Bravo NFL

Early March is one of the busiest times of year in the sporting world. With NCAA basketball and the NBA gearing up for the playoffs as well as Major League Baseball getting going for another season it is hard not to be excited about sports.

However, the sport dominating television and radio airwaves is a sport that lives not in the rebirth and change of spring, but the cold and mud of fall and winter. Today I wondered, “What is it about the NFL that is so intriguing, even when the season doesn’t start for six months.” Why does the NFL combine and NFL free agency draw as much press as the NBA, college basketball and baseball combined? It’s simple, “Football is America.”

The NFL Combine

This statement sounds clichéd and trite, but it holds much truth. For example, two weeks ago, I noticed I had set my Tivo to record nine hours of NFL combine coverage. Call me a loser all you want, but I was doing more than watching the future NFL players run, jump and catch. I was watching the best athletes America has to offer perform. That’s right I said, football players are the best athletes.

Through marketing, multi million dollar contracts, and year round coverage, football has become America’s sport. And it makes since that America’s game would attract America’s top athletes. For this reason, the United States will never win the World Cup and Major League Baseball will have to continue to import its talent from abroad, because the best athletes in America do not pick up soccer balls.

NFL athletes run and jump to levels that rival world class track and field athletes with bodies the size of Sherman Tanks. I don’t need to see the US compete in Beijing this summer to watch America’s best. Watch Darren McFadden run the forty yard dash and Glenn Dorsey doing cone drills and you will have seen all you need to see.

NFL Free Agency

Lucky for us hardcore NFL fans, not only do we get the NFL combine to sink our teeth into, but one week later we get NFL free agency. NFL free agency, might be the greatest thing football does next to the Super Bowl itself.

As a diehard fan of a typically mediocre team, NFL free agency gives you a feeling the season doesn’t. You get the feeling of success without your team setting foot on the field. You get a hope that the new players on your team will put your team over the top to achieve the ultimate goal. You are finally allowed to hold your head high because last season is in the past and you have six months to enjoy the hope that this is finally the year.

Bravo NFL, Bravo.