Football began its annual rocket trip to hell this past weekend. I am of course talking about the start of the free agency signing period.

This diabolically intricate system utilizes complex terminology for the sole purpose of removing your favorite players from your favorite team.

In other words this is payback time for all of you out there lucky enough to be rooting for a successful team. Heh.

I may sound bitter about this entire thing, and quite frankly I am. I was one of the lucky (now few) people who happened to be a Redskins fan the year they last won a Super Bowl.

This was also the first year of free agency. After watching my team be stripped of talent faster than you can say “show me the money” I have now come to truly hate and dread this time of year.

Every season this happens, and every season there’s some big victim. The prey of choice is usually the previous year’s champion (food for thought cheese heads) but the real victim is the fan.

Where does this leave the fan? Do you continue rooting for your favorite team or do you follow your favorite player to wherever his new team is? And what do you do with all those now outdated replica jerseys hanging in your closet?

This point hits me very close to home. A couple of years ago I received a Heath Shuler Redskins jersey and a Kevin Greene Steelers jersey. Now neither player is with the team he was with when they made the damn jersey. But now I’m going a little too deep into tangent land. It’s time to get back to the main point and that is…

What about the fans? And what about the game itself? Now can anyone remember when baseball was truly America’s sport? I can’t either. Several things put an end to baseball as the number one show in town and one of them was free agency.

Players using their newly gained mercenary status take off to a new city. The team rushes out to replace the lost talent with more free agents. Fans get disheartened and confused. The ticket prices go up to pay the salaries for the newly acquired millionaires, and then the fans stop showing up all together.

This is what helped make football “America’s past-time” and this is exactly what may now be killing interest in football as it did baseball. What about the future of the game? I’m not saying that in the past no players jumped ship to another team, but it was usually in the twilight of their careers. Namath finished as a Ram not a Jet, Dorsett ended as a Bronco, not a Cowboy and Franco Harris retired as a Seahawk not a Steeler.

But what about today’s players? If Deion Sanders goes into the Hall will it be as a Falcon, a Niner, a Cowboy or maybe a Red, Brave or Yankee. What about someone like Andre Rison. The man’s played for the Colts, Falcons, Browns, Ravens, Jaguars, Packers and is now looking for a seventh team. I think football needs to do something right now to keep its fans happy. If things keep progressing at their current rate the once mighty NFL will soon be struggling even more for attendance and a big chunk of America will be finding something different to do with its Sundays.

Kevin Petty is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Carlisle.