The Return of All That Is Good and Holy, NFL Opening Day

Praise the Lord!

For some people it's loved ones, for some people it's their job, for others still it's silly little things like oxygen or food and water, but in my case, the only things required to keep me alive are Jesus, football, and the internet - in that order. Thank God for football.

Okay, so you know that feeling you get when you stick your foot into a pot of boiling hot water and then shave your eyebrows off? Well, the start of the NFL season is nothing like that, but if that didn't get your attention, perhaps assaulting yourself with scolding hot liquid wouldn't be a bad way to perk you up a little.

The start of the NFL season is more like being able to grasp the vastness of the universe, or invent a planet, or cover Scarlett Johansson in butter cream sauce, you know, something mind numbingly incredible and dripping in unparalleled awesomeness. Waking up and realizing it's the first Thursday in September, knowing that the NFL season starts today, it's like being born. Well, it's almost like being born, only, you know, you aren't naked, and no one is slapping you, and people aren't wearing masks, and assuming you're in the majority of the male population you're already circumcised. Okay, you know what? The start of NFL is not like being born. Let me try again.

The start of the NFL season is like birthday cake. Yeah, because when you're little you look forward to birthday cake, and... no, that's not it either.

The start of the NFL season is like sex, only, there's usually not that many people involved, or spectators, unless you're into that. No, that can't be it either.

The start of the NFL season is like the way old people smell like menthol, basically.

The start of the NFL season is like stripping butt naked, covering yourself in jello, and running outside screaming, "I love Elmo!" Okay, no it's not, but endzone dances would be a lot more interesting if Bill Cosby and Sesame Street were involved.

The start of the NFL season is like teaching your cat to do back flips on a trampoline while singing the Monday Night Football song, or something like that.

Truth be told, pinning down exactly what the NFL season is like is not an easy task, damn near impossible in fact. I guess it's one of those things that can just never be done, like traveling at the speed of light, or splitting an atom, or getting Fox News to tell the truth. You know, stuff like that. The important thing really isn't even understanding it, so much as just enjoying it.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have football! Glorious, pad crunching, helmet crushing, screen pass, zone blitz football. Do you know what it's like without football? I don't even have to ramble off a list of inane and ridiculous similes to make my point. All I have to say is that life without football leaves us with nothing more than the most wretched, life sucking, force of boredom in the entire universe - baseball.

Seriously, baseball is the sports equivalent of supergluing yourself to a wall, blindfolded, and counting to a zillion. If you consider that fun, then go back up to the top of this article and read the thing about the boiling water - now go do it to yourself. You sicko.

To say baseball is America's pastime is ridiculous. Everyone knows America's pastime is wasting countless hours messing around on the internet, football is just the only sport that can come close to that.

While I'm certainly the first one to admit football has a simplistic nature (throw/carry football to certain area and beat the crap out of the other team when they try to do that), there many levels of intricate detail and strategy to the great gridiron game. Baseball? You hit a ball with a stick in the most crude way possible (nothing on the level of accuracy that golf or tennis takes).

And somehow baseball's intricacies all involve waves of meaningless statistics. If I wanted to crunch numbers for a hobby I wouldn't a sports fan. And no fantasy football is not 'crunching numbers'. Fantasy football has been, and always will be superior to fantasy baseball. Period.

How anyone could think anything about baseball even approaches the slightest resemblance to anything entertaining is beyond me. Baseball is the opposite of entertaining in the same way that strapping a lit cherry bomb to your testicles is the opposite of smart. I'd rather stick my hand down a garbage disposal filled with shards of glass and poisonous jellyfish than be forced to watch an entire baseball game. Needless, I couldn't be happier I finally have a real sport to watch now.

Among other things, like tailgate parties and cheerleaders, with the start of the NFL season comes the wonders of fantasy football. Although I'm not participating in this season's Newsvine leagues (because apparently no one was kind of enough to remind me or anything), I'll be rocking out the usual fantasy campaign on my keeper league, the Elite Fantasy League. Now if only Yahoo could find a way to pull itself from the infinite depths of sucking, fantasy football would be perfect.

Because really, is there anything more fun than spending your Sunday afternoons yelling at the TV and your computer screen? If anything it's empowering. Delusional as it may be, somehow when you click the draft button some belief of omnipotence comes over you and you think you, the dude covered in cheetos and soda stains on his couch, can somehow become vocally loud enough for Terrell Owens to hear you in Dallas when you're screaming, "Shut your mouth and catch the damn football!" Hey, I didn't say it was logical, or that it wasn't a headache, I just said it was fun, like getting drunk and/or celebrating New Year's Eve.

And for the record, the actual match up on opening day doesn't matter - it's football, that's all that counts. However, we do indeed have a sweet match up tonight. Somehow, don't ask me how, John Madden got his hands on a crystal ball, accurately predicted this year's Superbowl, and got NBC and the NFL to schedule it for opening day on the aforementioned network. Lucky peacock bastards. I wish the game was on ESPN, but whatever, this day is too perfect to complain.

Reggie Bush in prime time. If that alone isn't enough for you to get your ass in front of a TV at 8:30 PM eastern, you have no soul, and the world hates you - die. And on top of that, Drew Brees will throw for a gazillion yards tonight, seriously. Peyton Manning, the timeless Marvin Harrison, and Reggie Wayne all take the field to start the defense of their title. Points will be scored, lots of points. Highlight worthy plays will be made likely from the first drive onward, you simply couldn't ask for a better game, on a better day, in a better sport. Hallelujah.

And God said, let there be football.

Amen.

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