Whatever Gets You Through the Day: The Rites (and Wrongs) of Autumn

      The mercury is ever so slowly creeping downward. Each day is a bit shorter. The leaves are starting to turn. The change of the seasons brings many things: numbing cold, work, holidays with family, the end of sitting in the sun and drinking to your hearts content. But the trade-off for all these things is the return of my favorite institution: The National Football League!

      No other sports league brings me such joy and heartache. Baseball is fun, and basketball and soccer can be a nice enough distractions during the off season, but nothing tops the excitement that the NFL brings to my life. Football is my favorite sport, and the way I know that is the "reason test". Its simple: for any other sport, I need a reason to watch. Doesn't have to be a good reason: my favorite team is playing, some player I like is in the game, a record could be broken, its the playoffs or a championship match. I'll watch curling if a gold medal is on the line. But I always need something to draw me in, otherwise I won't really care enough to sit down and watch.

     But football is the exception. I need no reason. Pro, college, high school, whatever you got, I'll watch it, and I'll love it. And of all these levels, the NFL is my favorite. So in anticipation of another great season, I've endeavored to talk about some of the things that I love and hate about professional football. The positive things that make being a fan more enjoyable, and the negative factors which seek to suck the joy from this wonderful game of ours. Just for semi-clarity's sake, positive things will get a fun little positive note, while negative things will get a bad note, and the extent of the note will be a pseudo gauge of my feelings about that thing. For example, something marked "Touchdown" will be better than something marked "Field Goal". Obviously. And everything is colorized for your eye straining convenience! So let's make a like a fullback on the goal line and plunge right in!

Touchdown: The Pure, Irrational Optimism

      Quick question: what are the odds that your favorite team will win the Super Bowl this year?

      If every team had equal chance, it would be 1/32, or 3.15%. How's that for a splash of cold reality on your dreams for a Super Bowl road trip?

      But we all know that these probabilities aren't evenly distributed, so what if you actually happen to be a fan of a team which doesn't totally suck and may even be considered a favorite to win it all? Well according to Vegas, the best odds you can get right now is 7 to 1 for the Colts. 7-1!   14.2%! Those are the absolute best odds you can get. Granted these are betting odds, so there is a natural house advantage built in, but it can't be that much of a difference. The Pats are at 10-1. Think about that: the team with the best coach in the NFL, with a 3 time Super Bowl winning, Hall of Fame bound QB, a team which came within 30 seconds and a prayer of going 19-0 a few years ago, has a 10% chance of winning it all this year. And they have some of the best odds in the league! (Side note: this totally blows up Simmons's new "thesis" about why Fantasy Football isn't good, since the odds of winning any given league are way better than the odds of your team winning the Lombardi trophy.)

Looking at these percentages, any rational person would realize that this is a fools game and tone down their expectations for the upcoming season.

And yet...

"SUPER BOWL HERE WE COME WOOOO!!!1!1!!"

      Its incredible, irrational, and glorious. I'd say that in every division there are an average of 3 teams which have fanbases which can legitimately hope for great things this year. Even teams in bad divisions like the NFC West have a chance, since they're in a bad division! All you have to do is outperform the other three loser teams in your loser division and you can reach the postseason. Maybe you know that the Big Game is a longshot, but certainly things are looking up, right? Its so easy to buy into your team's chances, because no one really knows anything until the games are played:

      "We got a new (coach/qb/big name free agent) who's looking great so far in camp. So-and-so is due for a comeback, and we had such bad injury luck last year, plus did you see this great rookie class we drafted! I'm sure that with a break or two we can take this division, and then who knows? I mean, hell, the Cardinals went 9-7 in the shitty NFC west a few years ago and then came within a minute of winning the whole thing. That could be us! This is our year!"

     One the the best things about the NFL is that it spreads the hope around so well. In MLB, there are only a few teams who really have a shot each year. Maybe you'll get one surprise team which will make a run and get into the playoffs, but realistically you can pick out the contenders very quickly. Basketball is even worse: they'll be 4-6 teams who will compete for a title, and everyone else is just window dressing.

