No Fun League now picking on cheerleaders
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 9:40 PM
For some reason, the media paid scant attention to the NFL’s directive to its teams about cheerleaders. Concerned that they might distract the players from the most important job on the planet, the No Fun League has told teams that cheerleaders can’t stretch and warm up in close proximity to the visiting team.
It was a case of barely covering the barely covered. And I have no idea why, because of all the constipated rules of an organization that acts as if Pat Robertson, John Ashcroft and James Dobson sit on the rules committee, this one takes the rice cake.
But that’s the rule: No fair distracting the visitors with stretching cheerleaders. It’s only a matter of time before Roger Goodell issues a dress code for cheerleaders – skirts no more than two inches above the knee, no bare midriffs, baggy V-neck sweaters over shirts that button at the collar – and appoints a Mother Superior armed with a yardstick to do uniform checks before the game.
I hope Goodell knows that he’s setting himself up for sexism charges with this. Why is there a rule about where the cheerleaders can warm up but not one about where the players can warm up? Has he ever considered that all those muscular guys in skin-tight knickers with manly smears of greasepaint under their eyes might be a distraction to the cheerleaders? How are they going to remember their cheers with all those hunky men practicing their three-point stances in front of them?
Where’s the ACLU when you really need them?
I mean, if it’s the players’ concentration he’s worried about, what about all those distracting fans in the stands yelling and screaming and wearing outlandish costumes? It’s hard to pay attention to blocking assignments and snap counts with all of that going on. Why not make the fans watch from another building, where they won’t bother the players? After all, there have been plenty of false start penalties caused by crowd noise, but I don’t think anyone has ever jumped the count because he was distracted by the rustling of pompoms.
It’s also an insult to the American male to suggest that players can’t concentrate on the game if a group of lissome ladies is stretching nearby. Earth to Roger: the average American male may be obsessed with sex, but not to the exclusion of football, as any woman who’s tried to get up close and personal with her husband or boyfriend during a football game can tell you.
Heck, if Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba walked naked into the average guy’s living room during the Super Bowl and offered to ease his tension, the best they could hope for would be, “Can you wait until halftime?” But that would quickly be followed by, “Can I keep the TV on? I don’t want to miss the commercials.”
This obviously makes no sense. The average fan gets to watch a Super Bowl every year, but he’s never going to have Scarlett and Jessica pop in on him again. Yet, he’ll stick with the game and pass up the ultimate fantasy league action because he doesn’t want to miss a touchdown dance. Also, he’s got two squares at $20 each in the office pool and $100 on the over/under.
Cheerleaders are nice to look at, but only during breaks in the action. They’re like the video boards and the P.A. announcer and the sound effects – window dressing. Some teams, like the Giants, don’t have cheerleaders, but nobody turns off the games because of it. But try broadcasting three hours of cheerleaders without the game, and you’ve got no viewers at all.
