Suffering from NFL Burnout? Maybe it’s time to try Rugby.

Today is the most important day in U.S. Sports, the Super Bowl, and yet some Americans are suffering from NFL burnout.  Sports analysts have spent a lot of time discussing why viewership is dropping year after year, but they don't seem to have any good answers.  As someone who has played both football, from the tender age of five until the end of high school, and rugby, during college and as a youth coach now, I can tell you rugby may be the answer for the football blues.

The NFL features athletes at the top of human performance playing a game that closely mirrors combat. To some, football is the ultimate competition. The armored football warrior epitomizes the very human attributes that helped our ancestors survive a harsh natural world: our physical and mental strength, our strategic and tactical innovation, and our spirit to fight until the bitter end. We are amazed by not just the size and speed of the players, but  the execution of complicated plays and defensive schemes drawn up by coaches. The game may be entertaining to watch, but the NFL is still becoming stagnant. Some blame the rules, some blame the officials, and others blame the politics.

Rugby is the father of American football, and to fans it seems to be everything the NFL is not.  While football seems to focus on money and showmanship, rugby is all about the competition.  It features the same amazing athletes competing against each other in a similarly combative sport. While the warriors are not armored, the game is no less physical. The strategy and tactics may be different, but it is just as robust. Rugby players are not as specialized as football players, but that just means every player has to be good at everything from running, passing to tackling. Rugby may be confusing at first– it has a lot of funny European words that seem straight out of Harry Potter– but it has everything American football has and more.

Considering the following, long-winded arguments:

Too many Commercials and too little Action

“Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings” George Will

An average televised NFL football game lasts three (3) hours and twelve (12) minutes. Of that time only eleven (11) minutes consist of actual playtime. The rest? Well about an hour’s worth is spent on commercials. Another seventy-five (75) or so minutes are spent on replays or players huddling in between snaps. Some more time is spent on head coaches, and network announcers, but you get the picture.  Football "is the rare sport where it’s common for the clock to run for long periods of time while nothing is happening…the ratio of inaction to action is approximately 10 to 1.”

This isn't just a structural issue though. In football wasting time is a viable and well used tactic; often the final two (2) minutes of a game is devoted to one team trying to waste as much time as possible. Nothing will turn a fan off more during a live football match than seeing the “red hat” official walk onto the field, prompting a commercial break, giving the teams a free timeout from play (ignore that some teams actively attack a defense’s endurance as their overall strategy), and disrupting the flow of the game.

Compare that with a typical televised rugby match: forty (40) minutes of uninterrupted play, a ten (10) minute commercial break (half-time), and then another forty (40) minutes of uninterrupted play. The difference is immediately noticeable and satisfying. Rugby’s rule-structure dictates that the play clock doesn’t stop, and any time wasted by a stoppage in play (penalties, official time-outs) may be made up at the end of the match at the official’s discretion. Unless an injury is significant enough to warrant a stoppage in play, the injury is treated on the field and play continues around them. Rugby officials are under guidance that their job is to facilitate fair and safe play and to create a game flow that is competitive and entertaining to watch.

The spirit of sport is not commercialization, but competition. Fans understand that in order to access the best matches some commercialization is necessary, but the sport needs to balance that with the respect the fan and the competitor deserves. The NFL has an official dedicated solely to commercial breaks, while rugby officials are instructed not to unnecessarily interrupt the game, a major difference in priorities.

Too Many Penalties and Rules

“The advantage law is the best law in rugby, because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game.” Derek Robinson

NFL football games can have upwards of seven officials on the field. At seven officials, that is one official for every 3.14 players. Fans are constantly complaining about penalties, the overuse of instant replay, and some believe there are just too many unnecessary rules.

The reality is a little complicated. Players in any competition are going to break rules. This is unavoidable. Sometimes this happens on purpose with planning and sometimes this happens spur-of-the-moment or by accident. Regardless it just one of the many “human elements” of the game. Officials have two different approaches to dealing with broken rules: either they act as police officers, their primary objective being to punish teams who break the rules, or they act as a judge with the primary objective of facilitating competitive fair play. The difference is key.

