Seriously, it’s more fun if you’re listening to this while watching that video.

(Spotted on The Sporting Blog.)

I suggested that DeShaun Foster was better off taking a knee after getting that first down, rather that running into the end zone, because then the Saints never would have gotten the ball, and the Panthers could have run out the clock with a 4-point lead. As you might expect, the FanHouse commenters thought mockery was the proper response to that idea, in part because the Panthers still won the game.

Three years later, Maurice Jones-Drew takes a knee at the 1-yard line for the Jacksonville Jaguars, setting up a game winning 21-yard field goal and preventing the New York Jets from getting the ball back. It was a riskier move, because the Jags were trailing by a point with 1:48 left, but Jones-Drew seems to be attracting universal praise for making a smart strategic play.

The point here is that you don’t give your opponent the opportunity to score if you don’t have to. This is why Bill Belichick really went for it on 4th down on his own 28-yard line against the Colts. Converting meant Peyton Manning would not get the ball, and the Pats could run out the clock. Punting meant Manning was all but guaranteed to get the ball and engineer a game-winning drive. Plus, Belichick put his faith in his best player — Tom Brady — to get the job done.

We shouldn’t criticize Belichick for choosing to go for it. We should, however, get on his case about the play he chose to call. Honestly, the coaches couldn’t have picked something better than that?

Here are some other interesting football stories you might have missed:

• UNC serves up its most fortunate illegal forward pass since 1895. [WRAL FANKind]
• Dan Marino inadvertently shares his true feelings about the Wildcat formation. [Awful Announcing]
• Chicago Bears fans are sore losers, even when they win. [FanHouse]
• Allen Iverson as a Philadelphia… Eagle? Right. [The Sporting Blog]
• Japan calls on South Africa to ban the vuvuzela. Yeah, good luck with that, fellas. [The Guardian]
• Katy Perry launches new line of West Ham United lingerie. Now we know what Michelle Obama is getting for Christmas. [The Guardian]
• Belated congratulations to the Raleigh Venom, champions of Division II USA Women’s Rugby. [WRAL FANKind]

In August of 2004, I launched this humble little football blog with no other purpose than to share my thoughts on “our modern-day gladiators” in the National Football League. The four and a half years since then have been quite an adventure, but alas, all adventures must end, and I have decided it’s time to bring this blog to a close.

It’s been an illuminating 54 months, to be sure. Three years ago, I was telling the world that soccer was evil. Now look at me. I’ve spent two years plumbing the depths of football’s origins, and I’ve come away with an appreciation for pretty much every type of football there is. My mind is free, and I can stand up and cheer for the beautiful game just as much as I can for America’s game — or Australia’s game, for that matter.

Your average football fan is not capable of this. Most people still argue over what constitutes “real football.” If you take nothing else from this blog, however, take this — there’s no one football code that can call itself “real football.” All these football games are simply the games that we have chosen to play, and ultimately, they all come from the same tradition — the idea of two teams kicking and/or running with a ball, trying to reach a goal. The fact that we can’t always agree on how we should play football simply shows how diverse we are as a species.

Because football games are humanity’s games, and they crystallize for us all the joy, all the sorrow, all the qualities and all the flaws that come with being human. They touch something deep within our psyches, and when they do, we can’t help but stand up and cheer.

Naturally, I stood up and cheered for my Steelers as they won Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday. For whatever reason, though, I haven’t really feel much like writing about the NFL lately. Perhaps that will change in the future. After all, the great thing about 21st century media is that you can create a new blog for almost no money — and I could easily see myself doing that in the future.

In the meantime, though, I’ll be contributing two articles a week to EPL Talk for at least the remainder of this Premier League season, and I will continue to make infrequent stops at World Soccer Daily along the way. Plus, you can check out stuff I find interesting — football-related and otherwise — at Permanent4.com, which currently links to my Google Reader shared items page. I’m also going to leave this blog open as an archive for at least the rest of this year, as I’ve written a lot of stuff here that I don’t want to vanish overnight.

So until we meet again out here on these here internets, this is your pal Dave signing off. Enjoy your football, everyone.

My discovery? Despite the fact that 90% of my blogging output at the time ended up on FanHouse, this site was still far more interesting a year ago than it is now. I really need to do something about that…

HDTV: Better Than Being There?
A survey reveals that sports fans in America would rather watch the game on a big screen in their living room than actually go to the stadium. That’s probably because that giant HDTV costs less in the long run than season tickets, parking, and stadium beer.

Mercury Morris, Professional Jackass
This one drew a lot of comments. Oddly enough, Morris is not badmouthing the 10-0 Tennessee Titans this year like he did the Patriots last year. Perhaps old division rivalries just don’t die.

Priest Holmes Got His One More Game
Neither do some NFL careers.

