New age sports fans take an all or nothing approach

Sometimes you have to use sports conversations like a buffet line to encompass
one theme.

Imagine just for a moment going into buffet style restaurants like Golden Corral or
Hometown Buffet. You have appetizers like salad and soup. With entrees, you can
go around the world from American, Italian, Mexican or Asian to name a few. Are
you hungry yet?

Listening to sports talk or a game, be it hosts, commentators or fans, it seems like
the new age fan either a) Rushes to judgment or b) Takes an all or nothing
approach or c) Does not listen to an entire statement, just uses a selective memory
approach to the portion of the statement he or she wants to believe. Sports has
become all too similar to partisan politics. I hate to go down that rabbit hole but
there is ample truth to that notion. It’s as if you have to be “all in” with one side or
the other and if you are aligned with one side or the other but have any dissenting
viewpoints, you are everything from chastised to ostracized to outed. The viewpoint
becomes, “How dare you think this way?”

I’m sure I can think of many topics and/or ideas but here are a few that readily
come to mind for now:

Scoring explosions

The recent Monday Night Football matchup that featured the Los Angeles Rams
defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 54-51 involved the first time in 217 games in NFL
history that a team scored 51 points and lost. The game drew enormous ratings
and reactions from “I love it” to “I hate it” to “Meh, I’d like to see a mixture of offense
and defense.”

The most laughable response was “What would you rather watch? 54-51 or a
10-7 game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Baltimore Ravens? If given the
choice, it’s a no brainer for me.” I realize we live in a generation of hot take-ery
but why do I have to chose either? Just because someone says they don’t like
54-51 does not automatically mean they like 10-7. If you interperet such you are
delusional.

As a 46-year old, I grew up watching football games where 10-7 or 14-10 was
the norm. I don’t love games like that but 54-51 to me is not football. It’s flag
football or 7-on-7. Give me a 28-24 game and I’m happy. I see a mixture of both
offense and defense.

I feel the same way about baseball games that are 13-10. In my world, that’s not
baseball. It’s Beer League Slowpitch Softball co-sponsored by Natural Light and
Schlitz. I do not mind a masterfully pitched 2-1 game but give me a 7-5 game and
I’m fine.

Being great at one thing does not equal being bad at another

The examples are endless, take a quarterback that can run -- that means he can’t
throw. Take a great shooter in basketball, that means he either can’t drive or play
defense.

Look no further than Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry, who is the most
prolific 3-point shooter in the history of the NBA. Is he Allen Iverson when it comes
to driving to the basket? No. Is he Gary Payton as a defensive player? No. Then
again, the Warriors do not ask him to be such a player but he is serviceable in both
roles. Last time I checked, serviceable does not mean bad. James Harden and
Russell Westbrook are prolific scorers but often see defense as a rumor.

Oh My God! You just compared …..

Imagine you are watching a college sporting event or a young player beginning his
professional career. Just as a for instance, you might hear the commentator say,
“(Insert young player) has a running style that is similar Earl Campbell.” In multiple
living rooms, someone falls out of a chair screaming, “Oh my God, how dare he
compare (said player) to Earl Campbell!” or “How dare he say (said player) is as
good as Earl Campbell.”

There is absolutely nothing in the commentator’s verbiage that compares said
player to Earl Campbell or states he is or will be. If you think the commentator did
either, you are an idiot and moron rolled into one.