bokeen’s ban on bad football

Thanksgiving is a time to express gratitude for all that we are blessed with as Americans, though I feel it is the perfect opportunity to complain about things that anger me. 

In many ways, Thanksgiving is the consummate American holiday, steeped in rich tradition.  The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in the early 1600s.  Legend has it that the Pilgrims and American Indians set aside their differences and shared a late autumn feast.  The Injuns brought turkey.  The Pilgrims brought corn.  The Injuns called the corn “maize.”  Everyone laughed, appreciating the humor of the cultural shock, much like the movie Coming to America.  All was warm and fuzzy.

In subsequent years, the Pilgrims would plunder the Injuns’ land, infect them with exotic European diseases, rape their women, relocate them onto tiny reservations and destroy the pristine landscape of their home.  Today, the land the Injuns once called home has been replaced by sprawling mini-malls anchored with Walmart and Starbucks locations.  The few Injuns remaining were compensated with licenses to run casinos.  As a white man, I realize that this is the price of progress.

The traditions of Thanksgiving and the oppression of brown people in America continue on to this day.  Two particular traditions have become emblematic of modern Thanksgiving: turkey and football.

Turkey is the centerpiece of a proper Thanksgiving dinner.  Some will eschew turkey in favor of ham.  This is clearly wrong and roundly Un-American.  Ham proponents should be treated with a great deal of caution, as they are likely Communist sympathizers or members of Al Qaeda.

The second pillar of Thanksgiving is football.  For over a century, professional football games have been routinely played on the holiday.  The National Football League continued the tradition upon its inception in 1920.  Eventually, the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys became the de facto hosts of the holiday games.  In 2006, the NFL added a third game to the Thanksgiving schedule involving two other teams.

The NFL’s lineup of “Thanksgiving Classic” games has not been particularly entertaining in recent years, and this year’s games were particularly abhorrent. 

::

In the first game of the day, the Lions hosted the Green Bay Packers.  I was still at home during the first quarter, but I did not watch the game, as I was too busy scraping the crust out of my eyes and mainlining caffeine in hopes of recovering from my annual, debilitating Thanksgiving hangover. 

On my way to my aunt’s house, I tuned into the radio broadcast of the game. 

(There are two different ways to pronounce the word “aunt.”  Most pronounce the word “ant,” like the name of the insect.  Others acknowledge the presence of the letter “u” by pronouncing it with a “w” sound.  The latter, “awnt” pronunciation is favored by doucebags and people with a shit mess of money.  While reading this, please pronounce the work in the second manner, as I am a douchebag.)

The trip to my aunt’s suburban home took nearly an hour, as I heard most of the second and third quarter of the game.  I expected very little entertainment value from the game, as the Lions are world-renowned for their football ineptitude.  Remarkably, the game actually sounded pathetic.  As I drove, the Packers scored 20 unanswered points to secure a 27-7 lead.

The announcers struggled mightily to paint a positive picture of a Lions team that is an absolute abomination on the football field.  Their efforts were futile and came across as apologetic. 

The color commentator extolled the virtues of rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford, who threw four interceptions in the game.  He later remarked that the Lions were an “improving” team.  The comment was steeped in irony, considering that the team lost all 16 of its games in 2008.  The team has no option but to improve, as the only way the team could regress further would be to fold the franchise. 

I arrived in time to witness the conclusion of the televised drubbing of the Lions.  The Packers won 34-12, a margin of more than three touchdowns. 

The second game featured the Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders, a matchup that was no more attractive that the first.  By the second quarter, Raiders defense seemed helpless as the Cowboys moved the ball with impunity.  In the true spirit of the holiday, we were all thankful when my aunt announced dinner was ready, granting us temporary reprieve from the game, which the Cowboys led 10-0. 

We gleefully gorged ourselves on a meal of turkey, polish sausage, stuffing and a seemingly endless selection of sides before returning to the game. 

(While I am a staunch proponent of turkey, polish sausage is one of my favorite foods.  Inexplicably, my aunt insists on cooking the sausage Polack style for Thanksgiving.  This involves placing the sausage into a big vat of boiling sauerkraut, contaminating the sausage with vinegar-based swill.  I find sauerkraut to be one of the most degusting vomit-like foods on the planet.  To me, it is the equivalent of marinating a porterhouse steak in rat bile.)

By the time dinner was over, Dallas had jumped to a 17-0 lead.  In the third quarter, the Cowboys were overcoming with the giving spirit of the holiday season.  The defense charitably relented for one series, allowing the Raiders to score a touchdown.

