Shipping a week one game to Brazil seemed a step too far

It's difficult, and frankly feels a little pointless, to ask a question when you already know the answer is some combination of money, politics, and the unstoppable avalanche of what we affectionately call capitalism, but which is really just a wild battle for money and attention. Despite all that, sometimes we want to be heard, and after watching the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers 34-29 in a stadium you can't get to from the Philadelphia suburbs without transporting your car across something called the Darién Gap, I get the feeling that some people want to be heard.

I reluctantly accept that in five years, the NFL will have hooked its tentacles into every aspect of our lives. The league will soon reach a 20-game regular season. It will begin on Labor Day weekend, then move to National Buttered Corn Day (August 23, in case you forgot), and finally to July 4. Replica uniforms will be fully incorporated into our work uniform rotations and our paychecks will soon come with the option to receive payment via direct deposit or have it contingent on the outcome of the election campaign. Football on Thursday evening thanks to a complete integration of FanDuel into our personal financial plan. This is largely all part of the life cycle of a product that has intrigued us all.

But there was something about the Eagles and Packers starting their seasons thousands of miles apart that bothered me more than I expected. It was after Saquon Barkley scored his second of three touchdowns in his Eagles debut when he ran around the corner of the end zone with his arms spread wide. I personally know two dozen people who have made it their life's goal to be at Lincoln Financial Field The kind of moment – that utter buffet of hubris and complacency you get when you see your favorite team snatch away a former rival's best and most popular player, and then take a photo of yourself after doing something great while holding up your middle finger and send it to a New York Giants fan – who was waiting for a livestream to buffer so they could watch it from another continent for $10. Not long after, the broadcast showed a clip of Corinthians fans cheering after a goal during a football game in the same stadium, and there was something similarly visceral, beautiful and familiar about their reaction. I wondered how strange it would have been for the Brazilian fans to watch if that goal had been scored on an artificial turf field somewhere in Charlotte.

Let us pause for a moment and make it clear that we should all be for international football. Truly devoted international fans are some of the most football-literate minds in the world and have many more barriers to entry when it comes to connecting with the sport. We own Football, and we are better off as a fan base when everyone can experience the sport in person. Let us also be clear that these thoughts have nothing to do with Brazil itself.

Instead, Commissioner Roger Goodell plans to double down on this idea –his wordsfrom a pre-game interview on the ground in Brazil – the international schedule and start selling games to hotspot cities around the world. The notion that the league's aspiration to earn more than Luxembourg does not change the very deep and specific roots of the sport here in the United States. Opening weekend, for example, should be as sacrosanct as Thanksgiving when it comes to the NFL calendar. If fans are going to sacrifice a home game, don't make it the Home game opener – the first and possibly only chance to attend a game when the team is still undefeated and driven by foolish hopes and ambitions.

The kind of people who live for The Moment, who are reborn on The day and form the unshakable foundation of the NFL's business model, the people who have stuck with the league through all of its embarrassing moments and who devote a significant portion of their income to tickets, parking, memorabilia and the mafia-like blood oath of personal seat licenses, do not deserve to miss the chance to wear a Giants Barkley jersey with some obscenity written over the logo with a piece of duct tape and have it appear on the broadcast.

I know that sounds oddly specific, but the only people who really thought this game was a great idea were the Brazilian fans, who probably would have been just as happy to see a game in Week 9 that wasn't quite as important to the fans here, and the increasingly wealthy ownership class that has all but lost touch with its core clientele. The kind of people who don't understand that for some Eagles and Packers fans, Friday night was like learning that this year's family Christmas party is being held on the dark side of the moon and that they have to own their own spaceship to attend.

If the desire is to showcase the NFL in different locations, then play the game at Penn State University's Beaver Stadium and allow Eagles and Packers fans to camp together for a weekend in a parking lot the size of the Kalahari Desert. And while we're at it, play the game in a place where we are almost 100 percent sure a football game can actually be played, not let some of the NFL's best players loose on a field modeled on the surface of Ice Capades. The pitch conditions in London and Munich were just as bad, at least according to some players who complained afterward.

And I'm not naive about the reasons for that. The first two games of this season have shown just how powerful the drug is that the NFL can now sell worldwide. The road show, despite its toll on local fans, players, coaches, officials and staff, will suck millions more into that cash vacuum. It really is the perfect sport, and it can be hard to share in that, especially on a night like Friday when it feels so far away.