The UEFA Champions League Needs a New Format
Here I continued to overemphasize the parallels between American college basketball and European Association football. Some folks seem eager to take it a step further with college football in America. (Good luck with that, Mr. President.)

Can Domestic Cups Be Rescued From Irrelevance?
I suspect Manchester United fans are not at all upset that they haven’t won an FA Cup in the last two years. Just a hunch.

Ben Cousins Gets Pacmanned
Of course, one year later, he’s baaaaaaaaaaack.

Rugby Needs More Snow
Just a funny little video about rugby and snow, really. For another funny video about the NFL and ties, check out this video, courtesy of The World of Isaac:

Is that baseball game tied after 9 innings? Play another inning. Is that basketball game tied at the end of regulation? Play another five minutes. Still not decided? Keep playing until we have a winner. Even hockey games, which used to end in draws all the time, now have overtime and shootouts in the regular season. We demand winners in this country, dammit.

It’s the same with football. Yesterday, when the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals got to the end of the sudden death overtime period and it was still tied at 13-13 — the first tie game in the NFL in 6 years — everyone dragged out the old kissing-your-sister analogy. Draws are that unsatisfying to the American sports psyche. Hell, Donovan McNabb didn’t even think it was possible for an NFL game to end in a tie.

A question for all you Premier League fans out there — were you so unsatisfied by the outcome of the Hull City v. Manchester City match yesterday? Yes, it ended in a 2-2 draw, and at times, it was an instructional video on how not to play defense, but ultimately, it was a fine result. Both teams got a point, and perhaps that point will decide whether Hull and Man City maintain their league status at the end of the season.

Of course, league status is not a concern in the NFL. The Cincinnati Bengals aren’t going to get relegated to a lower league, much as some of us would love to see it happen. The idea that every game must have a winner, though, is unique here. Rugby matches end in draws. We usually get a draw or two in the AFL every year. Do they keep playing until someone wins? No, they accept the outcome and move on with their lives. If it were a playoff game or a cup tie, then sure, you have to play until there’s a winner. A regular season game? Nah, screw it. We’ll just split the points and move on.

Ah, but there are no points on offer in American football. There are only wins and losses. Perhaps that’s why the NCAA abolished ties and introduced its overtime system in 1996. That system eliminates all possibility of a tie. The NFL sudden-death OT system? Close, but not quite.

Perhaps if the NFL created a points system like the AFL has — 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw — we wouldn’t worry about whether OT is necessary in a regular season game. We’ll just look at the points and determine who goes to the playoffs from that, and if certain teams have the same number of points, we’ll give them a extra point for a tiebreaker and move on.

This sort of system comes with a side benefit — the ability to dock teams points if they break the rules. What’s that? More than three of your players have been popped for using performance-enhancing drugs? WHAM! 5-point deduction. Oh, what’s this? You’ve been illegally videotaping your opponents for the last 5 years? WHAM! 25-point deduction. Now you have to go 16-0 just to get a Wild Card spot. Suddenly, the Hammer of Goodell doesn’t seem quite so Nerf-like, is it?

Will the NFL ever go in this direction? Don’t hold your breath. If anything, that Bengals-Eagles game will be an excuse for the NFL to reconsider the college overtime policy and ensure that there will never be a draw in the NFL ever again. Americans demand victors. It’s just how we are.

Jozy Altidore came on as a substitute late in Villareal’s blowout win over Athletic Bilbao, and in less than 15 seconds, he made it an even bigger blowout. Sure, it was about as perfect a through-ball as a striker could get, but the kid was in the right place at the right time and made it happen.

Now if only the American midfield could get him a few more through-balls like that…

(Spotted on Soccer By Ives.)

At first glance, Michael Turner’s new nickname might have far more to do with certain forms of public transportation than Brazilian women’s football. Perhaps John Abraham is on to something here, though. After all, both Marta and MARTA are top talents who, on their best days, can become pure forces of nature. One cutback, and Turner is off. One sidestep, and Marta is pushing forward. Both leave defenders in their wake as they add another score to their stats and lead their teams to victory.

Some days, though, these forces of nature run into people with the rare ability and determination to control the weather…

Yes, it actually was proven in Beijing that you can prevent a downpour. It was proven in Charlotte, too. Ha.

Look at the evidence. A mysterious Chrysler New Yorker turns in front of Roethlisberger’s motorcycle during the offseason. Everyone knew he wasn’t wearing a helmet. Easy pickings, right? No? Well, how about Bill Cowher putting him back in the lineup one week after he suffered a concussion in Atlanta, a blatant attempt to turn public sentiment against him? Or how about the Steelers letting the offensive line struggle in 2007, then doing nothing to fix it in 2008?

