What makes NFL football great? Let's count the ways

For a sport that pretends to dislike taunting, the NFL sure is running up the score.

The NFL long ago won the war for American hearts and minds. Now the league is high-stepping backward into the end zone while doing the Chicken Dance.

Any decent human can find a dozen reasons to dislike the National Football League. Violence. Concussion denial. Treatment of former players. Treatment of current players. Greed. Arrogance. Roger. Goodell.

If the subject is sports entertainment, though, the NFL is Secretariat and every other sport is a Grand Canyon donkey.

Thursday night, I went to Target Field and saw Byron Buxton hit two homers and a double and run the bases like they were 12 feet apart. But the game was meaningless, so even his brilliance didn't make for a compelling night of sports viewing.

Then I went home and watched a replay of the Bengals and Jaguars, two teams I care nothing about, teams with shoddy histories and uncertain futures that are not expected to contend this year.

It was a great game. Two No. 1 picks played quarterback and looked fantastic. The NFL made me watch the Jags and Bengals.

Here are 10 reasons Americans love the NFL:

1. Violence

2. Unpredictability
The Vikings entered the season with high expectations, then lost a thriller against a Cincinnati team we thought was lousy, then lost a thriller against an Arizona team we think is good, then won impressively over a Seattle team we thought was good, and now we know that Cincinnati is better than expected, Arizona might be really good, and Seattle might be in trouble. Which is to say, we know nothing. Which is exciting.

3. Relentless drama
The Ravens beat the Lions with a fourth-and-19 conversion and a 66-yard field goal as time expired. That's impossible, and it happened. And it hardly stood out because modern NFL offenses and kickers can change the outcome of any game, if you give them 26 seconds or so.

4. Athleticism
We've never seen better athletes playing the quarterback position, and those quarterbacks have never been pursued by such uniformly spectacular defenders.

5. Scarcity
Want to be a baseball fan? You need 80 hours a month. Want to be an NFL fan? You need 51 hours a year, and every hour can make or break a season, get a coach fired and lead to a new quarterback.

6. Suspense mechanism
I invented this phrase a long time ago while trying to figure out why football was so much more popular in America than futbol.

Football is filled with suspense mechanisms: The play clock and four downs mean that something meaningful will happen every 30 seconds or so. Lots of stuff happens in a soccer game, but not on any suspenseful schedule.

7. Anticipation
Playing one game a week means there are six days to fiddle with fantasy lineups, trash-talk your Packers fan neighbor, place a bet, check your survivor pool, draw a few plays on your napkin that you know will set Justin Jefferson free, plan your Sunday feast and ramp up your expectations to unreasonable levels.

8. Predictability
You know there will be a Thursday night game, a full Sunday schedule and a quality Monday night game.

9. League structure
There is a salary cap, meaning there are no excuses for owners not to spend and try to win — unlike baseball. There is an impactful draft, meaning that losing teams can envision turning their fortunes around quickly.

10. Coaching
Coaching matters more in football than any other sport. Look at the Vikings. After one game, it looked like their offensive line would destroy the season. Then offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak (man, I hope his middle name isn't Kevin) altered his scheme and play design and the line looked quite good the next two weeks.

Game plans and matchups change dramatically each week. That, along with injuries and typical human foibles, accounts for the wild fluctuations in team performances.

Sunday, the Vikings will play the Browns, and no matter what happens, the game will feature remarkable athletes playing in a packed stadium in what at least feels like a vital game. It's just another game, but it will feel epic, and that's hard to beat.