Sunday, October 24, 2010

Musings on an NFL Game

Watching the normal Sunday afternoon pastime and a thought began to vex me.

There are rules against grabbing the face mask and horse-collar tackles. Those are personal fouls and result in a fifteen yard penalty. Yet in a game of lightning fast reactions and split second decisions, face masks get grabbed and horse-collar tackles occur. At the same time it is becoming increasingly common to have a mane of dreadlocks or flowing curls down the back of the jersey to the middle of the back obscuring the player's name.

Why does it never happen that someone grabs a handful of hair and twirls the player around like a poodle on a short leash? It would seem inevitable.

As a secondary question on the hair issue, I ponder the dreads. Now Troy Palomolu has got the Samson thing going for him. His mass of frizzed out Polynesian Islander pompadour is quite clearly washable. But what of the dreadlocks?

Football players perspire. Dare I say they sweat as an industrial endeavor. They quite clearly don't have enough time in the day to unravel, shampoo, dry and rebraid the locks after every practice. So, the only conclusion I can reach is that they sweat, the locks get saturated, they shower and superficially soap the 'do and then get the exterior of the braids dry. That means mold, mildew and a pervasive stench, I would think.

Anybody got an alternative explanation?

2 comments:

MagiK said...

All things I have pondered and concluded :)

nzgarry said...

Down here in the Southern hemisphere, the name of the game is
Rugby football. Two codes Union and League, both popular in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
Rugby is also played in the US and I believe it is has a following in all branches of your Military.
I played for the Ft Lauderdale Knights during my time in the US and can assure yourself and readers
that the result of any attempt to grab a players hair be a punch in the head in any of the above countries.
I found American Football enjoyable to watch once I had learned the rules. Rugby League is a little closer to American Football and I believe Americans would find both codes attractive to watch. As with American Football though, one needs to know the rules to follow it. Both are fairly simple games rule-wise and I suggest that anyone curious enough to watch a game google Rugby Union/League before doing so.