American "Football"

Dustin was back in Boston for a few days and was looking for someone to accompany him to a pre-season New England Patriots practice game against the New Orleans Saints, his home team. I volunteered just for the heck of seeing a live game.

Seeing a game live still din't convince my why anybody would call it "Football". The ball (which, incidentally, isn't round - its more like the one they use for rugby), is kicked maybe only once every five minutes. To me, football is soccer. Again, to each his own, I guess.

But the game itself was very enjoyable. Also, I got to see supposedly two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL - Tom Brady and Doug Flutie. The crowd was very vocal with cheers and jeers and some choiciest New England style abuses :-) I took the hour's drive time to educate myself about the game with a printout of the wiki page. What amazed me is the level of specialization they've brought into the game. Seems about 53 different players are involved form each side during the game - there is a different "kicking team", "offensive team" and a "defensive team". The game is a lot stop and go at best, lacking the silky flow of soccer.