January 9, 2013 article

The Old Coot is a football fan?

By Merlin Lessler

Tis the season, the football season. You can’t avoid it; it dominates the TV schedule. If you’re a serious fan, or even a casual one like me, you surely have noticed how much the game has changed. I don’t mean all the rule changes, or the size and speed of these modern day gladiators. The change I’m talking about is all the movement that goes on just prior to the ball being hiked.

Back in the old days, the quarterback lined up behind the center, went “Hut, hut hut,” called out a few numbers and the ball was shoved backwards between the center’s legs into his hands. Not anymore. The quarterback backs up from the center, runs to the right, runs to the left, shouts orders to the ends and the other backs, points here and there and yells at the defense, then goes into a crouch, picks up his right leg two or three times, like a horse pawing at the grass. Then, and only then, does the center hike the ball back to him. The first time I saw this, I thought the quarterback had turrets syndrome.

I’m not sure what he’s saying. It’s pretty garbled when it gets to my TV set. I’m sure some of the words he’s shouting, especially to the defense, are on the FCC’s taboo list. If he took his mouthpiece out and yelled so we could understand what he was saying the game would be blacked out. A Janet Jackson moment.

If today’s quarterbacks don’t have turrets syndrome then they at least have a severe case of the “old coot” syndrome. We (old coots) blurt out inappropriate stuff all the time. We do it because we’re old and don’t care. What’s the guy going to do, beat us up? And, be ridiculed by his friends for picking on an old man. It’s better than mace, this old coot stuff. The only way I’d feel safer is if I had on a pro football helmet. The players need to give them up anyhow. They use them as weapons on the field, lunging head first into each other and running up the NFL hospital bill. The injury problem would be eliminated if they went back to the soft leather helmets that players wore in the fifties. You can’t hurt anyone with those things. And, without a deadly weapon attached to their head, they would be forced to tackle runners with their arms and shoulders like they are supposed to. The helmets could be distributed to us old guys, then we’ll be safe when we shoot off our mouths. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world!