I'm reading Trump, complaining about football, at Truth Social: "I can’t watch the new NFL Kickoff. Like many others, I just turn my head. Who has the right to make such a change? So disparaging to the game! The original was Big Time, Strong, Glamorous, and Exciting. The ridiculous new Kickoff Rule takes away the prestige and power of the game. I hope College Football doesn’t follow suit!"
Glamorous.... the most powerful man in the world cries out for the old-time macho brutal collision of giant male bodies and what he's missing is the glamor.
I'm looking up "glamorous," and I like, for Trump's use of the word, the OED's second definition: "Attractive or appealing in an exciting way, esp. because out of the ordinary or suggestive of a more colourful or thrilling way of life." One of the sample quotes is from the 1960 novel, "The Custard Boys": "The cinema, the newspapers and the war books conditioned us to look upon war as glamorous and exciting."
Perhaps somewhere in Trump's fervid mind there's the notion that MAGA really means "Make America Glamorous Again."
పోస్ట్లు
55 కామెంట్లు:
Oh - did they change the rules again, to fit in more commercial breaks and squeeze in more plays in between?
I was skeptical at first but it has resulted in a lot more returned kicks instead of boring touchbacks. I approve.
An average President would claim to like it, even if he hated it.
It was also implemented to cut down on concussions which is appropriate.
Glamorous Glennis was the name Chuck Yeager gave to the Bell X-1 he flew to break the sound barrier in level flight. He named it in honor of his wife, Glennis.
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/bell-x-1/nasm_A19510007000
It's a bizarre formation and play, the new kickoff. But it still can turn into an amazing return event, as the very first play of the Seahawks-49ers game a week ago showed.
On another angle, I am glad the playoffs have had weather-charged games, although the Denver game this weekend went a little far and got stuck in the ice. Open-air games still offer great surprises at times and something different from the canned offenses and defenses that we see in fair-weather games.
Kakistocracy said...
“How can they make such a big and sweeping change so quickly? Idk. Maybe with an executive order.”
You have your usual accuracy, Kak. The NFL club owners vote on proposed changes every offseason. The owners voted 29-3 in favor of the new kickoff rules for the 2024 season as a one year trial. The next off-season they voted to make them permanent.
Trump is wrong on this.
Before the new rule, kicking teams would simply kick the ball over the end zone--no return. (only 22% returns in 2023). The rule changes were made to encourage more returns (while trying to lower injuries). They tweaked it again this year and both returns and injuries are up. Teams are focusing on kicking into the area where the ball must be returned in order to avoid having the ball come out to the 35 yard line.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6798426/2025/11/12/kickoff-returns-concussions-injuries-nfl/
But as long as we are talkin' football, lets get to the important stuff--HOW ABOUT MY PATRIOTS!!!
Just to be clear, it was not an executive order by the executive branch of the NFL, Commissioner Goodell. It was a democratic change put before the entire voting population of the NFL ownership club.
Trump threw me again with his random capitalization. I thought at first that he was talking about the pregame show.
Just kick-off from farther back. Maybe the 20?
What totally sucks is change to on-side kick-offs. New rule has made success all but impossible. "Impossible" is an insult to athletes and fans, alike.
The rule changes were made to encourage more returns (while trying to lower injuries). ... both returns and injuries are up
They needed to experiment with the rule to figure out more returns would equal more injuries?
The on-side kick rule changes made some sense since. I'm going to agree with Trump that the kick-off changes don't. If the problem is modern kickers usually kick the ball out of the end zone then just move the ball back 10 yards to make it less common.
Democracy. Republicanism, too. Are contact sports.
Football is gay. NTTAWWT.
I envision sumo wrestlers. But, nothing Planned.
Football is not gay. It's a micro serious enterprise with benefits.
I give the NFL and the players association credit for trying to figure this out. Kickoffs are exciting, but nasty injuries sidelining good players are not.
