I wanted to find a really good picture. One that truly captured the unyielding and unreasonable fanaticism of a football fan. This one seems to work. The jack-o-lanterns are a particularly nice addition. One might assume that this Minnesota Vikings fan was attending a game on or near Halloween when this photo was taken, but who knows? Might have been the opener.It's here, guys. Finally. College football began over the weekend, and the NFL's regular season kicks off this week. Not spring games. Not preseason games. Real games. Games that mean something. For the rest of the year there will be football from Thursday to Monday, almost every week. The other three days a week, many of us will be busy tweaking our Fantasy Football rosters. It's the most wonderful time of the year.
I am aware that there are people who don't enjoy football. Foreigners, for example, who have lived lives deprived of the sport. Girls, who've been conditioned (brainwashed) to buy into the whole "it's a guy thing," notion. Those I can understand. I accept that there are men who don't like football too. I accept it and I don't think it makes them bad people. But I don't understand it.
Football taps into mankind's primitive, warrior instinct. It allows both combatant and spectator to unleash aggression that we must otherwise suppress. I'm fully convinced that, without football, we'd have more road rage and office massacres. When one expends a lot of energy hating that other team and the ref who called that horrible play, there isn't much room left for other petty grievances. Priorities.
But more than that, football--and other things like it--allow people a chance to bond with others of their own ilk. Strangers sharing an allegiance. And possibly a tube of face paint. It is a glorious spectacle. Thank God it's here again.
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