The State Press‘ Will Munsil writes about the place football has in the culture and spirit of America and her diverse people and the way it unifies them regardless of their differences.
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There’s nothing to do but admit it: We live in an NFL nation.
ESPN and the football-carrying networks may exaggerate with their polls and their hyperventilation, but the fact remains there will be more words written about the NFL this week and more American man hours spent on fantasy football than on health care or schools or roads.
Sports have long given us heroes and legends and moments that bring communities together.
For years, baseball was the defining game. Babe Ruth is as much a founding father in the national mind as anyone short of Washington or Jefferson, and Jackie Robinson a trailblazer on the order of Reverend King.
But recently, the game we’ve chosen to define us is football.
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“Football,” George Will wrote, “combines two of the worst things in American life: It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”
This may not read like a love letter to football, but on some level it is. Apologies to Will, with whom I share a first love for baseball, but the strange spectacle of American football has its roots firmly in our national culture.
Football is a meritocracy, unflinchingly. This past week Richard Seymour, a mainstay of three Super Bowl champion defenses for the New England Patriots, a perennial Pro Bowl pick and a man coming off a career best eight-sack season, was unceremoniously traded to the Oakland Raiders — pro football’s Siberian wasteland — because the Patriots deemed the draft picks they received in exchange more valuable. Seymour said he was “blindsided.” The Patriots moved on.
Football’s evolution also reflects the changes in American society since the middle of last century.
Each team now has a game plan that resembles national security briefings and a stable of assistants and staff that meticulously films and analyzes every game to the minutest detail. Players are bigger, faster and stronger every year, and coaches struggle to adapt. Obnoxious TV talking heads obsess over every game and every play, as if they were a presidential debate. Like America, the game is restless, and it changes fast.
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And in a nation that continues to splinter along social and political lines, football, more than ever, gives us something in common.
There are no Republicans or Democrats on game day at Lambeau Field, or in Pittsburgh, or Dallas. Just Packers and Steelers and Cowboys. Remove football from America’s cities and towns, and see how things hold together.
Yes, football is loud, violent, crass, commercialized and morally compromised. It also happens to be home to great physical courage, a sense of community, innovation and commitment to a cause larger than the individual.
This is much like America, in all its contradictions. For every embarrassing scandal, there is an incredible comeback. For every season that ends in defeat, there’s another training camp. For every star that grows old and leaves the stage, there’s a rookie.
The football season starts, and the nation watches. This is the way of America.
I’m Jason Goldblatt, sports writer and avid football fan. Follow me on Twitter for more updates on the thrilling world of sports.
Jason Goldblatt 
Yes that’s right, America and football are inseparable. I mean american football not the other one.
For me it’s football, basketball then baseball. then everything else
Football like america, is like brawn and brain.
This is why america is the greatest nation on the earth.