      But the NFL, the wondrous NFL! Football has so many variables working which can tilt things your way on any given Sunday. Parity. Injuries. Wild cards. Wildcats. Turnovers. Ed Hochuli. Key matchups which change every week. Weather. Pure dumb luck. Combine this uncertainty with the tiny sample size of an NFL season, and almost anything is possible. You can do it with offense, you can do it with defense, you can do it with ancient tactics or far out formations. Whatever your method, the goal is simple: find a way to win just a few more games and get into the tournament, where anything can happen.

      Every year there's surprise teams in the NFL, and more importantly there is a natural ebb and flow of teams moving up and down each year. The 09 Giants missed the playoffs, one year after going 13-3, which came one year after going 10-6 and winning the whole thing. What will they do this year? No one has a clue, just like no one has a clue about how any team will finish. Last year's 6-10 could easily be this year's 10-6, and vice versa. And really that's all it takes to go from chumps to champs.

4 game suspension for substance abuse: Being one of the few teams that have no real hope

I've been pretty lucky as a fan, because my team has never really been a cellar dweller for a long period of time. Which if why my heart goes out to the die hards who stick by their inept shitshows of a team despite not having much, if anything, to hope for. Sure, some teams make the leap. The Dolphins went from 1-15 to 11-5 in one year. But realistically, those are the outliers, and we all know that some teams are just not gonna have a very fun year. The worst part of that must be actually getting worked up for the year, an exercise involving all sorts of self delusion and mental gymnastics, and then having your dreams crushed by brutal reality two games into the season. Fans of Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit and other doomed squads, I salute you. When winning 6 games would be a borderline miracle, you gotta be a true fan to stick it out. And I'm sure booze helps a lot.

The Timeless Baritone of John Facenda: NFL Films

Glorious NFL Films, the Homer of the NFL. Recording and telling the stories of the players, coaches, games and seasons which make up history of professional football. They've won 97 Sports Emmys (and counting), and its a haul that's well deserved.

NFL films does the game and its fans a great service, by bringing us closer than we could ever get otherwise. Miked up players, yearbooks, documentaries, Sound FX, Game of the Week, America's Game, all these things show us a side of the game that we can't see on a regular TV broadcast or even watching the game in person. In this age of Madden and Fantasy Football, I think we sometimes tend to think of football players as unthinking automatons who just run in preset patterns and rack up numbers. The reality is that this is an imperfect, human game played by imperfect humans who have a wide ranges of personalities, quirks, faults and virtues.

NFL films productions can be moving, insightful, funny, or poetic, but they are always enjoyable. Check out this classic:

I despise the Raiders, but even I can't help but love that clip.

I recent years NFL films has expanded into series like Hard Knocks, which give us an new and entertaining insight into the workings of an NFL team and great moments like this from Rex Ryan:

If you aren't ready to run through a brick wall after that, I don't wanna know you.

10 yard penalty: TV Blackout rules

Unholy god how I hate blackout rules. Fun fact: you know "The Greatest Game Ever Played"? The 1958 NFL championship game between the Giants and Colts, an overtime classic which brought the NFL into the TV age, spawned the creation of the AFL, and was one of the seminal moments in the history of the league? Blacked out!


Instead of this...

...Giants fans got this. Maybe less painful, but still.

No one in New York City, the biggest city and television market in America, home of the fanbase for one of the two teams playing in the game, was able to watch it on TV. Why? Because prior to 1973, all games were blacked out in their city of origin. That's right, the game was sold out, and no one in the New York/New Jersey area was allowed to watch on TV. Can you imagine the lost revenue? Blacking out the biggest media market for a championship game that the local team is playing in, on a holiday when people will be home to watch? Its fucking ludicrous! This policy was in place for 15 more years, and it only changed because Congress got involved. That's right, it took Congress to tell these guys "hey, you're throwing money down the toilet and alienating your customers at the same time". I thought NFL owners were supposedly sharp businessmen, but sometimes you have to wonder.