It is worth dwelling on the meanings - this term, for they clearly indicate an instinctive popular recognition of a hierarchic motive that affects the very nature of perception, endowing objects with a radiance due to their place in the social order. According to Webster's, the word may be a corruption "gramarye," which means necromancy, magic. (The relation between grammar and magic doubtless goes back to the days when the knowledge of reading and writing was in itself a strong mark of status, because of the cleric's role in civil and religious administration.) The word is also thought to be connected with an Icelandic word for weakness of sight, while Icelandic glamr is a name for the moon, and of a ghost. Four meanings for "glamour" are given: a charm affecting the eye, making objects appear different from what they are; witchcraft, magic, a spell; a kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear different from what they really are; any artificial interest in, or association with, an object, through which it appears delusively rnagnified or glorified
Kenneth Burke A Rhetoric of Motives p.112n
Football is popular in America because it combines gladiatorial combat, chess, war, athleticism and litigation.
Big Time (Peter Gabriel): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBAl9cchQac
AI : “Historically, the word glamour originated as a Scottish variant of "grammar," which at the time referred to occult learning or magic spells used to make things appear more attractive than they were.”
Additions to the "This Really Sucks List" -
Woke messages in end zones and player helmets.
Super Bowl halftime - the length changes the game
Super Bowl halftime woke productions alien to "football"
Pay for view broadcasts - fans and non-fans pay for the stadiums and all broadcasts include commercials. Owners, players and broadcasters are swimming in $$$ NO to taxpayer subsidies without access to the product.
NO to favorable anti-trust treatment of the NFL
NO to teams wearing an infinite number of uniform colors and designs. Fans gotta have 'em all. It's like selling booze and crack to addicts.
Referees that take over games in the last few minutes.
The "Black Anthem". It's ONE country, Goodell.
Roger Goodell
I like the duel of wits between the offense and the defense.
[shrug] I'm just glad to see them going for it on fourth down more often.
Trump - focus.
this does not matter.
the NFL is woke around the edges - and people hate it- but they still tune in. Plus all the lame and possible corrupt gambling.
Focus: Election fraud - and the corrupt left's removal of Identified voting.
"NKP said...
What totally sucks is change to on-side kick-offs. New rule has made success all but impossible. "Impossible" is an insult to athletes and fans, alike."
You didn't watch the Bear v. Packers in Chicago this year.
Thus the ballroom where a gentleman bows, and a lady curtsys, and the couple dance in concert.
"boatbuilder said...
Football is popular in America because it combines gladiatorial combat, chess, war, athleticism and litigation."
All that AND gambling.
He's right about the kickoff. I am sure that there is strategy going on, but I liked it the way it was.
Deion Sanders returns his first NFL kick.
OK, that was a punt return, but that is the kind of display of athleticism that makes the NFL worth watching.
"You didn't watch the Bear v. Packers in Chicago this year."
Out of how many games, how many kickoffs.
I agree that the "dynamic kickoff" is an abomination. As others have said, if the problem is too many touchbacks, they could just move the kickoff spot back. But then we're told that kickoff returns cause too many injuries, so isn't increased touchbacks a good thing?
Maybe they should make kickoffs largely optional:. Change the rule so that, generally, after a score, there is no kickoff--the other team just gets the ball at the 20 (yes, back to the traditional starting point for a touchback). But each team can insist on a kickoff after any score, say, three times per game, at the traditional kickoff yard line, allowing for normal onside kick attempts.
"Fervid", I like that, as in: "Perhaps somewhere in Ann's fervid mind there's the notion that Trump believes that MAGA really means "Make America Glamorous Again."
If there are more returns, do more of them go deeper, or is my feeling that they all get swallowed up around the same area right?
"Who has th right to make such a change?" I don't know? Maybe the owners? Says the renter who thinks he has the right to tear down 1/3 of the White House with no input from the owners.
