Letting Go

Is there life beyond football?

The symptoms of withdrawal are classic and immediately recognizable to some 60 million football addicts. First, an uncontrollable twitching of the hand, which has no television knob to turn. Next, an irrepressible urge to curse, usually at the two-minute intervals during which, normally, passes would be dropped, quarterbacks sacked, or egregiously erroneous calls made by officials. Milder side effects include the opening of phantom beer cans and hurriedly placed phone calls to bookies for a nonexistent point spread. After a six-month diet of football, the American public must shake a national habit, and the transition is not easy. In the home of the Super Bowl Champion Dallas Cowboys, for example, police report more than twice the daily average of violent assaults on the Sunday after the football season ends. Spats between spouses can take a nasty turn. Old scores are apparently settled and, without the soothing football fix for fragile psyches, new grudges are formed.

The addiction can only get worse as the National Football League next year adds two more games to its regular-season schedule, and an additional play-off game as well. A new contract with ABC could mean Howard Cosell on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday . . . terminal logorrhea. The most innovative aspect of the new regular-season scheduling is the matching of teams according to their standings at the end of the previous year. Thus, for example, the Los Angeles Rams, who finished atop the N.F.C. West this year, next fall will play the Pittsburgh Steelers, No. 1 in the A.F.C. Central. Second-and third-place teams will, in like manner, play their division-standings counterparts in the other conference. The days of a patsy schedule for a strong team are over; a team will have to earn a playoff spot on the field, not in the scheduling chart.

With an expanded, more competitive schedule, the result may be an even bigger letdown if the Super Bowl continues its recent form of understated, cautious football. Purists insist that fans cannot appreciate great defensive games like the 27-10 Cowboy victory; neither can they appreciate the fine line between mechanical proficiency and boredom, the main fare of recent Super Bowls. While this year's contest between Denver and Dallas had its moments of suspense, perhaps the most exciting event of the evening--and arguably the Super Bowl's premier athletic feat--was a 60-yd. bomb thrown by 13-year-old Alfonzo Walls Jr. in the Punt, Pass and Kick finals before the game. Walls was on target too, a boon Craig Morton sorely lacked.

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