By Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
Social media is work for me.
I am 57 years old, and participating in social media is something I have been learning about in terms of how to use it, when to use it, and how to be good at it, and I am not ‘there’ yet.
But one of the most important things I have learned, and something I have shared with friends both young and old, is when not to be on it.
There is a special kind of wisdom on display when one just puts their phone away and lets things simmer down a little.
There is no better time for shying away from the tidal wave of pain and angst than when your favorite football team loses.
This past weekend was the first official weekend of the college football season, and this coming weekend is the first official weekend of the NFL season. And nowhere on earth will you run into more torment than after each week of the football season.
And there is a certain portion of it that makes sense.
I mean, the best part of football is also the hardest part of football — they play so few games.
Let me give you some perspective on this.
Pro football teams play 17 games. Major League Baseball teams play 162 games.
When you do the math, baseball teams play 9.5 times more contests than football teams do.
For our purposes, let’s round that up to an even 10.
So, when a football team loses a game, it’s the equivalent of a baseball team going on a 10-game losing streak.
And that’s fascinating, because there have only been three baseball teams who have suffered a 10-game-or-longer streak in 2025.
Half the football teams in the league experience that every week.
Therefore, everything that goes wrong within a game—every play call, every poorly executed block, every missed tackle — is magnified.
Baseball players know that if they strike out with the bases loaded in the ninth inning, give up the walk-off winner, or lose a pop-up in the sun — they have a chance to redeem themselves the very next day.
Football players know that if they drop a pass, miss a coverage or throw a red zone interception, they have to deal with that for a whole week before they can make their team’s fans forget about it.
Baseball managers shrug off losses and focus on the opposing starting pitcher the next day and what lineup he wants to run out there to face him.
Football coaches must face the heat immediately after the game, again two days later with the media to answer questions and several more times before the next game is played.
That has always been true.
But now, with social media, the torment often begins before the game clock hits :00.
You see people reacting to every misstep, every slip-up in real time.
In the old days, fans used to read in the newspapers about the struggle of a player the morning after a game, and they responded by calling the player ‘a bum’.
Now, much stronger language is used in describing a play that didn’t work and the one they deem responsible for it.
Yes, social media makes it all much worse. It enables people who have an opinion, which is literally just about everyone, to share that opinion like a soldier lobbing a hand grenade with the pin pulled over a wall.
And, accuracy and source checking the facts of what you post is not required. Heck, there are no repercussions for being wrong. You can be wrong over and over again and you don’t lose your ability to keep doing it.
There is no license. There is no permission request.
Just people saying whatever they feel like.
Honestly, nothing is more American than social media — free speech in real time.
At the same time, nothing is as unappealing as the swarm of negativity brought on by social media … especially when the subject matter is football.
So, when we see people comment on how bad Notre Dame’s defense is this season, we should remember that they have played one game, and it was on the road against a top-10 team.
When you read about how Texas quarterback Arch Manning lost the Heisman Trophy Saturday and was way overrated, we should remember that it is one game, and a road game against the defending national champs.
Football is fertile ground for overaction.
