General Discussion

A while back you made a post about americanizing soccer and some hilarity ensued so now it's my turn. 

After reading all that I got to thinking about American Football and why the hell you guys call it football when I'd say 5% of the game time is spent actually kicking the ball.  What I'm trying to figure out is why name something after a process that takes up the least game time?

Oh, and I invite anybody to comment not just Jimmy_Scythe but I do want to hear what he has to say.

Because handball was already a sport and we Yanks aren't very imaginative when it comes to naming things.  Maybe throwball would have been the best name.  But back in those days, they didn't throw the ball that much.

www.football.com/history.html

Yeah, I know the history and all that too.

Handball doesn't really fit since passing isn't nearly as big a part of the game as running the rock as far as you can between downs. In all reality, American Football is nothing more than an extremely formalized version of "Smear the Queer." The "Queer" in this case being whoever happens to be holding the ball.

I got a confession to make though. I'm not a big sports fan. Most sports bore the living hell out of me and that includes American Football. Although boxing still traps me like a deer in headlights, but that's just because I was raised in a house where boxing was THE sport. Some families are devoted to a certain baseball / football / basketball team, but my family was devoted to boxing in and of itself. <shrugs> go figure.

That doesn't mean that I don't lampoon the macho insecurity that surrounds professional sports though. And ironically, I understand the draw of sports completely. I actually found myself having fun while playing FIFA 09 during my 30 days of soccer hell. I can appreciate a violent round of NHL 2K9. Hell I'm even starting to kinda get into Arena Football and Futsal (that's Futbal Rapido for those of you in Mexico and South America). But for the most part, sports just don't have the back to back excitement that I require to keep watching beyond the ten minute mark.

That's why I think that American Football will probably be replaced with Gravel Rugby. Basically, it's Rugby played by death row convicts on a field of gravel mixed with just the right consistency of broken glass and rusty nails. The ball will also be filled with lead shavings and covered with two inch stainless steel spikes. The team that wins the championship game will get the right to draw lots where one of the players will have their sentence commuted to life without parole.

....

I'm also thinking land mines....

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

That's why I think that American Football will probably be replaced with Gravel Rugby. Basically, it's Rugby played by death row convicts on a field of gravel mixed with just the right consistency of broken glass and rusty nails. The ball will also be filled with lead shavings and covered with two inch stainless steel spikes. The team that wins the championship game will get the right to draw lots where one of the players will have their sentence commuted to life without parole.

....

I'm also thinking land mines....

I like where this is going...  I'm thinking of just giving them pads like the ones Animal and Hawk had during the old days of WWF as the Road Warriors.  They had spikes on them and of course wore no helmets.  I figure this would make a nice addition to what you already posted.

And leave it to Dekron to make it all serious and educational and stuff

Bring back the XFL!

I always thought that Gridball would be a more appropriate name for American Football since it's played on a grid. The field is already referred to as the gridiron so gridball seems a logical step.