Football is a Harsh Mistress

Today I have a legitimate football hangover.

As the NFL season wears on, I feel emotionally not unlike an actual player might physically. The weekly grind of my obsession with football slowly wears on my psyche like successive 30-carry games might on the knees of some aging running back. All the preseason research, all the monitoring of my Giants, all the study of the spreads and the weekly picks, all the management toil of my multiple fantasy teams - it adds up. And by season's end, though I'm undoubtedly sad to see football go, I, like the players, also need the rest. Being in Germany, with its "off" times for viewing, only compounds the problem.

Yesterday was a good reminder of that. Not only are my Giants falling into their pattern of recent late season collapses, but I'm embroiled in FOUR fantasy leagues in which playoff races are starting to form, and stress is starting to mount over whom to play and whom to sit. Pouring over weekly injury reports trying to glean who might play, start, and shine can be exhausting work. Coaching one team effectively is difficult enough. Coaching four with at least modest intensity? Very taxing.

Watching the games should be the easy part, but even during those there's the constant fretting about the down-to-down and general condition of my Giants (currently: not good) and the constant monitoring of the Stat-Tracker to make sure that my fantasy teams are putting up adequate numbers or that my opponents' teams are not. Rare is the game that I can simply sit back, relax, and enjoy as an "uninvolved" football fan.

I was on call over the weekend, so I felt mildly vindicated in staying up all night (in bed at 6 am) to watch the Patriots play the Eagles. Just "in case" the ER called I was all ready to go. They did NOT call, but I stayed up nevertheless, mostly because I wanted Tom Brady to do poorly. The reasons for this wish are numerous, but chief among them is that I am/was playing against him in one of my key fantasy games.

On a similar note I had a unique-if-not-pleasant football experience last night - that of rooting FOR the Eagles, the team that, along with the Cowboys, I most loathe and despise in this world. It was an odd, unsettling, and even nauseating sort of feeling, probably not unlike the one stranded mountain plane crash survivors experience when realizing they must turn to cannibalism to survive. True, it is no joy to eat fetid human flesh, but it DOES beat starvation.

And the equivalent of starvation here is the Patriots going undefeated and winning the Super Bowl. Like most people, I'm sick of them. I'm sick of their smug Boston scene, their cock-sure attitude, their Emperor Palpatine coach - the whole thing. They need to lose, even if it takes the Eagles to beat them.

The Eagles did NOT beat them, however, and thus the anxiety of this potential undefeated season goes on. The Giants play the Pats in week 17, and the thought of meek and possibly free-falling Eli Manning being the only thing standing between the Pats and an undefeated season is a bitter pill to swallow. The Steelers have the best shot at them I think, and we shall see what comes of that game in two weeks. In the end it might be better for them to go undefeated in the regular season and then NOT win the Super Bowl. This is perhaps the most soul-crushing and spite-filled way to go on the rooting scale but it's also too risky and probably asking too much - I'd rather have them be beaten now and then again in the post-season and be done with it.

That said, the ultimate goal must be them losing at some point in the post-season, preferably in their first playoff game. Then we might finally wipe the dark smirk off of Belichick's face and end chatter of this "best team ever" nonsense. (Besides, everyone knows the 1986 and 1990 Giants were both far superior, but I digress...)

In other news, the tree is up and as always is a giant success. Full photo-doc coming nearer to Christmas time itself - we'll call it my Christmas present to this blog.

Right now I have to go wash the taste of human flesh out of my mouth, ice my psyche, and prepare for another week of football.