Pop-Warner, Pee-Wee, High School, College, and NFL.
No matter what age we play it, football is the greatest sport on the planet.
Families encourage it, our culture demands it, and a lot of people devote their lives to it.
But what really makes football the greatest game out there?
Is it the national presence of the NFL and college?
Or is it the fact that companies like DraftKings and FanDuel have generated over 575 Million dollars in revenue off Fantasy Football and similar games. (CNBC, 2015)
Your opinion may differ, but is the biggest 4 reasons why football is the best sport on earth:
1. Complexity
In football, there are eleven guys on each team all doing individual tasks that help their team win each play.
But when something goes wrong, you can't just point out one major thing wrong with a play or a situation.
For example, let's say a quarterback throws an interception... One could say it was a bad throw, or even that the route the wide receiver ran was wrong. However, many analysts could point out that the defense ran a great coverage, or that the offensive line didn't block correctly.
The fact of the matter is, the game of football focuses on the team concept. Very rarely can one player change the face of a whole team like in other sports.
2. Difficulty
Most athletes are considered 'dumb jocks' who are awful in the classroom and great on the field.
But football players are quite the opposite.
Not only do they have to practice and train on extremely precise technique for the position.
They must learn an entire playbook and a plethora of checks and calls.
For these plays, you have to memorize what to do, where to go, and remember situationally how things will change.
For even the best athletes out there this can be the most daunting task of them all. Learning the playbook is essential to how you, and your team will perform on gameday.
3. Physical Demand
Football players are some of the best athletes in the world, and due to their sport, they are required to be in shape and constantly training year-round.
The physical plays, jumps, hits, and blocks of football can be extremely dangerous if one is not in top condition.
In fact, even if you're in peak physical condition that doesn't save you from being gruesomely hurt.
Such happened in a case in 2013, where Arizona Cardinals safety Rashad Johnson actually broke off most of his middle finger during a play.
He had made a big hit on a running back and his finger snapped inside his glove, after removing his glove, the piece of his finger still remained inside. (ESPN, 2013)
4. Morals
Sports can teach you a lot of things about life. Such as the idea of teamwork or even just getting along with people you sometimes don't like.
But with football, it's much more than that. Football teaches discipline, and when you play football you have to do some things that are necessary that sometimes you don't want to do.
But just as in life you have to do them anyways.
Football teaches you the hard things about life:
Sometimes there's going to be people better than you.
You can't always win.
You didn't prepare how you should've
Life isn't always fair.
However, in football, that's all in a day's work.