The NFL: The Master of Delusion

The NFL is back and already the writing is on the wall for certain teams. The same teams that have stunk for a decade now will apparently continue to stink, and their play this weekend proved that. But the NFL has become a master at marketing itself, and like Barack Obama, it's biggest achievement (Nobel Prize-worthy perhaps) is the selling of false hope. Indeed, what's fascinating about the NFL is just how well it has deluded its fans.

People in cities like Oakland, Tampa, Cleveland and Detroit should all know that their teams will be lucky to win 5 games this year... or any year. They are poorly managed, they choose the wrong players, have the worst coaches, and lack the long term plans and stability that better teams use to stay competitive year after year. Yet, every off season, fans in these cities tell themselves "this is the year we finally put it all together."

Why do they think this? Well, the NFL is great at selling false hope. Right at the end of each season, the crappy teams shuffle their coaches. Suddenly the guy who couldn't get it done in Dallas is the guy who will save Buffalo. . . this time it will be different. And that new offensive coordinator? He was on that team that won all those game a decade ago (forget the ten bad years in the meantime)!

Then they shuffle players. Remember that washed-up never-was who quarterbacked that team to 6 wins two years ago? He's our new starter and he's awesome!! We know how to use him, that other team didn't!

Then comes the creme d la creme: the draft. The NFL has built a ton of hype around these players, raising their profiles to the point of messianic, even though experience shows that almost no rookies contribute in their first year and few will remain with the team after three years. . . yet fans know that they got the one guy in the draft who will turn their team around! Booo yah!

Then we have preseason games. These are the games that let the guy who couldn't get open if he was allowed to use a shotgun suddenly shine against a guy who will be bagging groceries by the end of the month. And the fans start thinking. . . wow, where was this last year?!

And the whole time, the NFL sells the story of the Cinderella team that went "worst to first." In fact, every step of the way, the NFL sells stories of redemptions, of second chances, of miracle finishes, of "any given Sunday," and a dozen other angles that are designed to make you think that this time it will be different no matter what the evidence says to the contrary. And it's fascinatingly effective. Year after year, the fans of teams with no real shot of even getting a winning record convince themselves that they're going to the Super Bowl because the NFL has given them just enough lottery tickets for them to think they must be holding a winner.

I guess Barnum was right about that sucker being born every minute.

So who's your team and how are they going to do this year? My Buccaneers? Well, this is the year we're finally putting it all together. . . heck, we just squeaked out a win against the awful Cleveland Browns, and that's got to count for something, right?