Heisman Watch 2016: not so exciting anymore

Heisman Watch 2016 not so exciting anymore nfl images

Heisman Watch 2016: not so exciting anymore nfl images

Are you as stoked about the Heisman Trophy presentation coming up on Saturday night at 8 p.m. as me? If so, then you are yawning right now in anticipation of what’s become a boring, and barely relevant event.

Don’t get me wrong, receiving the Heisman Trophy is still a grand honor. It takes a ton of blood, sweat, tears, and a couple concussions along the way to get to that level in the world of college football.

But there are lots of reasons that so many people don’t get excited about the yearly award anymore. I’m not the only one.

Quick, name last year’s winner….

That’s what I thought.

It was Alabama’s Derrick Henry by the way. He has just 312 yards this year in the NFL as he watches DeMarco Murray get the workload for the Titans.

Henry was a fine football player and may end up being a star in the NFL. But we’ve seen too many Heisman winners fall by the wayside once they went pro.

The best football player in America should have at least a decent career in the National Football League right? Even if his skill set is suited for the college game more than the pro style, the best player in the land should be able to fit in somehow. Right?

heisman trophy not so hot anymore

Let’s ask that question to a few former Heisman winners:

Johnny Manziel (Out of the League)

– RGIII (Not long for the League)

– Mark Ingram (Only rushed for 100+ twice in 2016)

Sam Bradford (Almost solely responsible for Minnesota’s nosedive after a fast start this year)

– Tim Tebow (Every opportunity in the world to play football, with a huge following, yet still could not stick)

– Troy Smith (Barely memorable 4-year stint in the League)

I could go on for days people. Clearly, the Heisman Trophy means very little once these young men go to the highest level of football. The NFL is a meat grinder that has made hamburger out of what once was filet mignon in the college game.

Don’t get it twisted. There are plenty more reasons folks just don’t care as much about this historical trophy as they did back in the days of Herschel Walker.

Just the fact that the trophy was given to two freshmen in the past few years hurt the reputation of the award. Not even Herschel was able to win it with the best freshman performance in college history over 30 years ago.

Anyone who thinks Johnny Manziel and Jameis Winston deserved the Heisman more than Walker, well, these delusional fans need to be forced to watch the past decades’ worth of Heisman presentations.

That should be punishment enough.

If you still care about what used to be a great award and honor, I hope you enjoy an evening of highlights and nervous looking athletes in suits on Saturday night.

If you need more reasons not to watch the presentation from the Downtown Athletic Club in New York, here’s a handful that will help you decide to spend your TV time elsewhere.

– The event is a standalone deal with no lead-in. It’s easy to enjoy a trophy presentation right after a game. But the atmosphere in a stuffy building is less than inspiring.

– You will have to listen to the ridiculousness of ESPN commentators talk about the historical greatness of the finalists. Everything “now” has to be better than at any point in history. I heard one moron on sports talk this morning say that Lamar Jackson appears faster than Mike Vick was in college. I quickly turned the damn radio off.

– Ten years ago, there wasn’t much to divide football fans’ attention. So a couple hours watching an award show was fine. This weekend we will be setting lineups for fantasy football playoffs, watching recorded games from last week, listening to podcasts about football, watching football documentaries on Netflix, and the list continues forever.

– We have seen enough campaigning with the Presidential Election that just wrapped up. The Heisman is just more of that. It starts at the beginning of the year and never stops. Coaches pimp their guys. Universities run big money campaigns to get their guy more attention. And ESPN commentators shove their choice down our collective throats from week 1 all the way to the end of the conference title games.

No hard feelings toward you personally Mr. John  Heisman.

Your trophy had a helluva a run.