Football

Once again I will try to explain my love of football.

I was watching Hard Knocks In Season: The Indianapolis Colts last night, and my emotional reaction got me thinking. Once again.

Hard Knocks is a show on HBO that gives fans an insiders view of the football world. I have been watching it for years. Up until now it has only been pre-season stuff. This is the first year they are doing it during the season. Fabulous stuff.

Football is what life should be.

The show features the players and coaches on and off the field. Within the game, and also with friends, and with family - wives and kids. Competitive highs and lows within the game, personal highs and lows off the field.

Football is an intense and dangerous sport. What hit me last night is that these guys are well aware of that and live their lives with intensity.

They live.

I never have a problem when players engage in over-the-top celebrations during a game. After a touchdown or a sack or an interception or a fumble recovery or a punt return. There is as much fear as there is machismo on that field. You see it when a player gets seriously hurt and everybody takes a knee, helmet in hand.

So run down the field screaming like a madman, or jump straight up into the air, or slap your teammate on the helmet, do an insane dance or a choreographed dance with five teammates, jump into the stands. Do whatever your spirit moves you to do to express what you are feeling at that precise moment. Let your feelings fly, baby.

These guys are truly living in the moment. And they do it off the field too.

There was a scene last night where one of the players had his teammates over for a barbecue. They laughed a lot and easily, they spoke with intensity, you could feel the energy in the room. And the respect. The camaraderie. 

The energy level was not quite what I get at my barbecues. This energy was way up there on a different level. One that most of us will never experience.

But it is also there when you see these guys with their wives and kids. In an inverted kind of way. You see very large men being gentle and loving. Doing their little daughters' hair. Playing on the floor. Talking to, kissing their wives.

But I get the sense that even these moments are intense. That football players understand the fragility of their careers and their health, and they are grateful for the sensitivity their families provide.

If you read a lot of poets and a lot of authors you will come across endless references to the fact that most people live their lives as the walking dead. Football players do the exact opposite. They live on the edge, on and off the field.

This is why I love this sport so much. On the field, off the field, everything about it is huge. Everything about it is amplified. Everything about it is intense. Alive, alive, alive.

Watching Hard Knocks last night made me feel alive. THE PATS play tonight and I can't wait to watch the game. It will make me feel alive.

And I respect and envy how football players live their lives.

This what I see and feel when I watch football.

Do you get it?