Ross: Football is like American politics without shutting down the stadium

I noticed something familiar while watching the playoffs recently. You have these two teams. Their viewpoints couldn’t be more different. One team is always trying to move the ball one way, and the other team is always trying to move the ball the other way.

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At various times during the game, the referees actually force the teams to switch end zones, but the players don’t care! They have nothing invested in which particular end zone they get the ball into, as long as it’s opposite from the other team’s end zone.

How petty is that?

There are no bipartisan huddles to figure out how to cooperate on reaching the end zone – which would be way more efficient. No, it’s a system deliberately designed to create confrontation and stir up passion!

And on top of all that – sometimes the game can be totally unfair. As crazy as it sounds, sometimes the refs will miss an obvious pass interference call that costs the home team the conference championship it deserved.

But is the NFL going to lose its temper and stop paying the refs? And then maybe just for the heck of it, furlough the janitors, the accountants, the groundskeepers, and hot dog vendors?

No. Why? Because that would be ridiculous.

So maybe that’s the big beautiful wall we can agree on — we play the game as before, but with a coast-to-coast slab of concrete legislation to protect employees whose only crime was doing their jobs.

 

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