ESPN analysis of an upcoming game. While the commentator delved into the specifics, the video froze, one player was highlighted, then, like something out of “The Matrix,” the field spun around so we could see the play from another vantage point. Then the commentator said, “The Bengals’ linebacker has got to shoot that gap to get to the Steelers’ quarterback. That is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!” Really? I was always taught that THE MOST IMPORTANT THING was that every human being is going to spend eternity in one of two places based on how they respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I guess I didn’t get the memo that that changed.

There are many other examples. Studio announcers walking over to a mock-up of a football field and walking us through certain plays. Literally weeks of coverage on the NFL draft every spring. And what about our national celebration of the Super Bowl each year? It seems to have eclipsed Easter and maybe even the Fourth of July in terms of the attention paid to it.

But it even goes beyond coverage of the actual games. Just the other week I heard a stat that “The Dallas Cowboys are 1 and 6 against the spread on the road since last November.” Who cares? I guess if I were a gambler I would care, but regardless, this really has nothing to do with the game itself. Or, how about ESPN’s seven minute segment updating Fantasy Football, where we hear gems like “The Detroit Lions lead the league in giving up fantasy points to opposing offensive players.” Fantasy points? Okay, at this point things are starting to get a little weird. I don’t really understand where Fantasy Football came from, or why there is a need for it. We already have actual football. In fact, let me be blunt—if you are fantasizing about football, maybe you ought to take your wife or girlfriend out on a date next Friday night.

Now, I am certainly not against entertainment. I cheer for my favorite sports teams. I drop some money twice a year to go see my alma mater play a football and basketball game. I watch NFL football. I take my family to Disney World, etc. etc. And, I don’t begrudge anybody else for indulging in some well-earned entertainment, relaxation, vacations, etc. But is it possible that sports and entertainment have taken a grossly disproportionate place of prominence in our society? Is it possible that six or seven 24/7 sports channels is just a tad bit of overkill?

You know what crosses my mind every once in a while? Call me morbid, but somewhere, in a very remote cave in the far reaches of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, there are a group of young men who don’t dress fancy, and don’t eat a lot. But they are extremely smart and well-educated. Some of them are fluent in several languages. They spend their time not watching ESPN or catching up on fantasy stats, but on devising ways of obliterating places like New York City, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Dallas (which are, incidentally, the four cities that have teams in the NFC East division).

I am very grateful for the courageous men and women who are out on the front lines right now defending our freedom, and trying to stop those who want to destroy our cities and kill us and our children. And I know that many Americans are concerned and doing their part in a myriad of ways. I just sometimes fear that, as a whole, we (Americans, including myself) overdose on entertainment, sports, vacations, etc., instead of focusing more resolutely on more serious matters—like what THE MOST IMPORTANT THING really is.