Despite fielding being led by the legendary Bruce Gradkowski, the finest Polish-American quarterback since Ron Jaworski, the Raiders fell to the Cowboys, 24-7. 

I left for home after the conclusion of the second game.  I was unable to watch the third game, which was broadcast on the NFL Network, a channel which is available in less than half of American households.  Regardless, I had no further interest in football after witnessing the first two dismal games.

In the nightcap, the Denver Broncos beat the New York Giants by 20 points.  All three of the “Thanksgiving Classic” games were decided by margins of three scores. 

::

The NFL’s lineup of Thanksgiving Day games was so incredibly pathetic that I am tempted to travel to league commissioner Roger Goodell’s offices in New York and punch him directly in the scrotum.

The presence of the Detroit Lions in the “Thanksgiving Classic” is absolutely inexcusable.  Granted, Detroit teams have a strong history of playing on Thanksgiving, but common sense should win over tradition in this case.  The true Lions tradition is one of ineptitude.  They posted the first-ever 0-16 record in 2008.  They haven’t had a winning record since 2000.  They have not been in the playoffs in a decade.  They have never appeared in a Super Bowl.  They last won a title in 1957, way back when your grandmother was still fuckable. 

The NFL should see Thanksgiving as an incredible opportunity to win over new fans.  It is a day when people who don’t normally watch football may be inadvertently parked in front of a television with family members.  Granted, football has supplanted baseball as the country’s true pastime, and literally billions of Americans tune in every Sunday.  However, showcasing a predictably lopsided matchup involving the Lions does very little to win over the last few holdouts which include your aforementioned grandmother and your gay cousin Kenny. 

The decision to slate the Raiders to take on the Cowboys was also inexplicable.  Like the Lions, the Raiders were one of the NFL’s bottom-feeders last season, finishing with only five wins.  The Raiders have struggled considerably for seven consecutive seasons, never finishing with more than five wins.  Over the same course of time, the Cowboys have won fewer than nine games only once and have become a perennial contender, appearing in the playoffs three times.  The holiday blowout was completely predictable. 

Part of the reason that the Raiders were slated to face the Cowboys was an archaic, informal rule that dictates that one AFC team has to be involved in the holiday festivities in either Detroit or Dallas.  Yet the Cowboys have three AFC teams on their schedule this year other than the Raiders: the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers.  The Broncos and the Chargers would have provided for a more competitive matchup – the Broncos even beat the Cowboys last month.  Even a matchup between the Cowboys and the woeful Chiefs may have been better, as the Chiefs took the Cowboys into overtime in week five.

I cannot fault the NFL for scheduling the third matchup between the Giants and the Broncos.  After all, it was an epic matchup between quarterbacks Eli Manning and future Hall-of-Famer Kyle Orton.  In the absence of his neck beard and the ability to summon its mythical powers, I expected that Orton and the Bronocs would fall flat against the Giants, but they ultimately prevailed. 

I do take issue with the fact that the NFL scheduled the game on the elusive NFL network, a channel only available to approximately 50 million households.  The decision prevented more than half the country from watching the most intriguing matchup of the evening. 

Please follow my chain of logic:
Thanksgiving = American
Football = American
American = Freedom
Thus, Thanksgiving + Football > Freedom

The NFL elected to show the Giants-Broncos matchup on a station that is unavailable to millions of Comcast customers, as well as those who chose to use an old-fashioned antenna to receive television reception.  This presents an incredible conflict, since football equals American and American equals freedom.  In other words, the NFL clearly hates freedom.  If you ever get an envelope in the mail with a return address from the NFL’s offices in New York, do not open it, as it probably contains Anthrax. 

In addition, I believe that the NFL funds Hamas and the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  While I have no evidence to support my theory, please copy and paste my theory into an email to all of your contacts, as I would love to start an Interwebs “meme.” 

::

Again, I feel that Thanksgiving games are an excellent way for the league to increase its fan base, yet the NFL is willing to squander such an opportunity.  I sense blatant overconfidence in the league’s decision to schedule two games that were clearly terrible matchups, along with another game on a network unavailable to the majority of Americans.

The cocksure NFL sent a clear message to fans on Thanksgiving: “We supplanted baseball as the nation’s premiere sport, and you will eat up whatever garbage we give to you on Thanksgiving.  Watch the games or take in the other bullshit that the other networks are presenting.  We are sure you can find some reruns of Everyone Loves Raymond or other deplorable garbage on the picture box.”

