The Next Gear

 The return of professional American Gridiron Football means the return of professional American Gridiron Football announcers and their extensive library of clichés.

If you've ever watched an American Gridiron Football game, or just listened to one being broadcast over the radio, you've most likely heard a number of those clichés.

Maybe one of the all-time classics, such as "He left it all on the field" or "110 percent effort", or maybe one of the lesser-known gems such as "That hit had him staggering like a tipsy barfly looking for the bathroom".  

And maybe, just maybe, you heard what I consider the one cliché that I personally believe is not only an understatement, but so much so that it belongs in some sort of obvious observation hall of fame.

I am speaking of the old nugget, "he has another gear the rest of us don't" and the myriad variations of that statement (kicked it into another gear, etc.)

To each and every NFL announcer I would like to point out the fact that simply making the roster of an NFL team, even just to sit the bench, or heck, fill a spot on the practice squad, means that person has an extra gear the vast majority of us do not have.

In fact, just to crack the roster of a college football squad means a player has an extra gear. Hell, just to be a starter on a football team at a large high school requires an extra gear.

That extra gear is usually a combination of extra gears actually - strength, speed, toughness (physical, mental, emotional), acumen, situational awareness, perfect eyesight (peripheral vision being a huge plus), great hands, great feet (not in the sense of having nice healthy feet, but in the sense that a player can move on his feet nimbly, with purpose, no matter if the player weighs 150 lbs or 350 lbs - well, especially if the player weighs 350 lbs). 

And the extra gear has to continually develop, continually improve. You can't expect to have the extra gear and just be able to step on a field and excel - initially, sure, maybe up through high school ball, simply because not everyone playing the high school game has all the extra gears that the more elite players have - but the majority of the college players do, and each and everyone of the players who make it to the NFL certainly do.

So yeah, time to retire the "extra gear" cliché...we all understand that, it doesn't have to be rubbed in pointed out.