Feb 11 2008
Reminder: It’s Always Football Season Somewhere
So the Pro Bowl, the NFL all-star game that nobody takes seriously — except Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson, apparently — came and went yesterday without much fanfare. I watched all of 5 minutes of this exceedingly irrelevant little game, then went and did something more interesting.
Of course, the end of the NFL season means we can look forward to a nice long offseason full of complicated mathematics involving the salary cap and franchise tags, as teams rejigger their lineups for the 2008 season. During this time, no actual NFL football will be played. Some of my fellow football bloggers are not pleased by this.
No, football, nnnnnooooooo! Just stay a little longer. Please? Cmon, what’s the rush? You can have Emmitt say something incoherent. I don’t care!
Me? I’m not quite that upset that the NFL season is over. Why? Because while the KSK Gay Mafia(TM) sees a world where there’s no football until September and only the half-sized Arena League to tide them over, I see a world where there’s still a ton of football to watch.
Now I suspect it’s too much to ask the KSK boys to get into the Premier League like I have. Soccer is still too different a world from the NFL, and the average American sports fan can’t see (or chooses to ignore) their common heritage. However, soccer’s not the only other form of football out there. So here are a few options that some of you NFL fans might consider to pass the time until the NFL returns:
1.) Rugby Union. It’s kind of like the NFL, except nobody wears padding, blocking and forward passing is verboten, and play doesn’t stop when someone gets tackled. The southern hemisphere’s top rugby competition, the Super 14, starts this weekend, and they’re adopting some new rules to make the game more appealing to fans. (More on those later in the week.) If you like some hard-hitting football action, rugby could help you pass the time until the gridiron game returns.
2.) Rugby League. Of course, union isn’t the only rugby out there. Russell Crowe showed America that rugby league can be fun to watch, too. SuperLeague XIII has already begin in Europe, and the 2008 NRL season begins in Australia on March 15.
3.) Aussie Rules. The Australian Football League preseason is already under way, and with the game angling to go global, now’s the perfect time to get on the bandwagon. Aussie Rules is fast, physical, and highly entertaining to watch. Plus, if you live out on the west coast of America, it’ll be easy to find an Irish pub somewhere that carries Setanta Sports and shows AFL matches at reasonable hours.
So don’t fret about the NFL entering it’s silly season. It’ll be back soon enough. In the meantime, there’s still plenty of football to watch out there, if you know where to look. It’s all just a matter of perspective.
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I would say go with rugby league. It is a fast pace game close enough to American football that the guys of KSK can get their gridiron fix. Especially during State of Origin time.
But basically, you can’t go wrong with any of the three sports. They are all fun to watch and wished they received more publicity in the States.