As a basketball fan, I appreciate the approach that the NBA takes with its Christmas Day games.  It NBA uses December 25 as a platform to launch the league into national attention, airing its first nationally televised games in hopes of capturing the interest of fans who will seek a new outlet for their attention after the Super Bowl in early February.

When Michael Jordan was still playing, he was a fixture of Christmas Day games.  When I was a teenager, the annual Bulls-Knicks matchup was far more important than stupid Jesus and his stupid fucking birthday.

Today, the NBA schedules its premier players on Christmas, as a showcase of the talent the league has to offer.  Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and whatever team Shaquille O’Neal’s bulbous, rotting corpse happens to be playing for are consistently a part of the December 25 games. 

The NFL cannot be bothered with such details.  They appreciate that you continue to watch the bullshit they put on your TV screen, regardless of the quality of play.

::

During the second half of the Cowboy-Raiders game, I briefly fell asleep. While I am not certain, I believe that my short slumber was interrupted by roar of the sounds of the fans at Cowboy Stadium as the home team butt-raped the Raiders, or the sound of my uncle’s sauerkraut-induced flatulence. 

As I awoke and brushed the crust from my eyes, I was overcome with a familiar feeling. 

“Why the fuck am I watching this?” I asked myself.

Losing interest in an NFL game is a disconcerting sensation.  After all, this is football, a game designed to be exciting.  As unnaturally overgrown athletes puffed full of HGH streaked across the screen in a primitive attempt to injure one another, I was napping and dreaming about playing catch with my dog.   

Is something wrong with me for not enjoying football?  Am I as Un-American as the families who eat ham on Thanksgiving, or as masculine as the dude with the puffy sleeves from America’s Next Top Model?

I reasoned that there is nothing wrong with me.  While football is an incredibly entertaining spectacle, bad football is no more exciting that watching my toenails grow.  And, as a fan of the Chicago Bears, I am well acquainted with bad football. 

::

I have been following the Bears religiously for more than half of my life.  This season marks the first time that I have genuinely lost interest in the team, routinely dozing off during games and asking, “Why the fuck am I watching this?” as I awake.

The Bears have been an absolutely pathetic excuse for a professional football team this season.  Currently, their record stands at 4-7, which does not accurately reflect how incredibly inept the team is.

Since their games normally begin at noon on Sundays, I typically settle into a routine of waking up, hung over, moments before the game.  This year, my routine has been modified slightly.  I usually wake up about half an hour after the game has began, only to discover that the Bears are already down by two touchdowns or more.  After smoking a few cigarettes, I return to the bedroom to update boqueen.

“How are the Bears doing,” she will ask, wiping the crust from her eyes.

“They are down 21-3, so don’t bother getting out of bed,” I respond. 

Inevitably, I sit through three hours of excruciating football.  By the time it is over, I am tragically disappointed and feel that I have wasted my time. 

It would be easy to call me a fair-weather fan.  However, this is not the case.  I’ve loyally followed the team through feast, famine and worse. 

I tuned in every Sunday when Mike Tomczak and Tom Waddle offered pedestrian performances, but were still the team’s most potent offensive force.  I tuned in every Sunday when Erik Kramer, a fragile and aging quarterback, led the offense, despite suffering countless concussions, including one for straining too hard while moving his bowels.  I tuned in every Sunday when a decaying corpse named Kordell Stewart lined up behind center.  I tuned in every Sunday when the comical quarterback carousel of Chad Hutchinson, Jonathan Quinn and Craig Krenzel took the field. 

I am done.

My complete disdain for the Bears is due to heightened expectations.  For the first time ever, the offense is led by a capable quarterback, former Pro Bowler Jay Cutler.  Yet the Bears have been unable to deliver on these expectations, and Cutler has been unable to outperform the carnival of ass-clowns he succeeded. 

After the Bears were undressed by NFL darling Brett Farve on Sunday, I realized that watching Bears games is the most effective way to ruin my Sunday.  For the rest of the season, I am boycotting my favorite team.  I refuse to watch any more games, or even highlight packages on the evening news. 

The NFL’s wretched “Thanksgiving Classic” lineup of games taught me that watching crappy football games is a complete waste of my time.

And I am thankful for that.    

::

Related posts:
Farewell, Rex Grossman. Best wishes.
I hope the Bulls miss the playoffs
Cubs fans are deranged masochists
Retraction: Actually, I am glad that the Bulls made the playoffs.
Steroids seem like a pretty good idea

respond/react

name (required)

email address (required; will not be published)

website