From the sidelines
It's football season again, and by that, yes I mean high school, but I also mean the National Football League.
That means from noon until 6 p.m. for 17 Sundays, football is all over the television.
At 7 p.m. Sunday night, a national audience gets to see one more game on ABC, a contest hand-picked before the season that is usually between two good teams.
If that's not enough, Monday Night Football follows Sunday with another marquee match-up.
For the first two weeks of the season our whole family has been at home for most of Sunday, which means either one or both of the TVs in our house have a football game on. It doesn't mean someone is watching either one, but they are on.
This past week football watching was interrupted some by cleaning the house, rearranging the living room and bedroom, and can you believe it — hanging out with the kids.
Of course Mitch is getting old enough now that he can watch with me for a little while and say things like: "Hey, Dad, look at that guy right there. He playing football."
Or, "Hey, Dad, that guy right there fell down. Taaaackle!"
So now I can use football watching as bonding time, not just lazy time.
After two weeks of constant football watching, I told my wife Jamie, "You know it's not always like this, we usually aren't home the whole day Sunday. At least football is on just once a week."
She said that's why it is her favorite sport.
Of course, I left out the fact there is MNF, and my Washington Redskins were playing a crucial division game against the Philadelphia Eagles this past week.
"Well, there's only one game on Monday," I said.
"Yeah, but it's on pretty much the whole time we are home," she said.
Darn, I thought, she always has an answer.
And a good one at that.
It's not that she doesn't like football, or never watches it. She even likes to watch Kansas City Chiefs games with me, although this season she hasn't enjoyed it that much.
But what she, and many other wives and girlfriends don't understand, is why I (men) watch it so often. Or in other words, the whole time it is on. (And yes I know there are plenty of women out there who love to watch football all day long. But face it, there are way more men who do.)
I can't really explain what it is, but men equate fall Sunday afternoons with football.
However, with television options expanding, games are now on Sunday, Monday, and even Saturday and Thursday toward the end of the season.
That means more than half the week, football is on.
While I'm salivating, Jamie is rolling her eyes.
But just to prove I can go without it, I am writing this column during the second quarter of the Redskins-Eagle game, and I haven't even checked the scores on the Internet.
OK, so, just twice.
Thank goodness for TIVO.
