NFL - Leading America's Game Or Holding America Hostage?

If you're like me, even a photo of the Lombardi trophy makes your heart beat a little bit faster. The looming specter of an NFL lockout has me wondering whether the Grinch might not be working overtime this year. Like every self-respecting football fan, some days all I want for Christmas is for my team to have another shot at a Superbowl title. It doesn't matter to us how realistic that shot may or may not actually be, because for us football isn't about realism. Football is about heart. Football is about drive. Football is about good old fashioned want-it more-than-the-other-guy. Football is about the American Dream, and an impending lockout threatens to shove the death of that dream right up our...noses. 

I don't know about you, but I'm just not prepared to cope with that much reality right now. So far I've managed to deal with the recession, the crash of the housing market, the general lack of affordable health care, and a few natural catastrophes through a combination of great effort, a little luck, and an not insubstantial amount of total denial. But take away my any given Sunday and I just might lose some of whatever remains of my grip on reality. I love my town, and my town loves its team of highly padded musclebound testosterone junkies. They shield us from more than the other team. For a few hours a week, they shield us from the helplessness we feel when nuclear plants melt down, the stock market crashes, rivers flood whole states, and the earth tells us where we may no longer stand and remain above sea level. I want them on that wall. I need them on that wall.

But TomDispatch (via Mother Jones) would like me to take a step back and consider what I'm willing to forgo in order to see my men on that evergreen, hashmarked wall this year. What price am I willing to pay, both economically and socially, in order to ensure that my team gets an uninterrupted shot at the Lombardi trophy? And I must admit, because I do not wish to admit, that if I can manage to avoid looking too closely at the price I'm being asked to pay I'll probably pony up a lot more than is actually good for me, for my community, or for the game itself.

Sportswriter Robert Lipsyte pens a thought-provoking article on the nature and economics of professional football, and what we fans are willing to put up with in order to avoid even one season without it. Are we willing to give up the values that founded the American Dream in order to ensure uninterrupted viewing of its most popular athletic manifestation? Read Why The NFL Would Do Us A Favor By Calling Off The Upcoming Season and decide what it's worth to you.