NFL for Aliens: Not Fully Logical

You know how people sometimes say, "If I were an alien who experienced something for the first time, I'd say it was nuts?" That's exactly what applies to the National Football League this year.

After seeing the disgraceful exhibition that was the 1999 NFC Championship Game, won by the St. Louis Rams over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a super-bizarro 11-6 score, I decided not to bother watching pro football on Sundays this year.

In that game between the Rams and Bucs--ironically, a game equally as bad as the 9-0 Ram victory in the 1979 NFC title tilt between the two teams--Tampa Bay, holding a 6-5 lead late in the third quarter, felt perfectly justified (and the scary part is, they were smart to assume such a mind-set) in running a basic toss sweep on third-and-7 in their own territory. That one play demonstrated how much championship professional football has deteriorated from the mid-1990s, when the last of the great 49er and Cowboy dynasties flickered out.

No longer did championship teams win with great plays and powerful performances. Winning a Super Bowl has become winning a war of attrition and simply minimizing mistakes. Defense exhibit A? The Tennessee Titans, who minimized their way within a yard of overtime in Super Bowl XXXIV last January.

So, this season, I decided (and before I joined e-sports.com, too!) to focus only on the passionate and diversified college game, instead of the bland and homogenized pro game. If you've seen one turnover-filled 16-13 slopfest (like the Bucs-Dolphins game last Sunday--geez, those darn Bucs again, mucking it up...), you've seen 'em all in today's NFL.

As a result, I've only checked in on rare occasions (to watch the Rams, the one team really worth watching in the league), primarily just to get a serving of highlights, which actually have action in them. For all intents and purposes, I've been an alien to pro football this year. And with college football taking a break, I've tried to absorb the playoff picture a little bit. My (alien) findings?

Who is the stud running back for the Philadelphia Eagles? Their stud receiver? What about the New Orleans Saints' backup for Ricky Williams? What about the Miami Dolphins' QB? Jay Fielder is leading a 10-4 team? The Giants are 10-4, with the same Kerry Collins? The Colts are on the outside looking in?

As a coach--I forget who--so famously said in a miked audio clip from NFL Films, "What in the world is going on around here?"

Pro football, in the days after John Facenda, is a sadly alien entity. Too bad.