Some weekly thoughts on football and some other things, since I’m essentially a football layman. I’d generally prefer to do this early in the week, but I was particularly busy.
I had some people ask me why I didn’t post anything here about 9/11 before it happened, but honestly, what more could have I have said that wasn’t already said?
As I explained last week, I’ve expanded my weekly football thoughts to include some non-football stuff, primarily since I don’t have an enormous breadth of knowledge about the sport and don’t always get to watch games. That won’t stop me from offering up some picks, but if you place bets based on them, I’d be forced to characterize you as foolhardy.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that football doesn’t rank particularly high on my sports hierarchy, placing behind pretty much every other major sport besides hockey, which I never got into. That said? It’s good to have football back, primarily because it’s woven into what I believe to be the best time of year.
The past couple years, I’ve done a weekly post with some NFL thoughts and observations, mostly about the experience of watching such an Americana-driven sport. However, I’m not really a football guy, and I’ve found that I often simply don’t have a whole lot to say about the sport itself, especially on weeks when I don’t get to watch many games. As such, I’d still like to give this a go this year, but I’m going to expand it to whatever’s on my mind. Expect it anywhere between Monday and Wednesday.
Before the hurricane hit the New York area on Saturday, I hauled out to Long Island on Friday night for the annual draft of my main fantasy football league. It’s pretty hardcore: 14 teams, an archaic and esoteric scoring system, two keepers, and it started 16 years ago when the majority of the league owners were in high school together. (I’ve participated for 10.)
I probably would have driven through the hurricane itself to get there since for the first time since I joined my co-owner in the league, we won the whole thing, resulting in an $1,100 payday. We were powered by a well-balanced team and the shrewd first-week waiver-wire pickup of Michael Vick, which I commemorated by wearing his jersey to the draft, to the chagrin of everyone.
There are going to be plenty of tributes to personal favorite Carlos Beltran once he’s no longer a member of the Mets, which looks like it’s going to be any day now, but I figure I’d get a slight head start. I’ve never met Beltran, but I have a few anecdotes to share.
And as Kanye West said, people never get the flowers when they can still smell ‘em.
*****
I’d say that rooting for Mike Vick became a heck of a lot easier when I figured out he had the ability to help me fund a vacation to Cozumel in March.
Here are my usual layman’s thoughts on football. As always, I’ll offer the disclaimer that I’m hardly an authority on the sport.
I went with some friends to a New York City barbecue joint on Sunday to watch the Dolphins-Jets game. When the final seconds ticked off the clock, I high-fived and celebrated with two fellow Dolphins fans, because even though the game was one of the worst in recorded history and our team’s probably not going anywhere, you’d still rather see your team win than lose.
And, frankly, none of us have any love lost for the Jets, though don’t get me wrong, that head coach of theirs is a real peach.
At that moment, some young socialite resplendent in a pink button-down shirt got up with his family to leave the restaurant. As he walked by us, he turned and spat out, “Well, they’re not going to make the playoffs, anyway.†Obviously, he was a scorned Jets fan.
We got a good laugh out of this – I mean, a pink button-down shirt? – but a little later, I started to wonder: When exactly do we lose our ability to forget the big picture and simply love our teams?
As per usual, my weekly thoughts on football. I’ll offer my standard disclaimer that I don’t claim to have any substantive knowledge about the sport itself.
When I was in high school in the early-to-mid 90’s, NFL hierarchy was far more readily defined. You had the Cowboys, the 49ers and Packers in the NFC, and the Bills leading a pack of AFC also-rans that also included the Chiefs and Steelers. It was sort of comforting to always be able to easily differentiate between the haves and the have-nots.
A little later than usual due to Tuesday’s Drake concert, here’s my weekly football thoughts. Since I do picks now, I think a little later in the week is okay. As always, a reminder that I am genuinely far from a football expert, but I do enjoy the social constructs of the game.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that winning in sports is the great cure-all, the ultimate social antidote. It really doesn’t matter what you do, it seems, provided you’re good at your sport. Michael Vick is the epitome of that notion.
For a guy universally panned after having done reprehensible things, he’s sure made a comeback as far as the opinion-shapers in the media are concerned.
My weekly thoughts on football. As always, my disclaimer – I really don’t know a whole lot about the sport itself.
I ran a few miles yesterday on my town’s track, which circles the football field, and the local high school team was practicing during my workout. We coexisted just fine, though I did draw some quizzical stares for the fact I was running barefoot. Frankly, I don’t blame them.
At one point, a high school friend of mine who’s an assistant coach for the team sent one of the kids to the trainer, with the exasperated explanation, “Joey says his head hurts.â€Â
I started writing some weekly thoughts on football last year, so I’m going to give that a shot again, probably sometime on Monday or Tuesday whenever I get up, which is usually around 1 p.m. The Jay-Z/Eminem concert at Yankee Stadium on Monday pushed this back a bit. I’ll also preface this, as usual, by saying I don’t really know an enormous amount about football relative to other sports, but I enjoy looking at it from a social and cultural standpoint.
I’m sure everyone’s sick of this situation with TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz getting heckled by the Jets – that’s the nature of things now, Twitter makes you sick of things the moment you hear about them. And this sort of thing comes up every couple years and eventually just goes away without any real change affected, so I’d imagine this will probably be about the same, though maybe Roger Goodell does something here. I can’t think of what it would be.
But to those saying Sainz “brought it on herself†by wearing revealing outfits, that reeks of jealousy and latent sexism. Whatever the Jets said to her, I’ve much likely heard far worse spewing from people who blame her for being harassed.