A Foot to the BALLS

Prior to this weekend, I was pretty sure the Bears were the worst team in football. (Well, the worst team in pro football. Charlie Weis has quite a talent-less collection of losers at Notre Dame this year.) Then the Bears played Oakland this weekend -- one of the sloppiest sporting events I've ever seen -- and I thought for about 26 hours that the Raiders were the worst team I've ever seen. But now I'm sitting here watching the completely average Seahawks totally dismantle the 49ers -- who are on their way to their 7th straight loss -- which leads me to believe that San Francisco is the worst team in the league. Then I realized that pretty much every team blows, except for the Patriots and the Colts, which means the AFL championship will be the real title game for the fifth year in a row. This is supposed to be entertaining.

Then they interviewed some NASCAR driver at the half, and I realized that there's a really good reason why NASCAR has managed to wrestle America's attention away from the NFL. Both rely on an insane amount of undue hype, flashy and obnoxious colors, mind-numbing over-commercialization, and really bad booth commentators, wrapped around competitions that rely on inane complexities and meaningless subtleties understood by none but the participants. But the real key to the NASCAR success is: You can lay around like a vegetable and watch football for only 20 weeks a year (counting the playoffs), while one NASCAR season seems to run right into the next one (thereby emulating the pro tennis and golf tours).

Then I realized something even more profound: No matter what anyone says, football is stupid and boring.

So I switched over to watch my new favorite show: The Dog Whisperer. Cesar Milian, you are a marvel...



"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare outside and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby HOF '42