The glamour boys swear they are a diva
The glamour boys have it all under control
Always dancing and always laughing
The glamour boys are playing the role
The glamour boys never have no money
The glamour boys wear the most expensive clothes
The glamour boys are always at the party
Where the money comes from heaven only knows
I ain't no glamour boy, I'm fierce
I ain't no glamour boy
CC, JSM (via Living Colour)
I agree with the others: just move the kickoff back 10-20 yards. But it doesn't matter to me, I haven't watched a single game since the NFL went Woke and Racist.
"fervid"?
They should go rollerball obviate the salary cap
"Jaq said...
"You didn't watch the Bear v. Packers in Chicago this year."
Out of how many games, how many kickoffs."
I only care about the Bears v Packers one.
"The new Dynamic Kickoff rule worked as intended. Returns increased 57% in the [2024] regular season and there were 7 kickoffs returned for touchdowns, the most since 2021. The new rule slowed the average player speeds, as intended, which led to a lower concussion rate (down 43% vs. 2021-2023) and the fewest lower extremity strains on the play since at least 2018."
That is the reason for the changes. They're working.
I don't watch football very much, and I saw one of those kickoffs, in passing, last night. I wondered "What the hell is that?!"
Rocco said...
"Glamorous Glennis was the name Chuck Yeager gave to the Bell X-1 he flew to break the sound barrier in level flight. He named it in honor of his wife, Glennis."
It was also painted on Yeager's P-51 in WWII.
Do we do "glamour" anymore? If one is as cynical about one's "betters" as we are now does one find anything "glamorous" about them? And if the celebs in their limos and evening wear aren't glamorous anymore is anything glamorous?
And "glamour" or "glamor"? Didn't we settle that when we sent the Tories and their "favour" and "colour" packing?
“[Glamorous Glennis] was also painted on Yeager's P-51 in WWII.”
Mostly true. He named his 3 P-51s Glamorous Glen I, II, & III (not Glennis) after his then girlfriend. He married her after the war, but before breaking the sound barrier.
I thought the whole point of the kickoff was to squeeze in another commerical.
And "glamour" or "glamor"?
I’m all for chucking (or binning, as the Brits might say) the superfluous u’s, but glamour just seems right to me.
You are correct, Curious George. I should have included gambling.
Jaq--there's a reason nobody kicked or threw Deion's way if they could help it.
RCOCEAN II said...
“I thought the whole point of the kickoff was to squeeze in another commerical.”
And official timeouts.
When I watch a game in person, it really strikes me how much timeouts disrupt the flow of the game.
And I see that my Patriots comment generated just as much enthusiasm as I expected...
I haven't watched a single game since the NFL went Woke and Racist.
Ding!
It took me one season to find other things to do with my Sundays. So, I recorded all the Big 10 wrestling matches from Friday and Saturday - played them on Sunday - and found that to be a much better use of my time.
Several things have happened in the NFL over the last 20 years. First, the kickers got very very good. 50 yard FG, used to be unheard of, now they are regarded as makable. Second, they had to keep pushing back the start line because they kickers kept putting ball in the endzone.
Finally, the athletes on the kicking team got better and better so it was difficult for the kick returner to do anything. And bigger/faster bodies meant more injuries.
Here's my NFL Improvement. Get rid of the point after. TDs are still 6 points. but teams get a choice, accept the automatic extra point or go for 2 points.
Another improvement. Nationalize the NFL. The teams are sold to 30,000 fans in each city. Who get non-transferable, non-sellable Season tickets. Teams are now shown on TV over the air for free with no more than 10 minutes of commercials during each half.
IOW, the Green Bay Packer model for everyone. But i can just hear the screams "Why that's socialism, boy! Why we want our NFL football expensive, full of commercials, and owned by Billionaires. Why that's the 'murican way".
The American spelling is “glamor” but the magazine “Glamour” influences a lot of us to do the British spelling.
కామెంట్ను పోస్ట్ చేయండి
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.