Below, German football player Felix Passlack demonstrates masterful gum control:

When you spit your gum out, but your hands are dirty

Playground compiles 2,000 Google Earth images of American football fields, then plays them alphabetically at a speed where they become hypnotic. Read the rest

I don't follow football, but Bad Lip Reading hit a grand slam with this one! I'm literally LOLing over here, people...

Read the rest

Weird Universe shares the tale of Larry Canaday, the 1970s football coach at Eau Gallie High School in Melbourne, Florida, who would bite the heads off live frogs to psych up his team before games.

"Our kids love it," Canaday told the Associated Press in 1977. "They say 'Look how wild the coach is, let's get wild, too!'"

Canaday said he started the practice when trying to fire up one player. "I looked down and saw this little frog and just reached down and bit it. The boy's eyes got big as saucers and he became a real go-geter."

After several years of the ritual, school officials told him that the "frog-biting must cease."

"Last year we were winning," he said in the 1977 article. "But now we're losing, and certain intellects will use this as an excuse to pick on football." Read the rest

The chief health and safety officer of the NFL today acknowledged a connection between football-related head trauma and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), in what is the first time any senior football league official has said anything about the link between football and the devastating brain disease that affects so many who play the game. Read the rest

Football is about one thing and one thing only: dance. As far as I can tell American rules football is where men in elaborate costumes, featuring tight pants, seek to stop other men from dancing.

Colloquially known as a touchdown celebration, the body of rules and regulations managed by the credible governing body, the National Football League, seems to focus on allowable practices to bar the opposing team from dancing. After they've determined what you can do to stop a dancer, and what things are permissible to get the dancer on to the dance floor, known as an "end zone," the NFL then heavily regulates what type of dancing is appropriate.

We have seen Footloose, sad things happen when you try to stop people from dancing. In the NFL this frustration frequently seems to present as abuse and other ugly, unacceptable social behaviors.

I do like the commercials.

Read the rest

Radiolab can always be depended on for an interesting take on questions you never even knew you had. Their story on American Football is no exception. Read the rest

photo: Kate Harmer/Hum Creative

BB pal Nick Harmer, bassist for Death Cab for Cutie, made a portrait of Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch out of Skittles. Why, Nick? "Because GO HAWKS!" More photos below. Read the rest

I hate football but I love marching bands. Here's the Ohio State Marching Band doing a terrific Michael Jackson tribute during a game on Saturday. Don't miss the moonwalk money shot at 4:45! Read the rest

Here's a brutal, must-read article from Brian Phillips detailing the bizarre, globalized game of soccer-match-rigging, which launders its influence, money and bets through countries all over the world, in what sounds like an intense, sport-themed LARP of a William Gibson Sprawl novel:

Right now, Dan Tan's programmers are busy reverse-engineering the safeguards of online betting houses. About $3 billion is wagered on sports every day, most of it on soccer, most of it in Asia. That's a lot of noise on the big exchanges. We can exploit the fluctuations, rig the bets in a way that won't trip the houses' alarms. And there are so many moments in a soccer game that could swing either way. All you have to do is see an Ilves tackle in the box where maybe the Viikingit forward took a dive. It happens all the time. It would happen anyway. So while you're running around the pitch in Finland, the syndicate will have computers placing high-volume max bets on whatever outcome the bosses decided on, using markets in Manila that take bets during games, timing the surges so the security bots don't spot anything suspicious. The exchanges don't care, not really. They get a cut of all the action anyway. The system is stacked so it's gamblers further down the chain who bear all the risks.

What's that — you're worried about getting caught? It won't happen. Think about the complexity of our operation. We are organized in Singapore, I flew from Budapest, the match is in Finland, we're wagering in the Philippines using masked computer clusters from Bangkok to Jakarta.

ABC News reports that a team of scientists who analyzed the brain tissue of the late NFL star Junior Seau after his 2012 suicide "have concluded the football player suffered a debilitating brain disease likely caused by two decades worth of hits to the head." Read the rest

When New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz found out that Newtown victim Jack Pinto, 6, was a huge fan, he decided to dedicate Sunday's game against the Atlanta Falcons to the first-grader. Cruz, the father of an eleven-month-old girl, decorated his cleats and gloves with tributes to Jack, calling the boy his "hero." Normally, writing on uniforms or gear would be cause for a fine in the NFL, but Cruz -- and the rest of the Giants and the New York Jets, who had "SHES" written on their helmets (Sandy Hook Elementary School) -- won't be in trouble. (The Giants' playoff chances? Another story.) Jack's family has been in touch with Cruz since the weekend, offering any needed assistance, and he has promised to try and meet with them in person, even if just for a short time. He's also promised to give the Pinto family the cleats as a keepsake. If the final score of that game wasn't enough to make a Giants fan weep (present company included), then this story certainly is. (via TIME)

Photo credit: Victor Cruz on Twitter Read the rest

An Italian court determined Wednesday that it is not legal to have sex outdoors, even if everyone else is inside watching football. [Philip Pullella, Reuters] Read the rest

Halftime performance of The Ohio State University Marching Band during a game against Nebraska on October 6. A "video game" theme, with music from Zelda, Halo, Pokemon, Tetris, and others. Read the rest

Discussion with Mrs. Beschizza about Ted conjured up fond memories of Sam J. Jones's post-10 epic role as Flash Gordon in the 1980 British-American film adaptation of the classic comic strip. Yes, the one with the brilliantly bombastic Queen soundtrack. Adds Mr. Beschizza, "Flash Gordon is why America should get to make a Doctor Who movie." Read the rest

As a football fan, it's always painful to hear the increasing number of stories about players sustaining head injuries that range from your standard (but still dangerous) concussions to chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It's easy to let oneself be ignorant of it while rooting for our favorite players during the truly suspenseful and exciting 60 minutes of game play. But at the end of the day, many professional athletes (and their families and friends) are suffering, some of them attempting -- and sometimes succeeding -- to end that suffering via violent means. It's the NFL fan's dilemma, and Travis Waldron at Think Progress articulates it well. (via Think Progress) Read the rest