Derek Press

What is it about the NFL’s incessant need to feed us terribly annoying commercials over and over again? Maybe it happens in other sports, too. I don’t know. But every commercial break during a football game (and there are a lot of them) we see a lot of the same adverts and they’re extremely annoying.

Last year was Toyota’s infamous Saved by Zero campaign. That one bugged me so much that I actually took the time to email some feedback to Toyota. This year it’s Bud Light’s “Jimmy Football!” and those Ford truck commercials with the big text flashing across the screen and mud flying everywhere.

Sure, you could say the ads were successful because I am recalling them, but the problem is that I hit mute, change the channel, or click pause in Media Center whenever they come on, thanks to my HDHomerun. These “flagship” ads also tend to be the first ones run during a break so I end up not hearing and/or seeing any of them. Good for me, bad for advertisers. I’ve thought about keeping a running tally of the ads during any given game but any gain would quickly be lost by the amount of brain cells I’d lose.