How do reactions differ leading up to the oncoming NFL season?

Everyone has a different opinion on things they are passionate about. One of those

things that get a reaction out of a lot of people is the professional football offseason. There is

the aspect of free agency pick-ups and drops, trades, and injuries. A lot can happen leading up

to the start of the season, and anticipating those things and projecting how each team will do

causes a large amount of conversations to start up. Depending on you relationship to a team,

how invest you are, your profession, people will react differently to the upcoming National

Football League season.

Growing up, I have always been big into sports, but the sport that I have always been

the most passionate about is football. I started playing the sport when I was five years old, and I

continued to play until I graduated high school. Part of the reason that I have always loved it so

much is the participatory culture that surrounds it. Everyones’ voice is heard if they have a real

concern or idea, and all of the players have some form of mentorship (Jenkins, 2006). All of the

players look up to the coaches as their mentors, but the younger players also look towards their

older teammates for guidance as well. As a football fan, everyone always asks, “Well, do you

like college or professional better?” For me, I do not have a preference, but for this assignment

it was going to be really hard to focus on college because there is less media surrounding it in

the offseason. For that reason, I would like to focus on the different reactions people have

leading up to the oncoming professional season.

One of, if not, the biggest factor that affects the reaction of people is what their relation

to the team is, in accordance to their profession. If a person is an analyst rather than a normal

fan, they are going to be much more knowledgeable about what is going on and they might not

be as passionate about certain topics. An example of someone that is an analyst but also an

extremely passionate fan is Stephen A Smith. He is well known for his hatred of the Dallas

Cowboys, due to the fact that he was born and grew up in New York. The Dallas Cowboys and
the New York Giants are giant rivals which explains part of the reason he hates them so much.

This can be seen in his interviews on “First Take” and “Sports Center.” Smith likes to make a lot

of controversial comments that start feuds between people that agree or disagree with his. This

can be seen on instagram, twitter, or other social media platforms. Although, most fans, at this

point in time, are not saying much because the NFL season does not start for almost two more

months. This means, as we get closer to the season opener in Chicago, more people will be

talking more on social media and more arguments will commence. At that point the fan will

know more of what is going on, but the analysts will still have a leg up on the information

because they find that stuff out for a living. Also, the analysts have a larger platform to voice

their opinions because they are broadcasting on television to millions of people at a time. The

average fan maybe has a couple hundred followers on social media and does not have access

to being on TV. This means, the analysts have an easier time of expressing their opinions and

viewpoints to the largest amount of the public. By having this opportunity, people like Adam

Schefter can write articles and post them online, and people will read what he is saying and

believe his opinions. This is also because over time he has proven to be a credible source and

people have learned to trust him. People are not going to read a post by an average fan and

trust his/her information is going to be the most accurate or their opinion is credible. For this

reason, NFL fans like to watch the reaction of analysts, and tend to agree with them more often

than not, leading up to the oncoming NFL season.

Henry Jenkins has defines participatory culture in multiple stages, but there are two

parts that really stand out and describe members of this discourse. The first part states, “With

some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is

passed along to novices (Jenkins, 2006).” This part of the definition perfectly describes the

before stated relationship between the analysts and the common fans. Most of the time, the

analysts are the most experienced because they are the ones working in the field
discovering new information, and then passing it on to the novices, or common fans. The

second part of his definition that fits this situation is, “Where members believe that their

contributions matter (Jenkins, 2006).” This happens a lot in the comments sections by the

fans themselves. This is because they believe that their opinion matters more than other

fans’, so they will argue with each other, or the fans feel the need to write extremely long

messages in the comments sections. This also comes from the fact that this is a

community members in the feel like they are free to contribute to the conversation when

they deem necessary, but they also know that they do not have to write anything if they do

not want to (Jenkins, 2006).

As I proceed with researching this community, there are a couple of different things I

would like to discover. For instance, how do the analysts react on Instagram compared to

the common fans that are commenting on their content. Do the analysts ever respond to

their fans, or do they just say what they want and then ignore what their followers have to

say? If the analyst do respond to their followers and show that they care, this would show

another form of participatory culture in this community. This is because the fans now

believe what they have to say matters and have support behind them (Jenkins, 2006).

Another thing that I would like to find out is if the fans and analysts tend to write more and

show more attention when a team has an unexpected injury, or do they just write one small

paragraph about it and then move on? The thing I would like to dive into the most, is the

different writing styles between the analysts and the common fans. Personally, I would

expect the writing style of the professional analyst to be written a lot more formal and well

put together. I feel like the fan knows not as many people will see what they are saying and

will write something short and choppy. I also believe that the comments or messages by

the common fan will be riddled with grammatical errors and slang.
 Different people react to situations in their own way. I am sure I will see this in their

writing as a proceed with my research, and I will be able to really describe the differences.

This will be seen definitively in their writing styles and the grammar that is used. Also, I

believe that just looking at the writing, I will be able to see a clear contrast between who the

analysts are and the common fans.

 References

Jenkins H. (October 19, 2006). Confessions of an ACA-Fan. Retrieved from

http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2006/10/confronting_the_challenges_of.html

(2019). Stephen A Smith. Retrieved fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_

A._Smith