Flags...

I watched several games yesterday I shall henceforth call "Flags."   

Flags, I just learned, is a game where you try to move the referees downfield, one thrown Flag at a time, until one or the other reaches the End Zone.  That's where the cheerleaders hang out.

Oh, every few Flags a football play will occur, usually without much effect.  But Flags is what we're all now about.

We used to feel sorry for referees.  Kind of like we used to feel sorry for government employees, until we learned that they make more money than we do.  Mucccch more!  Those are the guys dressed in black and white stripes that decide when the enormous gladiators on the field commit offenses.  And when they do, the refs throw their little yellow Flags.  And then they tell us what the penalty was, if they can agree, and just how many yards it cost the offending team.

They delight in such decisions.  It's kind of like the fame you finally get when you're elected to your homeowners' association, and you can set about giving unwanted tickets to your neighbors for leaving their trashcans out for too long.

No more.  Now, just like the gummint workers who have silently slithered past us mere mortals of late to earn yuuuuge salaries and retirement packages that would make even Tom Brady envious, the Refs have silently insinuated themselves into the GAME.  Now, it's the REFS who decide when a play can start.  It's the REFS who decide when a play is over.  It's the REFS who decide if somebody did a no-no, and then throw their little yellow Flags with abandon.  

They used to do it infrequently.  Every few plays.  No more often than that.  They were almost invisible, the Refs were.  And so we suffered through their presence, sort of like we put up with slobbering old Uncle Ralph once a year at Thanksgiving dinner.  

But NOW, almost every play!  Okay, egggsaggerayshun.  Every other play.  And when they strike, the game stops.  Any momentum one side or the other had begun to build, to achieve, in an effort to actually score some points...gone.  Poof!  Bummer!  Woodie killer, par excellence!  

And that's just for the players.  Us poor plebes at home watching these tedious and boring presentations are tearing our collective hair.  And it's seemingly true this year especially.  It makes you want to scream obscenities at your 5k, 4G, curved screen, high-zoot, 1080p TV!

And it makes more and more folks just like me want to find a black and white replay of an Olympic curling match from some by-gone era to watch instead.  

It seems to me that every time the Big Guy at the National Football League puts in a new rule, most often because one of the Refs screwed up a call somewhere (think back to the Saints screwjob in the 2018 playoffs), it makes the game slower, harder to follow, more infuriating and less interesting.  I mean, is there anyone anywhere who thinks football needs more penalties?

And is there anyone anywhere who hasn't noticed that more than a few stadium seats are minus asses during 2019 NFL games?

So, if they keep up with this tomfoolery I'll just find some park to visit or a stamp to collect or a dog to pet.  Continuing to watch this tedious display of Flags flying all hither and yon has now officially brought me to gag level...