The National Football League is absolutely ridiculous, and I’m done watching it.

It’s on TV (cough, ESPN, cough) for most of the day every day, even during the offseason. In an average NFL offseason, there’s a pretty standard schedule of how the months progress. After the Super Bowl, you have a few weeks breaking down the game, celebrating and predicting the next season. Shortly after, draft speculation begins, followed by the draft itself. Next, every talking head offering their grades for how each team did in said draft. Then training camps, preseason and, mercifully, the season itself.

But the NFL has been able to take it a step further in the last two seasons. Now, in case you were dying for more talk about the NFL in June, you have the token scandal to yammer about all offseason. This year, ESPN was able to feast on Deflategate (though I prefer the title “Ballghazi”), a story so nonsensical that, after Tom Brady was absolved of wrongdoing just days before the start of the season, it didn’t seem at all outlandish to suggest the whole thing was engineered by the league as a way to dominate headlines during the offseason.

Really, the whole cycle of scandal after scandal combined with a violent sport and a vilified commissioner is something fit for WWE, not the United States’ most popular sport. By the time last Sunday rolled around, I had decided that the NFL was a cartoon and I was done paying attention to it.

Then I watched the Bears play the Packers.

As I settled in to do some homework Sunday afternoon, as a Bears fan, I thought I’d turn the game on just for some white noise as I did my reading. After all, the Bears usually play at the same time as the Vikings, and I only get to watch a handful of games each year. About two minutes later, I had eschewed my homework and was firmly planted in front of the TV, back to my old self, hoping Jared Allen would put Aaron Rodgers next to Jordy Nelson on the list of Packers players injured for the season.

Perhaps distancing myself from the NFL was just a defense mechanism – I fully expected the Bears to finish last in the league this season, which, admittedly, could very well still happen. But after being pleasantly surprised and entertained with the first NFC North game this season, I followed it up by watching the Broncos beat the Ravens then watching the Giants melt down against the Cowboys. I enjoyed all of it.

Between talk of concussions, the league’s domestic violence problem, allegations of racism against coaches and other coaches fighting over beach chairs, it’s easy to forget that football is still, you know, a game and not some violent soap opera. The NFL and its presentation of a simple game is still ridiculous, childish and, at times, embarrassing, but – like any spectacle – it’s still highly entertaining.
Jacob Sevening can be reached at seve8586@stthomas.edu.