Finally Football

Well, it appears that my quest to become a paid fantasy football writer has fallen short, and that is rather disappointing.  Fortunately, that disappointment is blunted by the fact that this is the official first day of a new football season.

There is nothing like the first day of football season.

Even though the temperature is going to top out in the mid-90s, and most folks are looking forward to one last extended weekend at their lake cabins, today still marks the true beginning of autumn. For the first time in what seems like forever, we get watch football games that count, thank whatever lord it is that you believe in. Each weekend for the next twenty or so promises more of the same; a blissful thought after spending the last three months bobbing along with only a terrible baseball team and the occasional golf tournament as distractions.

I read a very interesting piece of writing yesterday entitled “Football is Dead. Long live Football.” by J.R. Moehringer for ESPN The Magazine. Not only is it the first interesting thing that I’ve ever read in ESPN The Magazine, parts of it were tough to take for your average football fan. It’s a bit lengthy, there’s no disputing that, but it is one of the few things I’ve read that highlights the good and bad of the sport equally, a difficult task for any subject that enflames such passion.

It’s been tough to enjoy being a football fan at times these last few years, and not because of anything that’s happened on the field. The stories of mental and physical ruin brought on by this game should leave even the biggest diehard wondering what we can do to better protect those who play the game. The problem, as with most things, are the extreme attitudes of some people. The “Ban Football” argument is as useless as the people who shrug off brain damaged players by saying “they knew the risks”; neither attitude is going to get us to a sustainable place with this, or any other contact sport.

Of course the comeback is to ask why bother sustaining these games at the cost of people’s health? The reply is that while they aren’t required for a functional society, the collections of behaviors they teach are things we can't afford to lose. Teamwork, sacrifice, courage, overcoming adversity, where are these learned more often than the athletic field? Take away any setting in which a kid risks injury, you also take exercise, friendship and a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves. I know it isn’t worth the price paid by some. I can’t honestly say if I’ll feel it’s worth the price I will eventually pay, when the arthritis finally shows up in my surgically-repaired knee. But I have a feeling it will be, and know there are millions more who already know that for sure.

Toward the end of Mr. Moehringer’s 120 points on football, there are several that connected with my own experiences playing the game as a kid, in particular these two:

101. I remember, when the silver dried, putting on the helmet, looking at the world through the steel face mask, feeling powerful.

102. I'd never before felt powerful.

Growing up, I was also always the biggest kid in the neighborhood, which wasn’t the most fun. Awkward on skates, couldn’t run fast, I could hit a baseball (not a complete spaz here), but the early years of hockey and soccer were not what I was cut out to do. Stepping onto a football field was a revelation, the first time I felt at ease in my own skin. I was no great athlete, never got to wow anyone with bullet throws or acrobatic catches, but every time my hand went into the grass, I was in my element.

Because the guy making the block mattered as much as the guy running the ball. You were part of a unit that rose and fell together.  There was nothing greater than knowing something good just happened because you and 10 other guys did their jobs to perfection.

This feeling isn’t unique to the game of football, but it is the place I’ve felt it most strongly in my life.  That probably explains why I can sit down, anytime, anyplace, and enjoy two teams squaring off. Many of my friends feel the same way about hockey, but the sport being discussed is immaterial, the sentiment is always the same. It’s the feeling of team, and at the risk of sounding like someone’s grizzled grandfather, it seems like something today’s kids could use more of.

So tonight, as I sit down to watch the Minnesota Golden Gophers, in all their typically inept (and occasionally infuriating) glory, I am going to savor the beginnings of another football season. It seems almost useless to try and prognosticate how the maroon-and-gold will do this year, every season lately has been more confusing than the last. The schedule looks soft, you begin to talk yourself into the possibility of “a strong start, then who knows?”, only to be slammed back to Earth by a drubbing at the hands of one of the supposed creampuffs.

This year we’re once again talking baby steps. We’re talking about the first Jerry Kill recruiting class, about a senior QB maybe reaching his potential, about beating the teams a member of the Big Ten should beat.  Most importantly, we’re talking football again, and that feels pretty damn good.

There's one other item from the ESPN piece that I thought was fantastic, a quote from linebacker Takeo Spikes:

"You can lock me up in solitary confinement for a couple of years, never tell me the date, never tell me the month, anything, and I could tell you what month it is, and I could tell you when it's football season, that's how much it's been embedded in me."

Couldn't have said it better myself, ditto.

