Sports complaints from outside the target group

Giants coach Brian Daboll points to a referee against the Bears during an NFL game Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. (Rich Hundley III/ For The Trentonian)

It is important to remember that my complaints are coming from a 77-year-old man who is not the target audience for sports looking to expand their reach and attract more Super Bowl-style advertisers. Addressing my complaints will not increase viewership or brand equity.

My first complaint is the punishments for bullying in the NFL. To me, trash talking (during the game) and bullying (when the game is stopped) are part of the game and the idea of ​​being punished for bullying is ridiculous. I have no problem getting under your opponent’s skin in any way. The only trash talking I would not tolerate is comments about a player’s race, nationality, religion or sexual orientation. Anything else would be fair game because it is designed to gain an advantage over your opponent by making them lose control.

My favorite basketball player of all time, Larry Bird, was the consummate trash talker. He was great at it and could get under the skin of many players, causing them to lose their cool and create turnovers and poor play. While I don’t like penalties for taunting, I do like penalties for celebrating or doing backflips after scoring a touchdown.

There’s no game playing involved in the touchdown celebration. It’s a mindless, pointless distraction that irritates me. It’s similar to when the networks show Taylor Swift cheering on her boyfriend Travis Kelce during NFL games. The only difference is that Taylor Swift’s cutaways aren’t nonsense. The NFL has seen a 53% increase in viewership and millions of dollars in brand equity for the Chiefs and the league since the Swift romance blossomed and has been cleverly exploited by the NFL.

My second gripe is the 3-point revolution in professional basketball. The 3-point basket was introduced in the NBA in 1979. At the time, NBA teams averaged 2.8 3-point attempts per game. By the 2018-19 season, the NBA 3-point revolution had taken hold, with NBA teams averaging 32 attempts per game and Stephen Curry emerging as the best pure shooter in NBA history. Today, the 3-point shot is ubiquitous. The current NBA champions, the Boston Celtics, average 43 3-pointers per game.

Too many professional basketball games are nothing more than a sharp shooting contest from 3-point range. I understand the favorable math of taking 3-point shots versus 2-point shots, but it has made many basketball games boring. If 3-point shooting continues to increase, why not replace the current game in the future with a timed 3-point shooting contest that can provide 5 bonus points for half-court shots and 10 points for full-court shots.

My third complaint is the “passification” of college and professional football. Football at all levels has become so reliant on passing that running backs have largely become relics of the past. Pro football has become far too one-dimensional. A plethora of rule changes have intentionally made the game more offensive than defensive. Both receivers and quarterbacks have become increasingly inaccessible to physical contact.

Under the NFL rulebook, defensive pass interference is any action by a defensive player more than one yard outside the line of scrimmage that significantly interferes with an eligible player’s ability to catch the ball. The rules apply from the time the ball is thrown until the ball is touched. In the NCAA rules, it’s a little less draconian; defensive pass interference is contact outside the neutral zone by a defensive player that intentionally and clearly interferes with an eligible opponent in order to prevent the opponent from catching a legal forward pass.

My fourth and biggest criticism of both football and basketball is the lack of defense.

Football teams routinely recover three touchdown deficits in the second half of games. That doesn’t happen when you have a great defense. To me, professional football was the violent world of Sam Huff, Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, and Lawrence Taylor. Today, the idea that a team has an advantage when its defense is ahead is a thing of the past. Defense is devalued at the expense of the game.

In basketball, most NBA teams play very little defense. It’s not at all uncommon to see players coast to coast go through a bunch of players all playing matador style defense. More and more often I see games where both teams score 130+ points. I realize their three point shooting is part of the reason for the higher scoring, but it’s not the only reason. There are only a handful of players in the NBA who are known for their defense.

It’s rare these days to see an NBA team make defense their claim to fame. Such was the case with the New York Knickerbockers, who under Coach Tom Thibodeau Jr. became a very good defensive team that consistently held teams below their scoring average. Had Julius Randall, their star player, come back from his broken shoulder, they could have been an NBA playoff contender and perhaps given the Celtics a run for their money.

Irwin Stoolmacher is president of the Stoolmacher Consulting Group, a fundraising and strategic planning firm that partners with nonprofit organizations serving those most in need.