On the eve of the Super Bowl I am exhausted by football. This season has been the first in a long time during which I’ve watched games consistently, week after week. When I was much younger, Monday Night Football was a ritualized treat: my father, my grandfather and I
The week between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl is host to a nonsense event known as the Pro Bowl. Though it’s literally an exhibition game in which the best players from the AFC face off against the best from the NFC, functionally it’s a football photo
Perspective is everything. If you’re just tuning into football now, this year’s conference match-ups look fairly predictable: After all, three of the four teams who squared off last year—the Patriots, the Ravens, and the 49ers—are once again competing for a chance to go to the Super
To call football predictable is to call it brutal. The things you can count on in a football game, in a football season, always seem to reflect the ugliest aspects of the sport: An underdog will be demolished; a player will be hurt; a brief career will end in disappointment
And then there were 12. If nothing else, the beginning of playoff season makes the task of a football fan easier: There are only four games this weekend. Pick a team you don’t hate, and settle in for four weeks that will end in heartbreak. This is the wild
If you’re looking for evidence of that famous American spirit of innovation, avoid football. It’s a stodgy sport governed by a conservative league. Theorists of American football have largely rested on their laurels since the invention of the forward pass over 100 years ago. Has the game evolved
I am a pretty casual football fan, and the tell is that I usually know at least a few things about any given team’s quarterback, and almost nothing about any of the other players. The quarterback is visible; his stats are comprehensible; his job is easily explicable. My sins
There are some weeks when writing about football seems more than usually frivolous, and this is one of them. Always, one feels self-serious analyzing what is, after all, “just a game” using war metaphors and hyperbole like “heartbreaking,” “tragedy,” and “agony.” At the same time, one feels guilty enjoying and
When Joe Montana took his last snap as a 49er, in the final game of the 1992 regular season, I was a quiet five-year-old living in the southernmost reaches of the Bay Area. Montana came on during the second half, after an injury-forced hiatus of nearly two full seasons. He
I was so bored by last Sunday’s objectively thrilling Falcons-Saints game, I fell asleep. Never mind their storied rivalry; never mind the Saints’ surprising upset of the last undefeated team in the NFL. I don’t care about the excellent football I missed by dozing: That’s how powerfully
After Monday night’s humiliating 13-28 loss to the Saints, a 2-5 team that had been giving up, on average, over 30 points a game, the Eagles have a number of pressing concerns. But the challenges ahead for mustachioed head coach Andy Reid and his team pale in comparison to
Change is hard, for football teams no less than people. In fact, the only thing harder than making substantive changes may be convincing others that you’re really, truly different. My therapist says it’s possible. Still, it’s not hard to see why Chicago fans, after years of humiliation
Fan message boards are notoriously alarmist; they’re the place where die-hards go to poke the bruise after a tough loss or question the merits of a shaky win. People who post pride themselves on not being deluded by loyalty or love. The Patriots-specific sections of the Boston Sports fan
It’s hard to get excited about the Houston Texans. This, despite the fact that they’re a 10-year-old expansion team tied for first in the AFC; that they started a third-string quarterback in a playoff game and won; that running back Arian Foster leads the league in touchdowns this
Let’s start with some numbers. Three: the number of games the Vikings won in the 2011 season. Six: the number of games Donovan McNabb, who was picked up by the team after Brett Favre (finally, for real) retired, played that year as starting quarterback. Seventy point one: the quarterback
When asked why I devote a not inconsiderable amount of time and energy to football, I usually give one of two answers. There is the personal: I grew up watching the game. And there is the self-justifying: It’s inherently worth grappling with a sport watched by, on average, 17.
On Monday night, following a spectacularly botched call in front of a television audience of 16 million football fans, Americans, as we so often do in times of crisis, took to the internet. There were cries of outrage from the aggrieved—the Packers’ T. J. Lang tweeted: “Fuck it NFL
Two years ago, I was a recent transplant to New York with little more than a sublet and an unpaid internship to my name. Going home to California for the winter holidays seemed impractical, and anyway, a dear college friend whose family was convening in his grandfather’s Manhattan apartment
The lot of a football fan is a rough one. Fans of professional hockey and basketball have 82 games in the regular season to look forward to. A baseball junkie gets to gorge himself on 162. Tennis lovers have four major tournaments and a slew of minor ones. But the
Like a lot of people this Sunday, I’ll be choosing sides in a contest whose outcome is going to be disappointing. The team I’m rooting for (the 2007 Green Bay Packers) can’t win. This is a replay of one of my least favorite Super Bowls in recent
I don’t mean to sound bitter, but I am. Not just because the Packers aren’t going back to the Super Bowl. Not just because I called both Conference Championships wrong last week. No, my bitterness is more complex, and of longer standing. For as we look past the
It could have been the ghost of Brett Favre. Or Aaron Rodgers’s two-week vacation. Maybe those State Farm “discount double-check” commercials produce bad karma in addition to vague irritation. Or maybe this girl is right, and the Packers would have won if only her friend hadn’t talked her
Football fans learned some important lessons this weekend; first among them: Ben Roethlisberger cannot pull off a fedora. His post-game presser outfit—whether an homage to Swingers or an attempt to bring (consensual) sexy back—only added insult to an already deeply injured Steeler Nation. Of perhaps slightly greater significance,
Today we’re introducing a new column, “End Zone,” in which Miranda Popkey examines the current season and her love of football. Don’t miss her picks for this weekend’s games.