Learnings from the weekend

The reasons why September is the greatest month of the year were out in full force this weekend, as college football, the NFL, MLB pennant races and perfect fall weather converged to form a phenomenal 48 hours. Sure, some of the action left a bit to be desired, but overall it was just the kind of weekend that makes you happy to be alive and proud to be an American. So, after the flurry of activity over the last 6 days, what do we know (or at least think we know) that we didn’t before?

If I gambled on NFL games, it would take me much longer to type these entries, due to the fingers I’d be missing on my left hand.
Despite what Dimitri, my former Estonian bookie used to say, winning bets on NFL spreads is not as easy as “being kick by mule”. Unless of course it’s hard to get a mule to kick and he was confusing me with some kind of Slavic slang. At any rate, the atrocious 4-10-2 record I managed to fashion in the season’s first week was the latest reminder that, unless I’d like to answer to the nickname “Gums” for the rest of my days, it’s best for me to stay away from NFL gambling of any kind. In fact, things didn’t look much better straight up, as 5 of the favorites I picked lost outright. The Jets (never liked Sanchez), Falcons (aforementioned “doubting Pittsburgh can make you look dumb” caveat) and Dallas (awful preseason, NFC East games are always tough) can be rationalized a bit. But the Colts showing a softer defensive line than the French army and Niners getting MANHANDLED in Seattle were truly shocking. I mean Houston is good, but were 1-for-the decade against Indy, and the Seahawks…well I just don’t even know where to begin there.

The only thing I can hang my hat on is calling the Kansas City upset, a pick I had so much faith in that I reversed it on Monday morning when putting in a loser’s pool pick I’d forgotten to call in Sunday. The logic of course being that I was wrong on every other instinct so far, so why trust my first thought here? I’m one more week like this from going Costanza on things and just picking the opposite of whoever I think will win.

Twins > White Sox, Part 10
It’s a damn shame the Chicago White Sox won the 2005 World Series, because if not for that, the Twins would have the largest edge in any rivalry other than Hammer v. Nail. Unfortunately, I’m on the record roughly a million times as saying I’d trade one championship for a hundred winning seasons, so taunting Sox fans would ring a bit hollow. Nevertheless, it does feel good to once again watch the Twins perform a smackdown on their Central Division rival, extending the division lead to 6 games before the final series of the year began, and winning another last night to stretch it to 7. The first few nails have been driven into the coffin, and over the next two evening, that puppy could be nailed shut and chucked in the ground. Once again us Twins fans are poised to be the ungrateful guest, happy to be invited to the party (playoffs), but complaining about the brand of beer your serving if it’s not to our liking (first-round ouster). Best record in baseball since the break and home-field advantage mean the bar has been raised. Now go finish off the Whities and keep this thing rolling into October.

The shot heard round Dinkytown
Considering I made the optimistic prediction that the Minnesota Golden Gopher football team would finish over .500 this season, I was a bit surprised to see them fall to a highly mediocre (even for I-AA) South Dakota Coyotes team this past week. Not shocked of course, because I’m not sure any loss could shock me. Even if you told me a high school team had beat them by a couple of touchdowns, I’d need to ask which team in order to properly calibrate my level of surprise. Given the loss to North Dakota State and near-miss by South Dakota State in the past couple years, you’re not exactly picking your jaw up off the floor when you hear it happened again. And that’s pretty sad, actually. The silver lining I suppose is that this loss most likely signals the end of the Tim Brewster Era after this season, barring a miracle upset or two. This week USC travel to Minnesota for the first time in 30 years, and based on the result, I’m guessing the Gophers won’t want to see them for another 30. Line for this game USC -13, can that possibly be right? Easy money if so…then again, see my NFL picks from last week…aw screw it, this isn’t the NFL, it’s the Gophers, bring it on!

First big college football Saturday is a dud
Sure it was a long shot, the idea that an underdog road team would pull off an upset in one of last weekend’s marquee matchups, but something close would’ve been nice. I know a lot of people think of Michigan-Notre Dame was a big game, but in my book I need little numbers next to the name of at least one team for the matchup to qualify as “big”. That one was most certainly good, but definitely not big, at least not currently. If Denard Robinson keeps ripping off 500 yard total offense every week, it might become more significant in retrospect, but that’s about as unlikely as Reggie Bush being asked to host an ethics seminar at USC during next offseason. Well, unlikely until he plays against the Gophers at least.