A game of talent and timing: How I learnt to love NFL

For anything in NFL to work successfully, talent has to pair up with timing.

The right coach has to drill tactics into his players before eventually choosing the correct time to make a play. The quarterback has to work on his passing skills before taking to the field and deciding the optimal point to make a release. A defensive end spends ages in the gym and in the video room, going over moves again and again, before working out when a tackle could turn into an opportunity for a turnover. Then there’s the would-be UK fan, who first needs to buff up on their knowledge of the sort before finding the right moment where it all makes sense. Every UK NFL fan has had it, moments when you’ve tried getting into American Football but it hasn’t quite clicked yet. There’s your first game, where you try and pay attention, but then realise it lasts the best part of three hours and glaze over. There’s the play-off game that has a 1am kick off that doesn’t start getting interesting until the third quarter, by which time where you’ve well and truly fallen asleep. And there’s the Super Bowl party you clear your Monday schedule for, only to end up being more interested in the nachos and half-time show than the actual football. Success in NFL is where talent meets timing, and for the newbie UK fan, there are multiple moments where your preparation hasn’t quite matched the opportunity for you to become a fully fledged American Football fan.

The Steelers played the Vikings in London back in 2013. Tinie Tempah played the pre-show and Gene Simmons sang the American National Anthem. Glitzy. Photo by Nicky Hayes/NFL UK/Pool/Getty Images

A friend took me to Steelers @ Vikings at Wembley in 2013… but I didn’t bring a coat and found my attention wilting in the September frost. I learnt as much as I could for the Superbowl 48 (American Football makes a lot more sense when you think of it like cricket - I’ll explain this later), but the first points scored came from a safety and I got all confused. My talent for the sport hadn’t quite found the right moment to apply it all. Then Odell Beckham Jnr. made that catch and NFL’s appeal became clear to me.

Odell is making that catch one handed, going backwards and catches it with three fingers. NBC NFL via GIPHY

Talent. Timing. A small dash of the impossible. I saw that catch and immediately jumped up in my living room trying to understand what I had just seen. It wasn’t real. People aren’t supposed to be able move like that. Stuff like that isn’t supposed to happen outside of a computer game when you’ve switched on the moon gravity cheat code. Every UK NFL newbie gets that, a "whoa is this what happens in football?" moment. A bit where talent meets timing and you can’t get it out of your head, watching replay after replay with your head tilted at an angle, trying to figure out how humans can move or think that fast. Or maybe you have a moment where talent doesn’t meet timing and you find yourself completely gripped anyway.

I'm still not over this. via GIPHY

Take the ending to Super Bowl 49. That final play. The Seahawks, with one of the most talented running backs the sport has ever seen, get their timing all wrong and an interception leaves your mouth agape. Talent. Timing. A small dash of the impossible. All gone wrong. I saw that interception and immediately jumped up in my living room trying to understand what I had just seen. It wasn’t real. You can’t end the biggest game of the season in that way. Stuff like that isn’t supposed to happen outside of a computer game when someone’s turned the difficulty waaaaay up at the end. Another "whoa is this what happens in football?" moment that you can’t get out of your head. You again watch replay after replay with your head tilted at an angle trying to figure out what on earth just happened. There’s a cliche in superhero and fantasy stories where the hero wonders when they’ll finally master whatever power they have. They have a loud crisis of faith wondering if they’ll ever fulfil their potential… and then they look down and find out they’re hovering a couple of inches above the ground. As I was hurriedly shouting to my friend about what the Seahawks had done and the ramifications of the play, I realised that Super Bowl 49 was my hovering moment. And with that I was locked in for the new season. I still can’t quite fly, but I reckon I can leap a tall building with half a dozen bounds of NFL knowledge now. There’s a still a lot for me to learn; every now and again I just look at the wrong part of the gridiron for a play,  but I’m having a lot of fun figuring it out. NFL and American Football is a sport that is abundant with talent right now, and this season, we’re hoping our timing is right to help newbies who want to get onboard. Join us on a journey as we try to figure this all out. Read more...