Which brings us to today. Now we have a blackout policy which requires the team to sell out 72 hours ahead of time in order to have the game shown locally. I understand the rationale, but in a lot of cases I just have to wonder at the economic sense. If you get to 95% capacity, are you really coming out ahead by shutting out the rest of your fanbase, the people who may be die hard supporters but might not have the means to attend a game in person? And how are you supposed to attract and retain fans (aka customers) if you decide not to show them any of your product? I think this is especially true for kids, who tend to be branded as fans of a team, and the NFL in general, at a young age. Are teams like the Jags really better off with having a lot of their games blacked out? Wouldn't it have served them better to show them and hopefully build up the fan base? Given that the majority of the audience watches on TV, and the majority of NFL revenue comes from TV, why be such hardasses about a few unsold nosebleed seats?

Earning an Ugly Yellow Jacket: The NFL Hall of Fame

         We all know that the Hall of Fame game is a crock. Its an extra, unnecessary preseason game forced on two unlucky teams, where the starters might play just long enough to get a grass stain or two. As the kickoff to a season, its a total cock tease. But have you ever been to the Hall of Fame itself? Fantastic! My persona is equal parts nerd and football fan, and Canton lies right at the intersection of those two traits.

         They have everything there, all sorts of great artifacts from the game which you can geek out about. Look, Red Grange's sweaty undershirt! And there's the cuff links that Paul Hornung wore the night he bagged two cocktail waitresses in Chicago after playing the Bears! Check it out, the steering wheel from Nate Newton's Weedmobile! They also have all the Lombardi Trophy and a collection of every Super Bowl Ring, which is a great reminder that for all the supposed toughness and machismo in football, what these guys are really killing each other for all season long is the chance to own a piece of jewelry so gaudy it could wake Liberace from the grave.

         But without a doubt the best thing about Canton is this movie they show. Its in this little theatre with a giant screen and mega speakers and it takes you inside the game NFL Films style. You start in the locker room, then run out the tunnel, and then its like 10 minutes of up close, pulse pounding, bone crushing football action, all set to a booming rock soundtrack. My only thought upon its completion was "I wanna watch that again!" and I wasn't alone. Imagine if Avatar was a short, NFL based film and didn't totally blow, and you start to get the idea. Great stuff.

First Down: PFT, Jay Glazer, John Clayton, and the handful of media who don't totally suck

Its amazing how bad the traditional media is at covering the most popular sport in America. I'm not expecting Rice or W.C. Heinz, but most of the sportswriters and reporters in this country are worthless. I suppose it makes some sense, given how many teams there are and how many players, coaches, and interesting story lines each team represents. It would be impossible to be on top of every potential story. Add to that the fact that so many in the media aren't journalists by trade but retired athletes and coaches and the ones who aren't are often old hacks like Berman and its a recipe for a piss poor sports media.
Which is why guys like Glazer are such a godsend. I don't care if he gets his info because he does MMA training with half the league, his stuff is accurate and timely and interesting. PFT is a simple but awesome idea which has become an invaluable resource, despite the fact that its run by an insufferable moron like Florio.

4 Yard rush on 1st down: Simmons and TMQ

I confess, I read both of their columns. Both writers are shortsighted, hypocritical, biased, and way overconfident in their very limited grasp of actual football strategy and knowledge. They also seem to be in a contest to see who can waste the most words every week saying nothing at all. Both have been chided repeatedly and deservedly so for their shortcomings as writers and analysts.
And yet, every week I find myself at least skimming their columns. And every week I come away with at least one laugh or one entertaining tidbit from their work. And I respect the fact that they try to do their own thing, instead of churning out more boring AP style sports writing or embracing hackneyed glurge like Reilly.

