I like watching Marvel movies. I like watching football games. I know a bit about marvel. I know probably just the basics about football. I could name you a good amount of superheroes from the Marvel movies. I could name you maybe 15 football players, mostly quarterbacks. Don’t get me wrong I am a fan of football, but I don’t know everything. I like watching football games and can get invested. “Oooo man throw ball far and other man catch” or “small man run fast but big man hit him”. The same goes for Marvel movies. “Ooo robot man shoot laser and make joke” or “Alien get magic rock but man with cape moves hand to make orange circle”. I have a stupid male brain. But, after watching last night’s game, I was actually paying attention to who was doing what and why. Mostly trying to learn more names of players, but also pointing at the screen saying “there are 30 seconds left why is Tom Brady throwing the ball out of bounds every play? They need to score”. Then 1 minute later: “oh because they are in field goal territory and that’s more secure than trying to get a touchdown”.
I realized that this is what it must be like for people to watch Marvel movies without knowing anything besides the shapes and colors on screen. They sit there angry until the movie is over or someone explains it to them. This is what happens whenever I watch football with other people… and when they watch Marvel movies with me. I basically have to be an NFL commentator for Marvel movies. I’ll get angry during a football game saying “wait so the timeouts are just based on how long of a commercial break they need to have?” but I’m also like “Yea the mind stone is in Vision’s head that’s why Thanos is there dumbass”.
I swear it is hilarious to me how similar these experiences are. Again, I am not bashing football fans or Marvel fans, I am just saying the experiences when watching as a fan vs a regular person are similar. I could be watching a game with my dad and say “why is the quarterback now a wide receiver?” and my dad says “because sometimes he does both”. In the same way, my dad will ask me while watching Avengers “why does Ironman have his suit on bracelets? I thought it had to fly to him” and I will say “because sometimes he does both”. I think everyone can understand and enjoy the general premise of both football games and Marvel movies, but you can also get really specific and annoying when describing each of them in detail. Seeing Rob Gronkowski catch a touchdown pass is like seeing Bruce Banner change into the Hulk. You knew it was coming because Bruce is in the fucking movie and Rob is out on the field, but it still puts a smile on your face in a similar way to see Hulk rip apart an alien or Rob spike the football in the endzone.
I feel like there are a lot of similarities in football and Marvel movies in terms of fans. The same way my friends might be like “why are you so excited that Doctor Strange is in the new Spiderman movie? shouldn’t he be done fighting after Endgame?” is the same as “why are you so excited that Tom Brady is playing another year at Tampa Bay? shouldn’t he have just dropped the mic after winning the super bowl last year?” Most of this is subjective and certainly disagreeable, but it’s something I noticed when watching the game trying to learn more and stay up to date on football not only for my job but for all those awkward sports conversations where I just have to stand around pretending to sip on an empty beer so it looks like I’m part of something. Now I can actually participate and say things like “Yea Cowboys played better than I thought they would. CeeDee Lamb made that great catch but how does Greg Zuerlein miss a fucking extra point? he was all over with the kicks last night”.
Also, has anyone made the CeeDeez nuts joke yet? If so pls fax over the cease and desist.
