The Armchair Quarterback’s Guide To The NFL: Pass Or Pass Rush?

The Armchair Quarterback Rant Of The Week

The NFL is my hands down, uncontested favorite sports league to follow. I love football more than all of the other sports combined. That having been said, I did play a lot of soccer as a kid growing up. I appreciate the sport and have tried really hard to follow and support the US Men’s National Team (USMNT). As most people are aware, the biggest sports tournament on the planet will be starting soon when the World Cup kicks off in Brazil next month.

In anticipation of this global event I decided to tune in for US’s warm up match against the “mighty” nation of Azerbaijan. It was one of the most frustrating sports viewing experiences of my life. Now, some of you are saying “of course it was, it’s soccer” and I understand that not everyone is a fan, but I really do appreciate the sport. However, what was so frustrating was that after spending so much of my time watching the NFL where some of the most elite athletes in the world go head to head every week I couldn’t help but notice that the USMNT simply doesn’t live up to that same standard.

Don’t get me wrong, there are AMAZING athletes that play soccer, they just aren’t on the US team. The US pulled out a 2-0 win over Azerbaijan, and while the US was clearly the better team, athletically speaking, they weren’t VASTLY superior. When you’re the United States of America, a nation of over 300 MILLION people with every possible medical and training advantage available in the world and you are competing with Azerbaijan, a country of less than 10 million people, you should DOMINATE them. The US team should be bigger, faster, and stronger than significantly smaller and less developed countries, and they’re not.

That’s the real reason (in my opinion) that the US can’t compete with the national powers of the world. I don’t care if countries like Brazil and Germany have more history in the sport. History doesn’t mean diddly poo when a guy is faster and stronger than you are. I know that soccer also takes a TON of skill and strategy, but from where I sit even if their strategy and decision making was flawless, the US simply lacks the elite athletes to make difference making plays.

That’s not a knock on the current US team, they’re skilled players that are doing their best, but as long as the best athletes in our country are all going into football and basketball the USMNT is going to fall short of our expectations. Can you imagine if Adrian Peterson, LeSean McCoy, Jamaal Charles, DeSean Jackson, and Calvin Johnson all grew up playing soccer? I’m not saying they could walk in now and play professionally (Chad Johnson proved that was a joke), they don’t have the skill set, but imagine if they grew up playing and trained like they did for football. Then the US team would have the kind of world class speed and athleticism that we expect in this country.

I respect soccer. I support the USMNT. I’ll tune in and watch the World Cup next month and will pull for the US to advance out of the group stage. The problem is that given the state of soccer in the US, just making it out of the group stage would be seen as a “win”. Here in the US we’ve become accustomed to higher standards. We want to be the best at everything. That’s not the case for soccer though and as long as that’s the case it will be hard to draw our top athletes into that sport and this cycle will continue.

That’s why this fall many of us will forget all about the World Cup and soccer. Preseason football will be starting up and with it will come the physically dominant athletes that we’ve grown to love and expect in the US. The entire world seems to love the sport of football. The US just missed the memo on what football is. Football is our passion too, that’s just too bad for the sport we call soccer.

Next up, my “Beer Review of the Week”……