15 yard penalty: Direct TV's NFL ticket monopoly

Attention owners: I WILL BUY NFL TICKET IF YOU WOULD ONLY LET ME! I'll pay for individual games pay per view style. I'll buy the whole season. I'll do whatever you ask. But I'm not able to currently buy Direct TV, which means I'm totally SOL when it comes to this. Let me say that again: I'M TRYING TO GIVE YOU MY MONEY! WHY WON'T YOU TAKE IT!?! As much as I hate to agree with Greggggggg Easterbrook, he's right on this issue: why should we shell out public dollars for NFL stadiums, when the NFL will turn right around and screw the public by blocking them from purchasing the ability to actually watch NFL games? If you want to whore yourselves out to DirectTV, that's fine, but don't take our money with one hand and then give us the bird with the other.

Field Goal: Finding a good local beat reporter/fan blog

A true godsend, especially if you have a team which is typically off the national radar (read: located on the West coast, not a perennial Super Bowl contender, not Quarterbacked by a guy named Favre, Manning or Brady). A good beat reporter will be your best source of team specific info and tidbits. My own team's scribe is the dedicated and talented Kevin Acee of the Union Tribune, a guy who combines old school journalism quality with new technologies like Twitter and Youtube in an effort to reach out to fans. He's pro-Charger but also honest and objective, and not afraid to predict a loss or call out someone for over the top homerism or unrealistic ideas. A good team blog can also be a great resource which connects fans and can be a great place for intelligent discussion and analysis, and oasis in the intellectual desert that is the Internet.

False start: The TV announcers/studio crews

Like many football fans, I've hit a catch-22. I hate 95% of TV announcers and color guys. Most are either dumb, ignorant of basic NFL facts, unimaginative, bland, blind to what's happening on the field, set on brown nosing egotistical jerks like Favre while ignoring every other player, or some combination from this buffet of obnoxiousness. Michaels and Collinsworth can be tolerable, though Cris tends to get latched onto certain memes and never let them go (last year it was 40 times). Most of the other crews range from mediocre to insufferable, and its extra rough because most of the time they aren't even much fun to rip on. And why does every TV network need 6+ people for their studio shows!?!
Why not just turn off the volume? There's the catch-22. For whatever reason, I need sound when watching the game. Maybe its conditioning, or something primal, or whatever, but I at least need some background noise or things don't feel right. So with that fact in mind, I grudgingly accept that announcers, bad as they are, are part of the game. But I don't have to like it.

Power Sweep for Six: Good Radio Announcers

This is the flip side of the TV announcer problem. Good radio announcers are wonderful and can greatly enhance enjoyment of the game. They actually know the teams they work for and can tell you about each player. They're often biased towards their employers but usually fair and allowed to express real emotions in their calls, which is great because football is such a dramatic game that it requires passion at times. There's a reason that NFL.com and NFL films use the radio calls when they put together their highlight reels instead of the TV announcers. Finally, you get to know you're team's announcers and their quirks, so you don't mind if they have some fun or take risks on the broadcasts and aren't always perfect. My team has a great pair of announcers, here's hoping yours does too. And Marv Albert does a great job calling MNF games, way better than those chucklemonkeys on ESPN.

Touchdown: KSK/Deadspin

A goldmine of comedic delights. Football's just a game, and oftentimes it can be a pretty bland game played by bland meatheads, but sites like KSK bring the game to life in fun ways all year round. Whether it's reminding us of the joy which can come only from pure, unadulterated hatred or introducing us to the wacky and insane characters (both real and fictional) which populate the league, its required daily reading for me. Deadspin makes the list for both spawning KSK and the irreplaceable Thursday Jamberoos during the season, to which this post is a small homage.

