Last night I went to Omaha Nebraska to watch a NAL indoor football game between the Louisiana Rouxgaroux and the Omaha Beef. First NAL game that I have gone to in a while. I love indoor football. Therefore, I thought that this would be a good game to watch because they are both fighting for the final playoff spot in the league. So, I took the five hour drive to Omaha to watch this game. I left in the middle of the third quarter. Not because of the drive back, that was handled, but because after being subjected to what I was subjected to during and between play, I needed to leave for my sanity.
Let’s start with the on field play. Omaha had their tenth quarterback of the season. Not because of injury mind you, but they have been trying to find a quarterback that they like. Doesn’t help when the fanbase has a few crackpots in it that have made death threats to a couple of the quarterbacks. Okay, maybe it isn’t on the field of play, but the death threats cause your play on the field to change. The fans should have been happy with the play of the QB last night. Multiple touchdown passes will keep the fans happy. There is no complaints from what I saw on the field from the beef. Although the Vuvuzela horns were distracting and it felt like the PA announcer and music guy thought we were at the club.
On the other side of the game, the Rouxgaroux fans should be grabbing pitchforks and torches. What a pathetic showing and I don’t blame the players of the team. How do you have a NAL team and not carry a kicker for extra points or kickoffs? And that right there should be enough for people to become upset, but even more egregious in my mind is the fact that Louisiana had an injured quarterback and the replacement was not a competent quarterback. In fact, the team didn’t carry a backup quarterback so when the starter got hurt, you had a player capable of playing that position. No, they took receiver and put him in as quarterback. You could tell it was going to be a long night for the Rouxgaroux with the first pass they threw. Calling it a duck would be to disparage ducks. I give the player credit for going into the game and trying to perform a job that he was not equipped for. My disgust is at the Louisiana coaching staff and management. If I were the owner, on Monday, I would tell my General Manager in no uncertain terms that we wilol have players at every position that know how to play that position. And if it doesn’t get done, they can find another job. Also at the end of the season, there would be a cleansing of the coaching staff and management. And I would be trying to make my team something that the fine people of Shreveport, Louisiana could be proud of and support.
Now to the breaks during the game. There was no flow to the game. The reason for that was the Beef management. When a team calls one of their timeouts, that does not mean that you send a dance team on the field and have them perform for at least 3 minutes. It doesn’t mean that you drive a truck onto the floor and have people in bubbles jump on springboards and try to land in the truck bed repeatedly. And this happened constantly. It became where I thought we were at a dance off rather than a football game. The game was in the middle of the third quarter when we were 3 hours after kickoff. And the clock kept on running even though the ball was turned over. This is not good for the league. I don’t care if you don’t have a television contract or that when you stream, those companies don’t care. It looks amateurish. very amateurish. Imagine a small local or regional network coming to scout if they want to televise you and see that. They will shake their head and wonder what they were thinking. The NAL needs to have standards for their games and the way they are presented and no multiple 4 minute breaks in the same quarter where the players and officials are just looking at the entertainment on the field waiting for it to end so they can get back to playing football.
The NAL has problems like all indoor football leagues have. However, for a person going to an NAL game for the first time and experiencing this would be almost criminal. They would be walking away with the perception that football is secondary to the dancing teams, promotions, advertizers, and anything else they can shoehorn into the breaks that occur during the games. And that is why these leagues and teams usually don’t withstand any troublesome times. The spectacle that I saw last night proves to me that the people in league offices and people running teams have’nt figured out the lessons of all the leagues and teams that have gone before them. So enjoy your local team until they become the latest business opportunity that has to shut down because business isn’t good.