It’s the Most Unnerving Time of the Year…

By jawarrener  |   Thursday, July 16, 2009  |  Comments( 1 )

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It’s the most unnerving time, of the year…

Ah, the lazy, hazy, crazy summer days, the poolside, the barbeque, mowing the grass three times a week. It’s a time when the pace of world ebbs just a smidge and we visit the beach or the river or lake. It’s the most unnerving time of the year for me. Sure, I love all of the outdoor activity, all the scantily clad beachgoers on holiday. The problem for me is when I get home. I get home as the sun is just dipping down past the horizon and my thoughts turn to the TV. “What is in store for me tonight?”, I think to myself as I anticipate sitting in my favorite chair with a brewsky in one hand, a remote or snack in the other. Only the problem is...there’s no football! As an avid sports fan, I enjoy almost every sport. Golf, I really can’t stand and don’t even consider it a sport. It’s more of a glorified hobby such as horseshoes or table tennis. Can I watch it on TV? Are you kidding me? What could be more boring than watching a bunch of rich guys saunter around a golf course that was once a beautiful forest or pasture, whacking a little, white ball toward a tiny hole in the ground? Seriously, I would rather watch Gallagher smash watermelons or a Chinese Badminton game. It is painful listening to the commentators try to cull excitement as they speak in hushed tones even though they are hundreds of yards from anyone hitting a golf ball. Summer is the painful vacuum of competitive sports with almost nothing to offer except every four years when a World Cup or Olympics graces out sets. Baseball is just hitting the halfway point, even though they have already played eighty games. I love baseball but to try to avidly keep up with one-hundred-and-sixty games is not only implausible, it’s impossible. Baseball heats up in late August and September but by then football has begun and baseball takes a back, back seat. Hockey is long since over. Although, hockey is just soccer for people who live in too cold a climate to play soccer. Hockey is much more rough and I credit it that but aside from toting a stick and wearing skates, it is soccer on ice. NBA is long since expired. There have been some tennis matches of note this summer but if you’re one like me that enjoys the intensity and contact of football, this falls way short of pacifying.
Indeed, I find myself almost counting the days until the first pre-season games. Even then, it is a tremendous let down. That first game, The Hall of Fame Game comes on and you watch the first possession of each team. You then quickly ask yourself, “Why am I watching this?”. It is utterly anticlimactic. Especially, since you jacked yourself up because the long wait is over, only to realize the wait will be four more weeks. It like Groundhog Day, only you know that the little guy is going to go right back in the hole every time, without fail. This only multiplies the biting anticipation. Thank God for Fantasy Football. At least then you have something to keep your head from popping off. The problem there is any Fantasy Football player that’s worth their weight in salt, waits until as close to the regular season’s start to conduct their live drafts. So again, the anticipation is ratcheted up. I have heard talk of making the pre-season shorter and regular season longer. Both ideas are great for me. They take the meaningless suspense-spikers out and deliver a bonus helping of the good stuff. Now, the players I’m sure are not too thrilled about the prospect of subjecting their bodies to that extended physical maelstrom but as a fan, I salivate at the prospect. It’s like when you go to a restaurant to throw down on a big meal and they keep throwing nachos at you, not loaded, beef, cheese and sour cream nachos but just plain old nachos with a runny, watered-down salsa. Unsatisfying to say the least.
Yes, it is the most unnerving time of the year. I am also sick of the annual publicity stunts that hover around NFL newscasts. Is Brett Favre the biggest waffler in the history of the world or what? It seems like every year the drama and controversy of whether or not the aging gunslinger is going to saddle up for one more go at it. Not only is this entirely too played out, I am beginning to think that it is contrived. Yes, I said it, I think that this whole Brett Favre drama is designed to keep us football fanatics on the line, while the is absolutely nothing else going on with pro football. I’m sick of it and I feel manipulated by it. Play or don’t play, how many times can you retire and un-retire. I think the commissioner should put a limit on how many times a player can post retirement and come back out of it. Favre is a great player and an absolute lock for the Hall of Fame but I wish he’d poop or get off the potty. The young players’ careers he negatively affects by his flirting with coming back are hardly worth it. Look at poor Aaron Rodgers. They guy is a solid quarterback with loads of potential but he will always feel like the stepchild from another marriage when it comes down to taking the field. Green Bay showed him a lot of respect by posting him as the guy but he had to know in the back of his head that if Brett came back, he would be holding the playbook on the sidelines like he did when Brett was there. All of the Jet quarterbacks last year were sweating in their shorts when they found out he was coming their way. As it turned out, Brett was not the panacea they were looking for and the team lost a whole year of development. I guarantee you Tavaris Jackson is praying that Brett’s shoulder is going to keep him out and poor Sage Rosenfels. The guy never got a fair shake in Houston, where he performed quite well, during Shaub’s injury and now that he finally got a legitimate shot at starting, the specter of Favre looms over his hopes and dreams. These are quality players that may or may not turn out but while they watch their talents wither on the vine, Favre is busy making Wrangler commercials and completing hail-marys to his Golden Retriever, all the while knowing that if he gets the nod, he will waltz right into the starting job, throw thirty picks and get to live the dream for one more year, even if he single-handedly causes his team to miss the playoffs.
Maybe I’m just frustrated that my most beloved sport seems miles away. Maybe I wish the season were longer. Maybe the summer heat is cooking my brain but summer has to be the most unnerving time of year for me. Thank God college football starts a couple weeks earlier.
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