So who’s responsible for trying to kill Big Ben now? Is it the linemen on the field with their complete lack of blocking? Is it Bruce Arians on the sidelines with his play-calling? (Yes, Bruce, more seven-step drops when the defense is in the backfield in two seconds. Perfect!) Is it Kevin Colbert in the front office with his horrific off-season personnel decisions? Is it Steely McBeam in the kitchen with the candlestick?

Someone needs to solve this mystery, and soon, because Roethlisberger simply won’t survive the season like this…

So I was completely worn out from the Charleston trip over the weekend, then completely pissed off at the Panthers’ collapse and the Steelers’ utterly impotent offensive line on Sunday, then completely resigned to sleeping on someone else’s couch tonight after a plumbing error turned the ceiling fan in my bedroom into a sprinkler system.

So for all there is to talk about here, it’ll have to wait a day or two. In the meantime, enjoy these photos from the road trip. If you’re any sort of American soccer fan at all, you must go to the Three Lions Pub at Blackbaud Stadium in Charleston. Seriously, FIFA doesn’t have that much soccer memorabilia.

Football is a big, all-encompassing world, but at its heart, football is still local. We cheer for our local teams and follow them wherever they go — and that’s what I’m doing this weekend.

In a game that’s well below everyone’s radar, the Carolina Railhawks are traveling to Charleston, SC, to take on the Charleston Battery, the U.S. Open Cup runners-up. If Carolina gets a win or a draw, we take home our second consecutive Southern Derby Cup. Yes, it’s pretty much the Emirates Cup of USL, if it’s even that. It’s a trophy that tells the world, “We did really well against those two other teams near us,” and since these Railhawks are in last place and have practically zero chance of making the USL playoffs, it’s very much a consolation prize for a lousy season.

At this point, though, I don’t really care. For a club in its second year of existence, any hardware is good hardware. We have a chance to win something, and I’d like to be there when it happens.

A few Battery fans came to Raleigh a couple weeks ago for a Railhawks v. Battery match. Most of them were stopping here after going to D.C. for the U.S. Open Cup Final, and they invited us to join their tailgate tomorrow night. It will be the first time I’ve ever been an away supporter at a football match. It sounds like fun, if you can get past all the driving — and the price of gas. (Stupid, stupid Ike.)

So if you don’t hear much from me in the next couple of days, that’s why. Try to get along without me, ‘kay?

Charleston Battery v. Carolina Railhawks airs on Fox Soccer Channel on Friday at 8:00 PM. You might not be able to hear us, since the USL announcers on FSC never shut up, but if we’re lucky, we might get a couple seconds of camera-time. Huzzah!

Two years ago, it was John Fox’s stupid, stupid punt return lateral call that killed the Panthers in Minnesota. Last year, Carolina got off to a rousing start against Houston and got Schaub’d. This year? They’re playing the Bears, who shut down the Colts on the road last week. Granted, the Panthers beat an AFC playoff team on the road, too, but not quite so comprehensively. We’ll find out a lot about these two teams today.

Come to think of it, I could be out on the beach with all manner of bikini-clad hotties that want to dance with me, but… eh, I did that yesterday.

No liveblog today, but this post serves as your open thread for today’s action. I’ll leave comments about what I see. You do the same. We’ll see how this one goes…

When your club’s biggest goal for the season is avoiding relegation, you look for ways to entertain yourself. Having a girlfriend who lets you feel her up during matches certainly doesn’t hurt. It takes the sting out of having Titus Bramble in defense, anyway…

(Spotted on 101 Great Goals)

I got back from Las Vegas on Sunday night just before midnight, unpacked my bags, collapsed on my sofa around 1:00 AM, and didn’t wake up until about 10:30 or so.

Yes, it was that awesome a weekend — hanging out with the fun folks at the New Media Expo, watching the water show at the Bellagio, lounging out to Richard Cheese, getting propositioned by the hookers at the Hilton, sampling everything at the buffets, winning a poker tournament at the Mirage, losing a Premier League parlay (bloody Tottenham), partying on Fremont Street, watching from the Stratosphere Tower as the city lit up at sundown…

It was a grand adventure — until the jet lag hit me like a Martin Taylor tackle on Monday. I would lie down for a few minutes, lose an entire half-hour of my day, then get dizzy just by shifting to sit upright. Even two days later, I’m still shaking off the last vestiges of this. I wonder if this is how Merrill Hoge feels sometimes on the set of NFL Matchup…

Anyway, in a half-assed attempt to catch up, I’m going to throw some stories out there that I figure are worth mentioning here. I’m sure I’ve missed more than this. I’ll worry about that later.