NFL officials are tasked by the NFL to call every penalty they see, and are graded not just by the calls they make, but also by the calls they miss. The NFL rules and structure are oriented towards a more “punishing” type of officiating, where officials are tasked with assigning punishments teams every time they break the rules. Officials are still a human variable in the game, they make mistakes and they have biases. Any system that expects one independent variable (human officials) to fully control another independent variable (players breaking the rules) is bound to fail. We can’t expect NFL officials to see every penalty, and any game in which 100% of penalties are called would likely be unwatchably slow and boring. The end result is that the NFL is trying to achieve an undesirable and unreachable objective. Not only are they failing to call 100% of the penalties, but they are creating a game that more and more focuses on the officials instead of the players. As any football fan knows penalties can change the game quite significantly (because of the punishments handed out) and so there is a good chance a game could be determined less by the competitive play between the teams, and more on what the officials happen to see during play.

This seems disingenuous to the spirit of play, but we can’t just not punish penalties. Let's give the NFL the benefit of the doubt that at least the objective of their officials is admirable, but then you get to the rules they are enforcing themselves. To avoid going into the weeds on this one let’s just take one particularly egregious issue. Modern professional football now treats quarterbacks as a first-class player that must be protected way more than any other player on the field. The amount of rules specifically enacted to protect quarterbacks from just the normal hitting that occurs in the sport is disappointing. You can list out all the reasons the NFL wants to protect quarterbacks, but really is this in the spirit of the competition? A more authentic approach to the QB issue would have been hiring QBs that can play in the NFL and not changing the rules to support QBs who couldn’t cut it.

Rugby takes the opposite approach to penalties. First there are only three officials on the field at any one time, but really only one of these officials actually makes the big calls. Rugby officials are instructed by the World Rugby Organization that:

This is the total opposite approach to NFL officiating and anyone who has played both sports will tell you that rugby takes a more mature approach to officiating. This approach recognizes that players will commit offenses even on accident, but that such penalties shouldn't ruin or determine the game. It also recognizes that calling every single penalty is neither desirable nor possible. Instead rugby empowers one official with the responsibility of maintaining a competitive and fair match, the outcome of which is far more likely to be decided by the players themselves.

Furthermore, rugby even incorporates “advantage” rules which prevents one team from turning penalties into a tactical advantage. Take for example a situation where one team may commit a penalty on purpose, in hopes that a quick break in play may take the wind out of a devastating offensive drive. The rugby official has the discretion to allow play to continue if the team the penalty was committed against may still benefit from the continuous play. If this team does not benefit then the official may stop play to restart where the penalty occurred. It is all in his/her discretion in order to facilitate a fair and competitive match.

Clearly the focus of the NFL is to control the conduct of the players by calling devastating penalties and then to enact rules that benefit their bottom line more than the actual game. Rugby, by contrast, focuses on the player and the match and less on controlling human nature. This type of attitude facilitates an entertaining and competitive, but fair match.

The Broken Football Ethos

Ethos - noun \ ˈē-ˌthäs \

“The distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution” Merriam Webster Dictionary

All sports have their issues with sportsmanship. Football and rugby both have their share of unruly players, disrespectful fans, and bad parents.

The NFL is infected with bad behavior both on and off the field. The NFL tries to control this behavior, but fails to understand that the game is infected down to its very ethos. This is something that can’t be corrected with rules, bans or punishments.

As anyone who has played both games will tell you this kind of behavior is an outlier in rugby. High levels of respect, pride and sportsmanship are tradition in rugby, and rugby fans all over the world pride themselves in being the standard of which other sports look up to. This starts from a young age when rugby players learn to call the official “sir." This is done out of respect, not just for the official, but out of respect for the match and the sport. These lessons are played out into adulthood where even the biggest rugby players show the upmost respect for the officials. Are there many sports out there where a video highlighting the respect officials get has almost a million views? How about the famous moment where an official called out “this is not soccer, is that clear?" Rugby is also one of the only sports to include the tradition of hosting your opponent to a social after the match. While some just see another opportunity for hooligans to drink and be rowdy, it is one of the best ways to defuse any post-match animosity that may have occurred. Take for example a friend of mine who made the mistake of tackling a man we had (deservedly) nick-named the “Big Show” by his big beard. Things got heated and a fight was about to break out. At the social they shook hands and shared a beer, there was no hostility afterwards.

