I love football. I don’t watch every game, but I watch all of my team’s games. OK, and a bunch of others. I follow drafts and off season acquisitions. I watch several college games during the year too, and follow some of the chatter, thinking about the next generation. Football is a year round sport, with, maybe, some time off from the end of the Super Bowl in February to about mid-March when free agency starts. I know, some of you, eyes rolling, “Foolsballs.” That’s OK. I’m sure I’m not intentionally rolling my eyes at one or more of your favorite things (winkie face). I know the pro players are way over-payed, over-hyped, and over celebri-tized. Picture me shrugging. There’s a lot of bad that can be, and is, criticized for sure.

Football has so many measurables and I love that. From the arm length of a DB, to yards after catch; from a team’s number of sacks to how many holding penalties they commit. Maybe not as many measurables as baseball has (Jeeze, those guys love their stats), but enough that you can almost pinpoint one or three instances that cost a team a season, kept them from the playoffs. One or two moments in time that cost a team the ability to reach the playoffs, or found them glory in a championship game. Obviously, there are hundreds of moments in every game, in every season, that any given person can point to as that moment, but there are those few that really stand out.

A defeating one? That interception near the end of Super Bowl 49. Great game, lousy ending. One throw, one pick, one block, one decision, one play call, all in about 4 seconds. An awesome moment, came one game earlier. The game was over. Packers up 19-7, the Hawks only score coming off a fake field goal attempt. They’d been playing poorly all day, turning the ball over and, really, just were outplayed by the Pack. The Hawks did manage to put together a drive and cut the lead to 19-14 with a couple of minutes to spare. Still, if the Packers get the ball back, it’s probably done, right, as they will just run the clock out. Well, they wouldn’t get the ball back quite yet. One of the most improbable of plays in football for success is the onside kick. Perfectly executed, the ball bounced high and their player could not haul it in. The Hawks got the ball back and scored again. Hawks would go on to win the game in OT and advance the Superbowl, albeit with not great results (see above). That moment for that team, those players & coaches, that one player with the botched return…there are a lot of those moments, in that one game, but that’s the play that is etched deeply for me. Watching my team come down with the ball, the house, the neighborhood and everyone in it erupted with excitement and I, sort of, knew it then, they would emerge victorious.

I loved offense when young, the QB’s and the wide receivers. Those guys were the marquee players. The guys that stood out. The ones that did the car and cologne commercials. They were the golden boys. Watching Zorn (or Krieg) pass the ball to Largent was what I wanted to see. Largent made those impossible catches seem so easy. Scoring points was what mattered most. Nowadays, I am all about that defense, like a free safety flying in and knocking loose the ball while rattling the running back’s teeth.

Mostly, way back then, it was all about watching the games with my dad. One of the few things we had in common, football, baseball and burgers from Dick’s Drive-In. Not a long list, but we had what we had. He never got to see the new glory years of the Seahawks, passing away before the Pete Carroll era, the Superbowl win, or the second SB loss. I wonder how he would have felt, after 37 years of watching and waiting. I wish that for him, and for me, to have shared it with him.

Right now, summer 2020, Major League Baseball is trying to play a quick 60 game season. The NBA is also trying to get their season back together. No fans. Pumped in crowd noise. Cardboard cut-out people in the stands. Players getting quarantined, some teams plagued with the, well, plague already (looking at you Marlins). Covid cases surging. Who knows what is going to happen the rest of the year. Please, please, sports gawds, don’t cancel this season! I’m going to need that distraction from this life.

Thank a nurse! Save the Post Office! Hug your kids, and don’t forget to vote! As always, play more games…