• Jeremy Wilson of the Telegraph serves up this interesting piece on how the credit crunch is about to impact English football. As if Leeds United wasn’t enough of a warning to clubs borrowing on future success.
• Meanwhile, Deuce of Davenport shows us some non-league football supporters in England telling their goalie what they really think of him. Quality.
• Here’s one I missed completely — Chelsea chief exec Peter Kenyon told non-Big Four clubs to get their houses in order. From now on, he will be referred to here as “Marie Antoinette.”
• Dude, how ’bout that Hull City? How can you not cheer for that club?
• A musical about David Beckham’s career. That should cement his status as a gay icon. Hell, he might yet dethrone Cristiano Ronaldo.
• Maurice Edu is headed to Rangers. He’ll have to wade through a season of Scottish football to play in Europe, but it would have taken him just as long to make the CONCACAF Champions League with Toronto FC, anyway. Still, the timing of this move puzzles me. Is Scotland really that much better than MLS? And why Rangers, a club that doesn’t play anything close to attractive football? Of course, maybe that’s why they got Edu in the first place.
• Speaking of Yanks abroad, Cardiff City was unable to pull Kenny Cooper out of Dallas and now wants to lure Eddie Johnson away from Fulham, which shouldn’t be too hard. Plus, if you want to watch Jozy Altidore in La Liga this season, you’ll have to get DirecTV. I think it’s time for me to make the switch…
• It was always going to be just the U.S. women to win a medal in Olympic soccer, wasn’t it? The gold medal match between the USA and Brazil kicks off at 9:00 AM tomorrow. The Argentina v. Nigeria men’s soccer final, should be fun to watch. That starts at 12:00 A.M. ET on Saturday morning, so you’ll have to stay up late to see it live.
• Meanwhile, south of China, the A-League season started with a brawl between Sydney FC supporters and Melbourne Victory supporters. It looked slightly worse than the handbags between West Ham and Columbus Crew fans. Maybe.
• Speaking of Australia, Geelong has once again clinched the top seed in the AFL Finals Series, while Collingwood appears to be one drink away from falling out of the Top 8, and the credit crunch is pimpslapping the Pies, too.
• Two years removed from their Grand Final victory, the West Coast Eagles are getting a priority draft pick, and everyone’s all upset about it.
• Here’s your roster for the US Revolution footy team, which will be playing in the AFL International Cup, which begins in a week in Melbourne.
• Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark played the race card when a local writer described Anthony Smith’s behavior as “thuggery.” Uh, no, we use that word on anyone who beats up teammates in practice for no apparent reason. Joey Barton is also a thug. (Steve Smith is, too, but at least he’s our thug…)
• Speaking of the Panthers, those offseason acquisitions aren’t looking so hot for them right now, save for Jeff Otah.
• Whatever you do, NFL coaches, keep Kenny Chesney away from your locker rooms.
• Remember that upstart league that Mark Cuban a bunch of other guys planned to launch? Apparently, they’re waiting for Senor Mexico to get out of jail first. Classy.
• Brett Favre is not God, and this is why.
• Whatever you do, don’t try to take Warren Sapp’s picture without his permission. Seriously.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ll be more focused in another 24 hours, when I’ve fully gotten over walking out of the Mirage with a chain wallet full of Benjamins and blending into the blissfully unaware crowd as I nonchalantly sauntered back to my hotel room. And I’m not even sure that was my favorite moment of the weekend.

Between those two things and Stuart Holden’s dumb foul at the end of the Netherlands game, the USA earned its trip home here. I hope Nowak earned a pinkslip.

US Open Cup: No quadruple for the New England Revolution. D.C. United topped New England, 3-1, in a game seen by less than 7,000 people. (Thanks for nothing, MLS.) Meanwhile, on a rainy night in Charleston, SC, the Seattle Sounders took the Charleston Battery to penalty kicks, and the Battery came out on top. The Open Cup Final between D.C.U. and the Battery takes place on Wednesday, September 3, at RFK Stadium. It will probably be D.C.U.’s only chance to win a trophy and make the 2009 CONCACAF Champions League.

Premier League: Dimitar Berbatov is headed to Manchester United. (Was that deal ever not going to happen?) Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur has not yet secured Andrei Arshavin from Zenit St. Petersburg. Expect even more “SPURS GET BENT” headlines from British Tabloids.

AFL: The Sydney Swans just signed 24-year-old Canadian rugby fullback Mike Pyke to their rookie list. Their next target: Chris Chambers…

Dude can mark. Ha ha.

Programming Note: Blogging will be light for the rest of the week, as I’m off to Las Vegas for a few days. I’ll have something resembling a Premier League preview up on Friday, but that will probably be about it until next week. On a side note, I made a grand total of $3.06 yesterday from my banner ad network, thanks to this Stuart Scott karaoke post. I’d promise not to spend it all in one place, but really, I’ve got a lot of postcards to buy…

Over at Shutdown Corner, the mighty infamous MJD takes a closer look at the NFL’s attempt to start a new trend in fandom — wearing stupid on your head.