In international competition, the highest level of rugby, this ethos is highlighted again and again. This special moment, between South Africa and Samoa after bashing each other, exchanging kits (jerseys) and sharing a prayer after the match is something you don't see highlighted in football often. Then you have "Ireland's Call," the national anthem played before Ireland national matches. Rugby is one of a few sports that Ireland plays together as one nation, north and south, and so the two nations commissioned this song to act as the first united anthem they have had in nearly 100 years, all because of rugby.  Rugby is even credited with healing the racial wounds of apartheid in South Africa.

“Rugby certainly leads the way in [respect].”

Accessibility

“This shows how the global popularity of rugby is expanding. Even countries that don’t play the sport want to be involved.” Bernard Lapasset, former chairman of World Rugby

In Texas, the bastion of American football, if the stars align just right you could watch upwards of 6 different levels of competitive high school football, two divisions of competitive college play (FBS and FCS), maybe a semi-professional game and a professional game (depending where you live). In England, a country with a robust rugby system, you could watch 12 levels of semi-professional and professional rugby alone. Indeed for a typical English professional, his or her rugby day could include watching their children play rugby, playing with their neighborhood team, a post-match celebration watching a regional or professional match, and then ending the day with an international match. Their choices aren't just limited to men's teams either, there are women’s teams as well. It’s doubtful that England loves rugby more than Texas loves football, but somehow there are more opportunities to watch and participate.

Football is, by its nature, an expensive sport. Fielding a high school team can cost way more than $10,000, while the best college teams can top $100,000. Just getting good equipment for one player can cost well over $800 to $1000 per player (not to mention the associated fees for league dues, travel costs, and other expenses that parents or players have to pay depending on their community or even the player's sex.  Safety is another big football issue. After the NFL admitted it was hiding evidence of brain damage and CTE associated with playing football you started to see a drop in players, even in Texas.

Rugby doesn’t have these issues. It is inexpensive to play, so some of the best teams in the world come from the poorest places. Rugby is also considered safer than football, and is enjoyed by people of all ages and both sexes.  A city may support one minor league football team and a professional team, but that same city can support multiple levels of rugby (Georgia has 8 teams in the IAFL, but in Atlanta alone there are at least twelve adult rugby clubs, including a women’s semi-pro team, an LGBT team, multiple college teams, and even a professional rugby league team and Australian football team, not to mention the other clubs inside Georgia).

The accessibility of rugby creates a better sporting community because it includes everyone, starts at the lowest levels, and builds all the way up to a national team, from the floor to the top.

Now, the best reason to switch to rugby…

The World Cup

In 2015 Japan beat South Africa, one of the best teams in rugby in the opening pool game, in the first match the teams had ever played against each other. It was a classic David and Goliath and a true rugby miracle. The world celebrated with Japan not just because Japan won, but because what it meant for the game. Rugby was becoming more competitive, new markets were opening up, and the old guard were losing their grip on the game.

Give this a watch and tell me it doesn't pump you up. The U.S. is truly a sleeping giant when it comes to international play. While our current rugby union rankings in the world standings are 17th for the men and 5th for our women, we currently do a lot better in sevens (a shorter, faster version of union rugby played int he summer Olympics) are 7th and 5th respectively.  No one doubts that our athletes are some of the best in the world (just look at our Olympic gold medal count) and we have a large population that devours the sports we love. More and more youth are playing rugby, and that experience is going to carry over into our universities, into our budding professional leagues and finally into our international game.  Our total rugby playing population has now even surpassed rugby powerhouses like New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland.

I can promise you one thing. No amount of Super Bowls or College Football Championships will ever carry the weight of planting the U.S. flag on top the Rugby World Cup.

Looking forward to Rugby

Big changes are coming to rugby this spring.  For one we have serious contender for home grown professional rugby in Major League Rugby (MLR). If their inaugural season goes well there is some talk that they plan on expanding into eastern markets (please pick Atlanta!).  The U.S. may even be getting expansion teams from professional unions overseas.

If you are interested in learning more about rugby or getting involved do a quick google search for local clubs, tune into MLR matches and be sure to check out USA Rugby for more on international matches.

What do you think?  Is there room for rugby in American hearts?  Does rugby offer a better alternative to football?   Tell us your thoughts.  If you have any other questions be sure to leave a comment, rugby players are always happy to share information, war stories or answer questions.