Draft Day Suit

Every year I get so excited that I think I am going to explode.

FOOTBALL! PRESEASON FOOTBALL!

I buy beer. I make chicken wings. (Fine. I ask Gabe to make wings for me.)

This year I made both children wear Bucs jerseys.

We all sat at the living room table to watch FOOTBALL. It was so exciting.

Ten minutes later we were all bored out of our minds. Preseason football is boring. I don’t know these players. The commentators suck. There are always problems with the satellite feeds.

I know this. My husband tells me this before we watch the game. It is true every single year. Every year, every week of preseason it is the same. The games are torture. There are thousands of yards of penalties. The commercials are all for used car dealerships or local bars – not local bars here, but local bars in Kansas City or Jacksonville.

I think – this year I am going to watch all of the preseason games and I will kick ass at fantasy football!

But I can’t. I couldn’t even sit through the first half of the Bucs/Dolphins game.

On one hand, hooray! Football!

On the other hand, it is sort of like watching a little league flag football game except these guys don’t look as cute in helmets, it isn’t funny when they knock each other down and people really get hurt.

Oh, and it is so depressing when the guys get injured in preseason.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ll be watching the games this week. I just know that I will hate them.

Obsession isn’t supposed to make sense.

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Look at what showed up in my mailbox!  Sigh.  The Sports Illustrated College Football Preview is here and that means the time is near.

What does this mean?  Well, it means that my Buckeyes will be soon be taking the field.  I can almost hear the snap, taste the stadium dogs and feel the earth reverberating. 

I see the blue sky and sense the crisp fall winds blowing the Big Ten (Eleven/Twelve) flags around the top of Ohio Stadium.  I picture cringing at Cameron Heyward when he sacks Iowa’s Ricky Stanzi, a cringe which is followed closely by my screaming, “Yeeeeeeaaaaahh!” and a lot of high-fiving.

There is nothing better than a good sack. 

That’s what she said.

Really, though?  There is nothing better than college football. 

Can my boys win a sixth straight Big Ten (Eleven/Twelve) title?  Probably.  Do they have a good chance at making it to the BCS Championship again?  Possibly.  Will I go ape-shit crazy when they take the field even if they go 4-8?  Likely.  (I originally had those stats at 2-10, but that’s really pushing it.)

I have been one of the Buckeye faithful since I was a child.  I have followed them all over the country, including Arizona for their loss in the 2007 BCS Title Game.  My heart, it hurts.

I have seen them win at Michigan, Penn State and Illinois.  I have watched them lose at Indiana, Pittsburgh, Purdue (where I was assaulted by one of their fans…which may have had something to do with the megaphone on which I was blaring our fight song…I SO deserved it) and an Outback Bowl in Tampa.  Why I travel to bowl games, I’ll never know.

Not true.  I know.  I go because they are my team. 

I go because I am a fan.

I am tradition and history.  I am Woody Hayes, Archie Griffin and The Best Damn Band in the Land.  I am Cris Carter, Block “O” and the Victory Bell.  I am Eddie George, Mirror Lake and “Carmen Ohio.”

I go because I am a Buckeye. 

I am Ohio State.

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Word on the field today is that Brett Favre will not be returning for another year with the Minnesota Vikings.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that Favre sent “This is it” text messages to teammates.

In my most perfect world, these teammates sent text messages to Favre asking “If this is it, please let me know,” but I’m somehow doubting many or any of those guys are Huey Lewis and the News fans.

Yes. I’m digressing and shamefully resorting to changing the subject to mid-list 80s pop songs to make this marginally more interesting for all of us.

I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. YES. Brett Favre is said to be retiring, which would, as retirement is generally understood, make last season his final season in the NFL.

To be clear, Brett Favre please pay attention, this means that you Brett Favre will not play professional football or discuss playing professional football  or change your mind about playing professional football for an extended period of time, possibly forever.

Right? This is what retirement means.

This is what is supposedly happening, today. We’ll see. Favre told the Vikings he wasn’t coming back before camp last year and changed his mind. He bailed on the Packers to go the Jets. He bailed on the Jets for the Vikings, and yeah, last season went pretty well.

It’s just that when it finally happens for real, who’s going to want to throw him a party?

This story is undoubtedly developing, and we’ll keep an eye on it around here so we can be among the first to discuss it when Brett finally drops the hammer. But there is one thing to hang your hat on, one cliche that mostly comes true, and an assurance that Brett will always, in some form or fashion, be with us on Sundays:

Football legends never really retire — they just get microphones and nice sportcoats.

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He's too sexy for his shirt.

More attention-grabbing than Lindsay Lohan, able to defame quarterbacks faster than Ben Roethlisberger can unzip his zipper at a college bar, and able to ruin a team in a season’s time.  It’s a 49′er, it’s an Eagle, it’s a Cowboy, it’s a Bill, it’s a Bengal.  It’s Terrell Owens.

That’s right, the Queen City has acquired the biggest homewrecker the NFL has ever seen.  I could give you a million reasons why this move is crazy, but I only need one.  This is the manchild who once said,   “The only people that really matter are the people that are in my inner circle.”  This means that he is an ass and a liar, because everyone knows that the only person who matters to Terrell is Terrell.

Ocho Crappo and T.O. on the same team?  Truly.  Two reality show wannabes not only sharing the same locker room, but the same field.  Carson Palmer deserves better.  T.O. will gather his pack of enablers and defame Palmer and the offense and take down the Bungals’ hopes of a division title and Super Bowl glory.

With plenty of company in the troublemaker department, including Tank Johnson (assault and unlawful possesion of a weapon), Antonio Bryant (wreckless and drunken driving), Cedric Benson (assault and DUI), at least T.O. may not have to worry about suspensions.  What the hell happened to the team of my childhood?  Boomer, can’t you do something about this?

All I know is that you can’t teach an old dog with diminished skills new tricks and especially to get a new attitude.  Get your popcorn ready, but the drama is in town.  If nothing else, it will be interesting to watch it play out.  You know, kind of like a train wreck.

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