Granted, Atlanta Falcons fans probably still walk into the Georgia Dome wearing Ron Mexico jerseys, so perhaps it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine them wearing a falcon foamhead that looks more depressed than Shawn Andrews.

Still, for sheer stupidity, nothing tops this:

Don’t forget to take off your shoes and pull your laptop out of your bag before donning this foamhead. Oh, and make sure you have a few New England Revolution members on board, just in case someone wants to open the emergency exit in mid-air and dive head first into your $12 Coors Light.

I suspect most of you would assume this decision had something to do with this sordid incident, and yes, that played a role. The Fantasy Sports Girl mess was indicative of the mismanagement going on behind the scenes at FanHouse. All the female bloggers we had brought in over the last two years were basically told they didn’t matter, and some people we like were nudged out of their jobs over this “new direction” that the boys at AOL Sports wanted to take — a direction over which we bloggers appeared to have zero say. Plus, that URL switchover to FanHouse.com was buggier than the first release of Windows Vista, and somewhere along the way, FanHouse lost its Google News placement.

For me, though, that’s really only part of the story, and it gets at something that’s been eating at me for a while.

Two weeks ago, before this started shaking out, I had this dream where I was carrying suitcases and duffel bags out to some cars and vans parked against the wall. It was me, a couple of friends and about a dozen NFL players, past and present. I was talking to players, trying to making sure everyone had everything, because we were on a tight deadline, and I put extra gadgets and notebooks and such into some players’ bags because I knew that’s what they needed or what they liked.

Finally, we got everything loaded up, and someone said impatiently, “Okay, let’s go,” because we were running late. A few of us were about to climb into the first car… but just as I was about to get in, I jumped back, slammed the door shut, and put my hands on my head in total panic. A friend looked at me and said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I literally cried out, “I forgot to pack my own bag!”

I ran away from the cars, desperately trying to get back to my room to get my stuff. That’s when I woke up, and as you might imagine, I felt a distinct urge to do something other than blogging. This would turn out to be the day that Alana Nguyen, a/k/a Miss Gossip, would announce that she was leaving AOL.

The real message of the dream, however, ended up being spelled out by Bethelehem Shoals over at the Sporting Blog:

The other sad truth is that, with one major exception, no one’s getting ahead based on their FanHouse affiliation. Given the number of readers it has, shouldn’t this provide an opportunity to build reputations of their own on a large scale? Let’s put it this way: More doors have opened for me because of FreeDarko, a site with roughly 1/1000th the traffic of FanHouse. Only my friend Michael David Smith, the heart and soul of the NFL operation (and other areas), has really built a brand for himself through this platform. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, had he decided to crank out those same posts on his own, someone would’ve snatched him up sooner rather than later.

In my case, at least, Shoals wrote the truth. I wasn’t making a name for myself by writing for FanHouse anymore. In fact, it felt like my audience was shrinking. Soccer FanHouse got roughly 26,000 page views for the month of July. By comparison, Soccer By Ives got 900,000. I could get more than 26K in a month on my own blog if I tried hard enough. This piece I wrote about why South Americans care so much about Olympic soccer got no traction at all. It probably would have gotten more attention if I had posted it here.

Alas, all I have to show for it is the standard posting fee — which one would-be FanHouser who turned down the gig described as “peanuts” — and a few hundred page views. The more I thought about that, the more I kept coming back to this question: why bust your chops writing for someone else and fitting into their style when you could do just as well with your own site, writing in your own voice?

The answer, of course, is “for the money.” I would probably feel differently about this situation if I had big bills to pay or kids to put through day care. I know I’ll miss getting those extra deposits every month, too. What I miss more, though, was the team atmosphere that Jamie Mottram fostered when he started FanHouse two years ago. We were all like-minded people working together to build something great. To this new management, though, we’re just interchangeable parts — hamsters on their wheel grinding out wire-service-with-snark posts to get them the page views they need to improve their valuation, so that they can unload their content business to Yahoo or Microsoft for the highest possible price.

And I’d much rather pack my own bag.

So I’m going to stop neglecting this blog and move all my NFL and soccer talk back here. I’m not going to worry about competing with myself or the countless other sports blogs out there. I’m just going to try to make this site fun again. Hobbies should be fun, after all; otherwise, why do them?

Y’know, I don’t think the laws of the game allow the football to be quite so large…

(Spotted on With Leather)

New England Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski once famously said, “I don’t know much about football. I know about kicking.” That puts him in contrast to the Houston Dynamo fullback Craig Waibel — Waibel! — who clearly knows something about (Association) football and kicking. As you can see in this video, he’s also thrown down the gauntlet on every NFL kicker out there by kicking this 63-yard field goal for charity.

