As I watched my favorite NFL team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, destroy my most hated team, the Dallas Cowboys, last night, it occurred to me to ask myself why I was so attracted, still, to the sport. I have been watching NFL football since I was a pre-teen. I have been a season ticket holder of the Bucs since 1976. I have spent hundreds of Sundays, and Thursdays, and Mondays watching the sport, and still marvel at the physical and mental skill exhibited by young men on the field of battle. The game appeals to me in ways that defy description; but, last night it occurred to me that I loved the game more in a time in which our culture seems to have forgotten what true competition is all about. We rose from the mud primeval through the principle of survival of the fittest. There were no participation trophies in the Stone Age. You survived or you died. Professional competition, in any sport, not only allows us to escape for a moment, the stresses and problems in our lives, and allows us to participate in a group activity that is larger than our selves; but, it meets a need for a pure, unpolluted, life, free from infection by political correctness. While the NFL pays lip service to the current cancel culture with messages on helmets, and pre game ceremonies, and so forth, the game itself is still won by the fastest, and strongest, and the team with the stronger will. For a few hours yesterday, I was in a world that made sense, a world in which the winner was determined by skill, effort, and ability. You can take the Redskins name off of the helmet. You can call the team any name you want. The only thing that matters is the score at the end of the game. As another famous sportscaster once said: "The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat". It's about human survival.
