Football (Again!?!)

Look.

You best duck dodge and hide. Crawl under the bed. Put on some protective gear. Make yourself safe.

I am about to talk football.

I am all in this year. Again.

I am all in every year but somehow some years feel different than others. Emotionally.

I cannot explain what it is but the emotions feel stronger at times, the focus feels sharpened, the excitement feels overwhelming.

Been watching NFL Network coverage of training camps. Training camps, for Christ sake.

Of course I'm into pre-season games now.

Cranking up THE PATS website at every opportunity. NFL website too.

Tuned in episode 1 of "Hard Knocks" for the first time in ten years. Covering the Houston Texans pre-season.

I was thrilled.

Show's been around for ten years and I'm just climbing on board but I'm glad I did. It ramps everything up for me.

Inside footage, camp coverage, personal stuff on the players, humor, vulgarity, intensity - what the hell else do you want?

J.J. Watt can flip a 1,000 pound truck tire over fifty times. Can you do that?

I can, but I choose to remain anonymous in my phony baloney state job.

I have explained my passion for football many times within these walls. The combination of brutality and grace in delicate balance. A beautiful pass dropping into talented hands as the receiver twists and controls his body in defiance of gravity. A running back shucking and jiving through and beyond the line of scrimmage. A play saving open field tackle. A kick return for a touchdown that leaves you breathless.  Impossible interceptions (thank you Malcolm Butler).

However it is the intangible stuff that makes football my game. The way it makes me feel. The emotions it stirs up unbidden.

You need these things in your life. They make you feel alive. They keep you alive.

That is the key for me. Football makes me feel alive.

The Allman Brothers always did that for me as well. Still do through my ipod.

Life conspires, with its restrictions and rules and boredom and limitations and burdens, to make you feel dead.

Anything that shakes you out of that mode and makes you realize that you are actually alive is a precious gift.

Football means that much to me.

For whatever reason, 2015 has me jacked to the max. Ready to pounce on football, gobble it up and consume it like the finest of fine meals.

I'm done.

You can come out now.