Are food allergies an analogy to breaking the NFL habit?

Just as food allergies create a sickness in the body, the NFL creates a sickness in the soul. Taking both out of your life will make you much happier.

I know. I know. It’s one of my stranger analogies, but stick with me on this one.

Those who have developed food allergies know what it feels like. You have some food you particularly like, and have been enjoying for years. Lately, though, you’ve been noticing that, while that food makes your mouth happy, it makes the rest of you unhappy.

For a while, you’re in denial. “I probably had a stomach flu.” “It was just a bad batch.” “It’s a coincidence.” Those of you with allergies know precisely what I mean.

Then one day, it dawns on you that every single time you eat that food, you feel horribly sick. The pleasure in your mouth is completely overwhelmed by the sheer misery that follows. So, finally, you stop.

Having stopped, you miss the food you once enjoyed but — oh Lord! — it’s wonderful not to be ill all the time. It’s great to be in control of your life again.

And you know what? Eventually, when you see that food on your plate, rather than experiencing longing, you feel revulsion. It may look good, and you have good memories, but that food is so gosh darn bad for you it’s a relief not to have it in your life anymore. That’s the moment you truly stop missing the food and realize that your life is much, much better without it.

For those of you who have been lifelong football fans, I bet you’re experiencing the same thing. You’ve put up the game for years as commercials got longer, Super Bowl half times got more vulgar, players got traded like slaves in a gilded marketplace, salaries escalated, and the criminal convictions ratcheted up.

You told yourself, “It’s still the purity of the game,” “These guys deserve the money for the abuse their bodies experience,” “In a free market, this is how things work.” (Except, as Daniel Greenfield explains in detail, it’s not a free market at all. It’s a totally corrupt government monopoly.)

These excuses worked for awhile because you love football. You’ve always loved football. Young or old, you sat riveted when Johnny Unitas changed the game forever — or, if you’re really young, you still know about that glorious moment in football.

Still, for the last year, you’ve noticed that every single time you tune into football, your spirits sink. You feel revulsion at the talking heads and their unending Leftist cant that reveals itself in their desperate efforts to make everything about race and victimhood. And you really feel revulsion when you see the players turn their Marxist politics into open disrespect for the flag and the country you support.

You know that America is imperfect, but she’s a damn sight better than any other country on planet earth. You also know that President Trump is imperfect, but you appreciate his reverence for America, his sometimes painful honesty, his recognition that a sovereign nation gets to control her borders, and his willingness to go abroad and defend America, rather than slander her.

And you know damn well that President is not a racist and neither are you. Because you and he, unlike the Marxists on the Left, do not judge people by the color of their skin but, rather, by the content of their character. And here’s the thing: too many in the NFL, from owners to coaches to players, either have no character or the character they have is a bad one.

Why the heck, then, are you watching this stuff that makes your soul sick? After all, you long ago would have stopped eating any food that made your body this sick.

So stop watching! I can guarantee you that, in a short time, you won’t miss the NFL at all because you won’t miss your soul sickness any more than someone with a food allergy misses that body sickness. Your brain is telling you something as surely as an allergic person’s body speaks loud and clear.

(Moreover, here’s the good news: Just as allergic people can go back to foods after careful experimentation, if the NFL cleans up its act, and then stays clean, you can go back to it too.)

Photo credit: Peanuts, by Andrew Malone. Creative commons license; some rights reserved.