The Future of Football
The sport has been evolving for 150 years, through the ingenuity, creativity and bloody-mindedness of many. To face the challenges affecting it and to continue to develop our youth, it needs to keep evolving and playing to its strengths.
Binary.
One value or the other.
1 for on, 0 for off.
Football or no football.
But why a simple dichotomy?
Can’t we use our unique human endowments of conscience, creativity and imagination to come up ways to improve the game and protect its participants?
I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. Some changes to the game might make participation an option for more people, and broaden its appeal.
I believe the game has ascended over the last 150 years because of the endeavor and creativity that has been infused into it by so many well meaning and talented people who cared about the game, and because of their love for those who played it.
If you look at the big picture, the game has clearly moved from the somewhat dark but understandable enjoyment of pure brute force (which undoubtedly served the needs of people from a different paradigm – remember that the game formed just after the American civil war), to higher and higher levels of precision and efficiency. This long arc ascribes a path to the modern game. A game filled with more and more passing plays, judicious use of running plays, while also maintaining an element of physical sacrifice that makes the game a life-long lesson to those who play it.
The emphasis has shifted, in many ways; the common fan used to appreciate the big hit more than anything, but as the complexity has increased, fans are often more excited by the use of a particular pass concept or a particular pass coverage, and the interaction of all of the variables; the defensive front and coverage, the down and distance, the position on the field, the personnel packages, the tendencies of the situation and the opportunities that this milieu present. It’s an intoxicating mix.
This trend will continue; it was about the brawn, but increasingly it is about the brains. A game that’s appeal is in its complexity and creativity, which will also protect the brains of its participants.
This site will discuss some of the possibilities, while also allowing a football coach to comment on certain things he is seeing in the modern game.
The Future of Football 