Gridiron gripes: 3 things I hate about football

Have you ever seen those grammar columns that sometimes show up in the middle-of-nowhere section of a newspaper?

Usually some crusty old retired high school English teacher whose mother was a crusty old English teacher fields questions from equally electrifying souls on dreary grammar issues and offers answers that would enlighten Shakespeare.

For me, such reading is about as thrilling as a televised Scrabble tournament. Maybe that's why I is not so good at grammar.

But I do like the idea of using column space to sound off on topics irking me - and with football season underway I can't think of a more appropriate time to lambaste some problems with a sport that makes it acceptable to sit on the couch for nine hours on Saturdays and not shower on Sundays.

Nothing makes me spill my nachos worse than when defensive players make sensational plays to force turnovers and then get fancy with the pigskin.

I'd guess that half the time a ball is lateraled (not counting option pitches), it's being flung backward by a defender after a turnover.

How any coach can tolerate such high-risk/low-reward behavior by players with as much experience with balls in their hands as Louie Anderson has with a treadmill is beyond me. Columnist Matt's answer: If you're a defender and find yourself with the ball after a turnover, cover it with both arms and scamper until someone takes you down.

Another situation that makes me throw all six of my remotes at the TV screen is when a player on the punt-returning team insists on being around the gaggle of opposing players trying to down a kick.

Any special teams coach will tell you it's the job of the punt returner to yell like Gunnery Sgt. Hartman to his return-mates if he's not going to make a play on the ball, because, of course, if it touches a member of the return team, it's in play.

For some reason guys on the return team adore following an oblong-shaped ball - notorious for taking unpredictable bounces - that's careening from the sky from as high as 50 feet crash to the ground until it reaches its final resting spot. My solution: The instant the return man voices his disdain for fielding a particular punt, every member of the return team should race each other to the Gatorade table on the sidelines. Plus it'll increase the probability of one of those awesome crashes where a player spills 200 cups of Gatorade that took the water boy the entire first half to replenish.

A final point of contention concerns the drive-killing end zone interception selfishly brought out by the once-heroic defensive back, only to be tackled at the 3-yard line.

If robbing a TD weren't enough, these greedy coverage connoisseurs can't wait to call mom to TiVo their 106-yard return. But when they're corralled by a lineman, they realize their tailback will be lined up in the painted grass rather than at the 20 if he'd just taken a knee.

My last suggestion: Make a pick in the end zone and sit on it faster than you would in the balloon-popping race on "Wild and Crazy Kids."

If you're like me, there's something about the game that drives you madder than Jack Torrance at the Overlook. If you see these things happen, I encourage you to hurl blunt objects at the TV screen.

I promise it'll be more better then learning grammar.

 

Contact Matt Estreich at estreich@email.unc.edu.