Granted, he didn’t do it with 290-pound men in riot gear coming after him, but hey, anyone who can kick a 63-yard field goal will probably get some phone calls from NFL teams. The Kansas City Chiefs considered giving Mia Hamm a job after she kicked a few 50-yarders in practice. Given what MLS pays these days, I actually wouldn’t be all that surprised if Waibel listened.

(Spotted on The Offside.)

So if you want to add my football-related ramblings to your RSS reader, here are the URLs:

http://www.fanhouse.com/bloggers/david-j-warner/rss.xml
http://feeds.feedburner.com/davesfootballblog

Thank you and good night.

Canada is more than happy to participate in just about every major American sports league there is. Baseball? Sure, come on up to Toronto. Basketball? No problem. We’re happy to launch the Raptors and Grizzlies north of the border. Soccer? Hey, we’d love to have Toronto FC in MLS. Look at our crazy fans! Let’s do this in Montreal, too! We love this stuff!

But when the NFL starts making a move into Canada, suddenly, those American interlopers are trying to destroy our Canadian culture! Newspapers are up in arms! Politicians cry out that we must look out for the good for the country! PR people are producing videos like this:

Yeah! This is our league! Keep your league out of our borders, you 100-yard heathens!

You know what? I don’t see you Canadians rushing to pull all your hockey teams out of the NHL and forming your own uniquely Canadian hockey league. I don’t see you trying to build on the success of Toronto FC, the Montreal Impact and the Vancouver Whitecaps and building your own uniquely Canadian soccer league. All you have is a tri-cities championship and an association that can’t pull its head out of its arse. You’re not rushing to kick the Raptors out of Toronto, either, are you?

But no, 3-down, 110-yard football is such a vital part of your heritage, isn’t it? What would we ever do without the Grey Cup?

You’d watch the NFL, that’s what. It’s the same reason so many soccer fans who enjoy the Premier League and EURO 2008 can’t seem to get into MLS games. People want to see the best players play at the highest level, and for the gridiron game, those players aren’t in Canada. They’re in the NFL. That’s why CFL expansion into America failed in the 1990s. We don’t want minor league football in this country, and that’s what most people think the CFL is. The best CFL players almost always move south to the NFL. Most of those players played college football in the USA, anyway. It’s not like they’re switching from rugby union to rugby league or something.

Hey, here’s an idea — why don’t you dump all those Burnside Rules and go back to playing rugby union? That was your gift to America back in 1874, wasn’t it? Then Thrift Burnside came along and took some ideas from Walter Camp, and 100 years later, it constitutes Canadian culture. How fitting.

Here’s another idea — if you’re so worried about the survival of the CFL, Canada, why don’t you go round up some mounties and have them surround the Rogers Centre so that the Buffalo Bills won’t be able to get inside to play there? It won’t happen, Canada, and you know why? Canadian fans want to see the best football players in the world, too. Plus, you’re too chickenshit to build your own national leagues in other major sports. If an NFL team in Toronto destroys the CFL, then maybe the CFL isn’t good enough to stand on its own, eh?

That’s me on 850 the Buzz, the local sports radio station, chatting it up about EURO 2008. The clip is from last Friday, so it’s not exactly timely. Still, it is nice to know I’m a go-to guy when it comes to something. Like fart humor, for example.

I don’t think it matters what form of football is being watched here. A bunch of guys on the sofa yelling at the TV is a universal thing — especially when they’re loud, crazy Italians. Seriously, why watch football with anyone else? They’ll yell, they’ll curse, they’ll jump around, and then they’ll ask the women in the kitchen when the sauce will be ready.

(Spotted on Soccernista. Welcome back, Garth.)

In case you hadn’t noticed — and really, why haven’t you? — the boys at AOL finally got around to launching an honest-to-goodness Soccer FanHouse last week, just after the Champions League Final. IrishOutsider and I are holding down the fort over there for now, though we are hoping to gain some awesome new bloggers in the very near future. Here’s a sample of some of the things I’ve been writing there lately:

• Cristiano Ronaldo Would Like You to Stroke His Ego All Summer Long
• Columbus Crew Fans Set a Very Bad Example
• Bikini-Clad Women Invade Italian Soccer Team Practice for TV Show
• Sunil Gulati Wants to Promote English Soccer More Than American Soccer

Soccer FanHouse was launched along with Olympics FanHouse and Fightin’ FanHouse, though they also shuttered the old Das FanHaus, which kind of lost steam after our pal Orson Swindle of Every Day Should Be Saturday fame bolted for The Sporting News. So there’s no place on FanHouse for me to put my random Aussie Rules and rugby rants. Guess I’ll have to keep this blog going for a little while longer.