One year suspension: The CBA situation (or more fun with Greedy fucking owners)

Notice a recurring theme? I understand that football is a business and you've got to make money and all that, but come on. Opting out of the CBA? Leaving tons of players in the lurch for this season. Basically leaving the entire 2011 season hanging by a thread, at a time when football has never been more popular or more profitable? How much is enough? Haven't the salary cap and current structure been good to all of you? Hasn't it been great for the league? Don't you get fancy new stadiums which are heavily subsidized by the public, despite their questionable economic benefits? Aren't the vast majority of your games sold out, despite the poor fortunes of many teams and the severity of the economic recession for your fanbase? Is this not the NFL's gilded age? How much is enough for your vultures? Can't you just be content with making hundreds of millions of dollars a year and leave us our football in peace?

The worst part is that you're already planning the 18 game season for 2012, and you won't even ensure us that they'll be a season in 2011! You greedy, egotistical assholes can all get bent!

50 yard completion: NFL Networks highlight show

I don't know how they do it. It shouldn't be this good. They took some rejects who couldn't cut it on ESPN or any of the major networks, stuck them on a channel which almost no one in America gets, let them babble on aimlessly over game highlights, and goddamn if it isn't the best recap show on television. Or, in my case, on the Internet. Every Monday during the season I check out their recap of each game, just because its entertaining.

Maybe its the freedom they have. Maybe they just have some magic chemistry which can't really be defined. Or maybe I just love how they take such joy in their own silliness:

Whatever it is, I love it, and its one of those things that makes the NFL fun.

Joe Theismann style compound fracture: Players getting hurt in the Preseason

Is there anything worse (besides greedy fucking owners, who are part of this problem too)? You wait an entire grueling offseason to get back to football. Sometimes more, because maybe last season ended early because of injury. Maybe its a new rookie who's waited his whole life in giddy anticipation of playing on the biggest stage. Maybe its a player just entering his prime, or an older guy eager to show that he still has it. This is our year, we finally have the pieces in place, its Super Bowl or Bust!!!!

And then... oof!

Football is cruel and random enough, but to lose a guy in a meaningless preseason game is a gut punch worthy of the Book of Job. Especially when its a marquee player who a team is built around, who is now out for the year or a good part of it. On rare occasion it will give a guy like Kurt Warner a chance to step up and have a storybook season, but for every one of those there are 100 situations where a team basically has to flush away their season before it even begins. Brutal.

Broken play for a 35 yard TD scramble: Fantasy Football

Long did I resist the siren call of fantasy football. I had my reasons, some of them mildly coherent. Unlike baseball, which is basically just a contest to put together the best statistical squad anyway, football is a team game, where no success is truly individual and where efforts for big numbers must often be subjugated for the greater good. I was a purist, someone who valued team over individual and cared about one statistic alone: wins and losses. Fantasy Football was just the opposite, a heretical game which values raw numbers with no regard for overall outcomes. As the Bible says: "what does it profit a man if he passes for 412 yards and 3 scores but loses the game?" (I may be paraphrasing a bit). Add to this cantankerousness my bias as a former lineman, one of the guys in the pit who decide the outcome but get all the blame and none of the glory, and you can understand my hostility towards gridiron rotisserie games.

But having played it for a few years, its actually pretty fun. It makes you have a deep rooting interest in games which you otherwise wouldn't care about, and its a lot cheaper and less destructive than becoming a degenerate gambler (not that the two can't coexist). Winning and losing in fantasy can be even more stressful, agonizing, and glorious than cheering on your favorite team, since there's a real sense of ownership. Your fantasy team is your own creation, and its success or failures fall on you. And its one of the few things in life where you know if you screwed up or not. When you add, cut, trade, start or sit players, you can know exactly how they performed, and if you made the right move or not. Few things in life have that much clarity.

And of course, last but never least: Eatin and Drinkin!

Gotta have it. Stuffing yourself with unnatural food and copious amounts of alcohol is crucial to the full enjoyment of this beautiful game of ours. Tailgating. BBQs. Chips, dips, spreads and salsas. Beer. Wine. Whiskey. Margaritas. Chili. Fries. Chili Fries. Chili Cheese Fries. Nachos. Tacos. BACON!

And don't forget something for your lovely spouse or significant other, the person who indulges your vices and shares the ups and downs of NFL fandom with you: