What do you think the future of professional football will look like?

It’s hard for me to reconcile “thinking” and “professional football”, but I’ll try.

I think the Fox Sports dancing robot (the hyper-steroidized portrayal of an NFL player that they show on their game broadcasts) is pretty close to the mark.

Future players will be more and more specialized in terms of size and strength. One day we’ll have 500-pound linemen, running backs who can do an under 4-second 40 yard dash with their pads and gear on, murderous cornerbacks who just happen not to have been convicted yet, and receivers who dance ballet in the off-season “just to keep in shape”. And the quarterbacks will be 7 feet tall, weigh over 250 pounds, able to keep pace with the running backs (they just can’t cut so well) ... and no one can touch them or they and their descendants will be banned from the League for life.

And every single play will be reviewed as a matter of routine.

@CyanoticWasp -I think you are right! XD
Do you think people will stop watching?What should this new game be called?

Unfortunatley it will decline because it is too controlled. I seem to see a yellow flag after every play. Lot’s of owners are money hungry and will settle for mediocre seasons that fill stadiums. They cheat the fans out of great memorable seasons and even deliver poor teams to the city that in turn give fans who watch games on tv blackouts because of the the stupid NFL money hungry policies.

@Mikewlf337 -I agree,but if they televised every game,no one would go.

@lucillelucillelucille

I think eventually it will be called “American Rules Football” (the way we do the Australian game that in almost no way resembles it) as soccer continues to be more and more popular here and more and more newcomers to the country laugh at the way we call it ‘football’ ... and only use our feet on the ball when we’re giving it up to the other team.

The game seems by turns alternately more vicious and violent… and more protective, somehow. I fully expect a player to land on his head some day and have his neck clearly broken and his head turned around… the way legs sometimes are. Necks aren’t as tough as shin and thigh bones.

@CyanoticWasp -Golf is a good thing ;)

So is sailing. And baseball.

@lucillelucillelucille I agree with you. I am a Bengal fan and I am sick of them not showing their fans any consideration. I always root for the home team. I lived here my whole life.

Well, in 2011 they player’s union is expecting to have a work stoppage. They have asked players to bank their salaries for the last three games.

So it may look very different next season.

I’m going to assume you mean American football. I’d like to see them lose the sissy helmets & shoulder pads. Perhaps they could stir it up further by taking on the rugby giants of the world….. New Zealand, Australia & South Africa to name but three. Man up ya pussys say I!…..from a safe distance of course :¬)

It won’t decline until something comes around to replace it, it’s still the best show in town right now.

You have to remember, people were upset when they changed the rules so defensive linemen could no longer headslap the offensive linemen.

People were upset when they outlawed contact on receivers after 5 yards, saying offenses would score in the 50’s every game.

But defenses adapted and successful teams tried to hit the QB as often as possible with as many big men as they could bring. So the rules changed to protect those guys. Honestly I don’t want to see Colts vs Patriots with Curtis Painter and Brian Hoyer duking it out if Peyton and Brady are hurt.

It sucks when the refs get the calls wrong, and a clean hit gets punished, but it’s reacting to the strategy of “putting a hat on” that guy with the football every play. Ultimately there’s plenty of hits, physical teams still have an advantage, and careers will just keep getting shorter as bodies can’t hold up to the punishment the larger faster stronger guys put on each other every week.

Trying to keep it all in perspective, and as a guy who loves defense, I still think there’s plenty of ways to keep the other guys from scoring. Smart teams adapt.

I’m going to get a little sci-fi, but only because I think this sort of thing will really happen. Eventually, there will be nanobots in our bloodstream. They can already engineer a version of hemoglobin that is far more efficient than biology at delivering oxygen to cells, and there will probably be nanobot in our gut, extracting optimal nutrition from food. Nanobots will eventually make the machinery of the cell far more efficient and effective than the systems nature has so far evolved. So I think NFL players will be “enhanced” as the technology gets socially accepted for all the benefits it can provide (longer, stronger, healthier lives) and the athleticism is going to soar. Passes will be faster, jukes will be quicker, safeties will read defenses faster, and o-lineman are going to be so fucking strong and quick. So one day I think the game is going to get super-intense. Injuries will be healed faster, so broken bones and terrible knee injuries may only stop a guy for a few weeks.

I think it’s going to be awesome.

There will be @cockswain‘s football and there will also be the Olde Original Footballe League. In the OOFL, the players will eschew all artificial enhancements. They will play without steroids or any other thing they weren’t born with. Eventually, this league will become more popular than the NFL, as people hunger for real competition, not robot competition. Machines are everywhere, but natural people—hard to find. Quite exotic, in fact.

No way. American’s infatuation with bigger, stronger, and faster will win out huge over the Gentleman’s Football League. No one wants to see a 150lb running back get slowly taken down by a 175lb linebacker. No one wants to see a wide receiver with a 4.8s 40 go toe-to-toe with a similar safety. Some folks will like that, but no way it becomes the Hollywood spectacle the nano-league would.