By the way, let me just express my extreme disappointment in all you AFL fans out there for not uploading any video of Brad Johnson’s post-siren miss in last weekend’s Western Bulldogs v. North Melbourne Kangaroos game, which gave the ‘Roos a 3-point win. I had this awesome idea for comparing Johnson to John Terry and John Carney, but it wouldn’t have worked without the video…

Ah, well. Maybe next time. Either way, that was a fantastic game to watch.

(Spotted on The AFL Show)

I know what you’re thinking. Can she torpedo punt like Jimmy Bartel? Maybe we’ll find out prior to the Australian Open.

By the way, if this space seems sparse lately, it’s because I’ve been focusing on writing for FanHouse — in part because the strange sinus-and-lung ailment I developed after inhaling that smoke bomb at the Railhawks v. Battery game still hasn’t cleared up, and the forthcoming medical bills aren’t going to pay for themselves. I’ve got tomorrow off, though, and I’m planning on liveblogging the UEFA Champions League Final for AOL in the afternoon. Point your browser here to read my latest stuff and follow along with tomorrow’s festivities.

(Hats off to Busted Coverage for finding the video.)

He’s big! He’s red!
He’s 15 million quid!
Peter Crouch! Peter Crouch!

It has been a crazy week for football around the world, though, what with the Champions League knockout stage and the Super 14 starting, the NAB Cup well under way, and in America… the scouting combine. Oh, yes, the NFL scouting combine. There’s nothing creepy at all about young men in T-shirts and shorts being ogled by geezers with clipboards. Nothing at all.

It’s a sign that we take the NFL a little too seriously — some guys more than others — but really, where don’t they take football seriously on this planet?

Here’s a look around at some football stories around our planet this week:

• Michael David Smith has the combine covered. [NFL FanHouse]
• The Gladiator helmet has your brain covered. [Mighty MJD @ Yahoo]
• The Dolphins want to bring the Premier League to Miami. [Pitch Invasion]
• Just who is this Richard Scudamore character? [BBC Football]
• The troubled life of Gazza. [Goal]
• Trouble ahead for MLS? [ESPN Soccernet]
• Red cards ahead for swearing footballers? [The Offside]
• Is FIFA looking to rugby to help beleaguered refs? [Reuters Soccer Blog]
• Not everyone digs those ELVs. [The Rugby Blog]
• A lesson in drop punting. [Kick2Kick]
• AFL rejects plan to plunder Ireland. [Fox Sports Australia]
• Fantasy football is everywhere. [AFL Football Blog]
• Matt Walsh is watching you. [Deadspin]
• Troy Vincent may be full of shit. [Mighty MJD @ Yahoo]
• Everton waits for Michael Bradley. [Liverpool Echo]
• A primer on football in Argentina. [Pitch Invasion]
• Those UEFA Cup knockout ties look pretty good. [Reuters Soccer Blog]
• Some useful soccer news web sites. [The Offside]

That ought to hold you for a little while. In the meantime, I’ll be straightening up the house this weekend, as some fellow Carolina Railhawks supporters are coming over to watch the Carling Cup Final. Meanwhile, the Premier League, Super 14 and 6 Nations are on, while Australia will witness the A-League Grand Final and more NAB Cup preseason footy. Set your DVRs accordingly. I did.

Enjoy your football, everyone!

A couple of months ago, she asked me if I would like a scarf, too, and I took her up on it. She then asked what color the scarf should be. I told her I wanted one in my alma mater’s colors, the cream and crimson of Indiana University, because I have so few articles of clothing left with those colors. The scarf she made is pictured here, and it served me well for the month or two when it was cold here in North Carolina.

Every time I look at it, though, it doesn’t really remind me of Indiana. It reminds me of a completely different team…

Thankfully, I live in America, where I never run across anyone who would look at this scarf and say, “Ah, you’re a Gooner, eh?” (I once had someone see the scarf around my neck and ask how the quidditch match went. I immediately gave him the finger.) Still, I have to keep reminding myself that this scarf is a symbol of my school, not a symbol of my support for any specific football club — even though scarves clearly have deeper meaning in English football than they do here.

When I first started following the Premier League last season, I chose Reading, because they were getting into the Premier League for the very first time, just like I was, and they seemed like just the sort of plucky underdog worth backing. However, Reading has dropped into the relegation zone this month, and after seeing their dire form lately, I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to have a Premier League club to support next August.

All the while, this red and white scarf seems to be calling out to me. “Come join us, neophyte. Leave your little underdogs behind. Do you really want a life full of relegation battles and Coca-Cola Championship playoffs? Of course, you don’t. Come root for a real winner.”

This is a strange test of faith. Football is a tribal thing, and every tribe has its colors. When those colors overlap, things get weird. I could have asked for a black and gold scarf, but would it have reminded me of my Pittsburgh Steelers, or my alma mater’s archrival, Purdue? I could have asked for royal blue and white, too, since those are Reading’s colors.

