Just imagine - It's Sunday morning,
11:30, January 11, minus 32 degrees, NFC
championship game, Vikings versus
Packers, Lambeau Field.

The Fox Television cameras pan the
Viking locker room, pick their target, and
zoom in on John Randle snorting, blaring,
swearing, steaming. "Sure looks like
Randle's ready," Terry Bradshaw's twang
voices over the video.

Just after, convulsing and raging,
Randle knocks the cameraman on his
keester before blowing out on to the field.
Yes, it could be coming right into your
living room on that most sacred of days,
NFL Sunday. Hide the remote. Send the
kids to the basement.

We're talking total video, folks. The
whole sha-bang. Quintessential football.
No need for Madden and Summerall, Matt
Millen, Boomer, or even Jerry Glanville.
X-rated football could someday be the
standard of sports television.

The marriage between football and
television will reach its apogee - the
ultimate, with total video.

We will watch Brett Favre, in the
twilight of his career, as he prepares for
game time hours before kickoff. We will
see him meeting with trainers, coaches,
and masseurs, playing cards with Antonio
Freeman, taking a swim, and catching up
on some pre-game films.

Total video will provide us with
unlimited access to the locker rooms of our
most inaccessible stars. It will allow us to
hear and see for ourselves, the high hum of
monotony pervading every athletic team's
compound.

The concept is completely abhorrent to
we traditionalists. What we have is
invasion of privacy at its best - an attempt
to turn the viewing audience into
papparazzi en masse. The thought of being
privy to a game day bout of sheepshead
between Brett Favre and Antonio Freeman
is almost as scary as being witness to the
seething, frothing, empty headed-ness of
John Randle.

However, this concept shouldn't
surprise us. Total video describes us. It will
be the epitome of what we have become.
For we are a land of need, speed, and greed
and professional football has simply come
along for the ride. Television, as the
driving force, will promote this
technological advancement ad nauseum to
"enhance the viewing experience". As they
did with instant replay, TV executives will
believe viewers will enjoy watching Brett
and Free banter over cards and they won't
hesitate in putting it on.

Total video will become an annoyance
beginning with its first day, much like
MTV videos, but there will be one good
thing to come out of it - pure football.

Sideline microphones will capture the rush,
the surge and the energy, while combining
the super accuracy and timing of 19
different camera angles. It will bring us the
ultimate sporting viewing experience. The
future of the television game will be set.

It will be like no other visual encounter
in the television world. "Feeling the
Power" on Sunday will become almost
lifelike - right in your viewing room - the
first step toward computer aided realities
and a whole new source of virtual entertainment. Total video will become one of those necessary evils. Satisfying every need for greed with speed. America, and its sponsors, will love it.