The Steelers, the Cowboys and How the NFL Lost Me as a Fan

As a kid in the 1970s, there were only two teams in the NFL: the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys.

The Pittsburgh Steelers were mean. Nasty. Ugly. They punched you in the mouth.

The Dallas Cowboys were precise. Fast. Pretty. They outran you.

It wasn’t that the Steelers didn’t throw the deep ball. They did. It wasn't that the Cowboys didn’t have mean, nasty players. They did. This was just how my friends and I saw the two teams. If you liked gritty football, you liked the Steelers and hated the Cowboys. If you liked flashy football, you liked the Cowboys and hated the Steelers.

I was a Steelers guy. I was about the violence. I liked the slugger over the dancing boxer. The Cowboys disgusted me with their immaculate uniforms and field. I was a Browns fan, not a Steelers fan, but if you divided football into two categories—Steelers, Cowboys—I was a Steelers guy.

Baseball was my first love, but it was football that grabbed me. Bruising and violent, I loved it! It had my passion! I ate, drank and slept football. Everything in the world was second.

As we moved into the new century, my love for football was starting to wane. I thought it may have been the Browns that did this to me. Art Modell had moved the team and I found life after football.

And then when the Browns did return, they were horrible. Not just bad, but boring. I tried to watch other games, but they just didn’t grab me.

What had happened? Was I the scorned lover who couldn’t rekindle the magic? I still loved baseball and I had fallen in love with the game of basketball. What was going on with me and football?

This season I finally figured it out while watching the second Ravens-Steelers game on a Sunday night. These two teams hate each other—bitter, violent rivals. And it showed. Punches flew. Hits were violent. This was OLD SCHOOL football!

I was on my feet! I was fired up! I wanted to tackle the TV! YEAH! The warrior was stirred once again! They don’t play ‘em like this any more!

And that’s where I realized how the NFL had lost me.

As the the NFL became more corporate across the decades since the 1970s, as it worked to broaden its appeal to a bigger base, it tweaked its rules more and more in favor of the offense. Americans like scoring! You couldn’t hit the quarterback. You couldn’t touch the wide receivers. They were sanitizing the game in favor of business.

And I can’t argue their logic. Business is booming. $9 BILLION in revenue last year. The league is the most popular in the country, and has worldwide appeal.

But in the process, it lost me.

The game has opened up. It’s a pass-first league. You need an elite quarterback to win. Even the Steelers are a throw-first team these days. Now everybody boxes and very few slug.

Anything even slightly resembling a helmet-to-helmet hit is a flag and a fine. Anytime a defensive player’s helmet makes contact with an offensive guy, it’s a leading-with-the-helmet penalty.

It seems like every penalty against the defense is a 15-yarder and/or an automatic first down.

Football moved from the Steelers category mentioned before to the Cowboys category.

This white-washed version of the NFL may be great for some people, but it just doesn’t grab me. I don’t need violence to enjoy sports. Basketball is physical, but not violent, and baseball is really not even physical—but football has nothing else that draws me in.

I understand that I am in the minority here. I’m not here to rain on anyone’s parade. I just don’t enjoy this version of the NFL, a game that, to me, has been hijacked by our ever-more-corporate culture, a league who’s bread is buttered with TV money.

And fans of the NHL, beware: They’re coming after your sport next.