At an NFL game, when the field goal kicker is about to boot the ball, they send two guys to run up a net behind the goal posts.

Why? To protect the people a good 50 yards behind the net? If you’re sitting behind the goal posts, can you not see a 12″ inflated leather obolong ball drifting towards you?

No, because the NFL does not want you to get a “free” football.

Every once in a while, the ball will fly over or skip past the net so what happens? At a baseball game, you hold up your ball to cheers or even get to auction it for millions. At a hockey game, hopefully, you didn’t lose too many teeth but at an NFL game?

EVENT SECURITY scurries over to take it back – if you don’t hand it over – ARMED POLICE OFFICERS come over.

I’ve seen them take a ball away from a 9-year old kid.

Is that REALLY how the NFL wants to be seen?

As cheap skinflints?

For a ticket that costs at least $50-$75 face value and perhaps hundreds of dollars for buying a season ticket? Or a bottle of water costs $5 dollars? Or the multi-BILLION dollar TV contracts or the free stadiums built by cities is simply not enough to cover the cost of losing a few footballs (not even pigskin anymore – cowskin now)?

Is a football all that costly?

It’s $100 retail but what does the NFL pay for it? $15? Even at full retail and let’s say they lose 5 balls a game (unlikely) – you mean there’s not $500 in the budget for footballs?

How many baseballs are lost in a game? 50? 60? 100? I’ve seen at-bats where a guy fouls 12 balls into the stands. The NFL would chase all those back?

I’m sure they might call it a safety issue? But tell me that it’s less dangerous to have someone heave a baseball or hockey puck back into the field? Or how far can most non-NFLers chuck a regulation football at a “dangerous” speed? And if you can, shouldn’t that guy be signed?

70 years ago, a football might’ve been a day’s wages and the league was run on a shoestring but now, tell me the jumbo shrimp catering budget is not 10 times as large for EVERY NFL team? Well, maybe not the Bills.

It’s time to let a few football fly into the stands and stop snatching them away from kids who retrieve them.

Are you really that cheap, NFL?