Remember, "modern-day American football" began in the 1860's in Montreal, Canada by British soldiers. Today's Canadian Football League (CFL) more resembles the original rules than The National Football League (NFL). The "American" style of football was modified by Harvard University in the 1870's due to the smaller size of their field.
The CFL has a few different rules such as the larger field, three downs, etc. and has more "big" plays of over 60 yards than the NFL. The NFL has a more structured framework which dictates a more rigid strategy with normally larger players. While the CFL relies on more improvisation and requires use of more individual skills to be successful. Thus, small players such as Doug Flutie are more accomplished in the CFL.
But, it is hard for CFL players to adapt to the NFL style of play. At the same time, many NFL stars expected to dominate up north in the CFL, but many were not successful.
Mind you, I love both styles of play (the CFL & NFL).
If Americans didn't invent it - as a whole they normally don't like it. Especially in Sports such as Soccer (Futbol), Rugby, and so on.
Americans, as a rule, are attracted to higher scoring sports such as "modern-day" Basketball, Arena Football, and Indoor Soccer. But, the attraction is only there if those sports "originated" in the United States (The Aztecs actually invented Basketball, Not James Naismith - where the winners were considered blessed by the gods and the losers were sacrificed - but, that is for another discussion).
The problem is the people are spoiled in this country and as the hegemonic "great power" - most Americans don't know anything about the world and don't care to.
They did a segment on television that asked the common person, on the street, if the could find their town on a map of the United States. The map had the outline of the states only. There were no words or names of cities on the map. Over 60% of the respondents were unable to identify, within 50 miles, their "hometown" that they currently lived in.
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