The NBA kicked off the season on Tuesday and now we have all four sports in season. This Sunday will be the first time ever that there has been regular or post season football, baseball, basketball, and hockey on the same day.
No disrespect to the NBA, I like it an all, but I’m not following it until football season is over. The NFL is America’s sport and here are five reasons why it is:
Your not going to eat that at an NBA game.
5. The Last 2 Minutes Take Forever
In the NBA, the last two minutes of any remotely close game take forever. Each team has a seemingly endless amount of timeouts and take one after each possession. Also even when play is the trailing team will foul in the closing minutes, which leads to plenty of free throws, one of the most boring parts of the game.
In the NFL, the last two minutes will take a little longer than usual but nothing compared to the NBA. A team will have at most 3 timeouts left by that time and most of the time they’ll have less. The clock is running otherwise and teams show a sense of urgency instead of standing at the top of the key waiting until the shot clock is about to run out before they make a move.
4. Selfish, Not Team Game
The NBA is built for superstars. Everybody knows the most talented players who score the most. You can one player carry his entire team on his back. LeBron James has done this for the Cavs and so has Kobe for the Lakers. While there is no denying these players are great, it takes away from the team aspect of the game.
It doesn’t work that way in the NFL. There are 11 players on the field and everyone needs to do their 1/11 in order for the play to be successful. If the wide receivers burns the corner but the left guard misses his block the quarter back will be sacked instead of passing to the receiver for a touchdown.
Peyton Manning will go down as one of the best if not the best quarterback of all-time yet he has only won 1 Super Bowl. Another qb legend, Dan Marino, never won a Super Bowl, his entire career. You need a complete team to win. No one player is bigger than the rest of the team.
3. Teams that make playoffs
Eight teams make the playoffs in each conference in the NBA and 16 teams make it overall. That is more than half of the entire league! That is ridiculous. The playoffs are supposed to be for the best of the best. When you have teams aren’t even in the top half of the league playing in the post season that’s a problem. For the past four seasons in the Eastern Conference at least 3 teams have made the playoffs that have a .500 or worse record. That’s is one team away from half of the teams that made it.
In the NFL every few years or so you will see one 8-8 make the playoffs, let alone almost half of the playoff field. Also, never has a team with a losing record made it. Even if you win 9 or 10 games your still not even assured a playoff berth. Last year the New England Patriots finished 11-5 and still failed to make the playoffs! That is a .6875 winning percentage. To compare that to the NBA, it is the equivalent of a 55 win team not making the playoffs yet the NBA has team with under 40 years almost every year.
2. Tailgating
This one is an easy one. Rarely does someone tailgate for an NBA game. You’d think someone was crazy if you ever saw them in the parking lot cooking up some burgers and dogs before a basketball game.
For the NFL tailgating is a tradition. People arrive at the stadiums as soon as they open to start tailgating and don’t leave until long after the game is over. Some of them won’t eve go into the stadium. They just stay outside, eat, drink, and watch the game on a t.v. A tailgate is hard to describe but the experience is incredible. Being with fellow fans, enjoying delicious food; it’s one of the better experiences in life that nothing can compare to.
1. Super Bowl
Of course, what else but the Super Bowl.
The NBA playoffs/finals are good but don’t even come close to the Super Bowl. For one they take forever. The postseason feels like it drags on for months. By the time you finally get to the Finals you don’t even remember what happened in the first two rounds. They give teams 2, sometimes 3 days off between games when they should only be getting one max.
Getting back to the NFL there is nothing quite like the Super Bowl. It is the most watched tv show virtually every year. Also has any other sporting event threatened to be a holiday like Super Bowl Monday. It probably won’t ever happen but we can dream.
Everyone will watch the Superbowl, even you mom, wife, and sister, who all hate football, even if it’s just for the commercials.
The atmosphere of a Super Bowl party is tangible. Even though, you favorite team isn’t in it your still psyched up about it. Whether it’s the tantalizing spread set up or the insane prop bets you made, like how many songs Bruce Springsteen will play during halftime (he played four, I won) the Super Bowl has something for everyone. I’m sorry but you can’t say that about the NBA Finals.
So while basketball plays meaningless games, we all know there are only 5 team that can win it all, we’ll all be watching the best sport on Earth.
