Ah, Football

Apparently Thursday is the day to start NFL preseason games. I’m at a bar writing unit tests for my new project, and I have these observations:

1) People care an awful lot about the outcomes of games in which guys on your team who will be cut before the season starts play against guys on the other team who will be cut before the season starts.

2) The perfect football moment. A guy made a good catch. To celebrate he spun the ball on the ground like a top. The refs then took a full minute to penalize him for delay of game.

3) I’ve mentioned before that were I coach, I’d not be playing to win at all; rather I’d be digging deep holes for the team to see how my players respond. It would be a giant gut-check the whole night, an undying series of do-or-die moments. It’s only fair to the guys on the bubble to have a chance to show who they really are when things get tough. That’s what preseason is for, right?

But football is on the TV’s here and that means summer is coming to an end. To be honest, I welcome the cooler weather, but it’s this time every year when I consider that I will only know a finite number of football seasons on this lovely-if-frustrating orb. The players are younger, the announcers are older, and another summer is coming to a close. I love summer; my emotions have not forgotten the magic of summer vacation.

In my heart, I’m still that kid; in my soul, I have gathered a lot of wisdom over the years. In my knee, there is a constant reminder that things are changing and will not change back.

And so football arrives again, my knee saying “see? I told you so.” Time does what time does. And the referees delay the game to penalize players for delaying the game.

2