Then again, Reading really isn’t my club, is it? Sure, I started following them because I liked their story, but am I really that attached to them? I didn’t exactly grow up with Reading like I grew up with the Steelers, a team I’ve supported for the better part of three decades. I’ve also cheered for the Carolina Panthers ever since they came into existence in 1994, because it’s the closest thing I have to a local NFL team.

Plus, I have a local soccer club now. I go to Carolina Railhawks games and yell my lungs out for them. I can’t really do that for Reading. Madejski Stadium is an ocean away.

Of course, so is Emirates Stadium, and therein lies the problem. Either way, I’d be choosing a club to which I would have no history and no real local ties. This makes it awfully easy for American newbies like me to pick one of the few clubs that actually has an actual chance at winning. After all, if you pick a club that gets relegated and you no longer have a horse in the race, what’s the point of turning on Fox Soccer Channel on Saturday mornings?

The Premier League craves that international audience, but how many fans are they really going to find for clubs outside of the Big Four? Sure, bigger clubs like Everton, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur will find a few new supporters abroad, but Sunderland? Middlesbrough? Wigan? Bolton? How exactly are those clubs appealing to international fans? Who outside of London will care about Fulham if they go down and Clint Dempsey gets sold?

Fandom is a tricky thing. The most disturbing thing my dad ever told me was that if he had to do it all over again, he would have made sure I stayed a UNC basketball fan after we moved to North Carolina in 1982, because it would have saved him a ton of money on tuition — money he spent sending me to Indiana.

Fandom gets even trickier, though, when the teams you support are merely flickers on your TV screens, or ghosts on the holographic pitches of futures that never arrive. Premier League boss Richard Scudamore might continue to pimp the idea of overseas matches — we all have our windmills to tilt — but perhaps someone should remind him that the worldwide demand isn’t for the whole league. It’s for that handful of rich clubs that have a real shot at winning something, because fans love winners. We’ve no real loyalty to these tribes. We’re just riding the bandwagon until a better one comes along.

I still want to see Reading climb out of the drop zone, of course, but I feel like I have to prepare for the possibility that I won’t have a club to support in the Premier League next season. Perhaps that’s why that scarf is sending such mixed signals. I might not be getting those signals if the club I chose wasn’t in danger of being relegated. We never have to worry about such things in American sports.

Meanwhile, our man Carlito stands there and wishes he could give the rain falling on him to North Carolina — or anyone else, for that matter. It’s all just a matter of perspective, really, and hopefully some of these stories from the last week or so will provide some extra perspective into your own football experience.

On with the show!

• Why Arlen Specter may not be wasting his time (or ours) with this whole Spygate investigation. (Mighty MJD)
• Canadian soccer needs an enema. (Pitch Invasion)
• So do the West Coast Eagles. (AFL Footy Blog)
• Your Super 14 preview. (SA Rugby)
• Botswana football’s “Golden Lady.” (The Offside)
• New York Giants fans better hope their team doesn’t get dynastic. (Deadspin)
• Is this the end for Ronaldo at AC Milan? (Soccer by Ives)
• Is it the start for Mourinho at Barcelona? (Reuters Soccer Blog)
• Kevin Sheedy wants to give exchange students free footy. (Fox Sports Australia)
• Is International Rules worth it for the GAA? (Setanta Sports)
• Congress to NFL: Stay out of the churches! (Techdirt)
• Philip Rivers hates Horny Werewolf Day, too. (Kissing Suzy Kolber)
• Being in a strong NFL division is important. I wonder if this applies to Champions League groups, too… (NFL FanHouse)
• Real Madrid is richer than you. (Yahoo Eurosport)
• This TJ Simers column about David Beckham got people talking this week. (LA Times)
• Becks, however, has other impacts on American soccer that we don’t see. (The Offside)
• Mike Carey talks about “The Giant Snatch.” (NFL FanHouse)
• FA to female footballers: Sorry about the ban! (Guardian Unlimited)
• Those wacky Chris Berman videos aren’t on YouTube anymore, but they’re still online. (Deadspin)

It’s an FA Cup weekend in England. Show of hands: who’s paying $16 to watch Man U v. Arsenal? Not me. I’m going to take a good look at Super 14’s opening weekend and see if these new rules really do make rugby union more fun to watch. I’ll report my discoveries on Monday. Oh, and the Champions League knockout stage begins next Tuesday. Expect a lot of coverage of that on FanHouse.

Enjoy your football, everyone!

Videos like this featuring Chris Berman behind the scenes have been everywhere in the last few days. Someone at ESPN must have gotten fired recently.

More vulgar fun with Boomer at Sports by Brooks.