PERSPECTIVE: It’s football time again

“There’s always next year.” Those were my final words in a perspective written on Jan. 21, 2004, two days after the Carolina Panthers ended my precious Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl campaign. I remember at the time feeling positive that the Eagles would return for the 2004-05 season as the top contender for the Vince Lombardi Trophy, or the Super Bowl championship.

Guess what, friends: it is next year.

Welcome to the National Football League, where being a convicted murderer and druggie means a higher position on the fantasy draft board. Welcome to the NFL, where you can change teams just because you don’t like the team that signed you. Welcome to the NFL, where despite all of the alcohol, drugs, murders, contracts and media, the league is still about one thing and one thing only: the twins.

Am I the only person who absolutely loathes these commercials? It’s easy to envision them: fade in on ten screaming, skinny young adults wearing fake football jerseys; cue loud rock music comparable to the trite and whiny Good Charlotte; focus in on woman’s breasts. And the twins. Then show the beer. And the twins.

Is this what football is all about? Hardly.

Renowned comedian George Carlin created a bit called “Baseball versus football,” in which he compares the two major American sports, showing the polarity between the pastimes. He describes baseball as a pastoral, graceful, polite sport played in the park. He describes football as a war-like, tactical, high-tempered sport played in War Memorial Stadium.

Taking Carlin’s definition of football, it’s possible the sport is America’s answer to civil war. Sure, Bostonians may feel compelled to kill New Yorkers because the latter may act pompous and glamorous, but they don’t because the Patriots play the Jets twice a year. There’s a time and a place for the hatred.

And sure, the “cowboy and indian” tales carry a long history of arrow-slinging and “ye-hawing,” but you don’t hear of these fights today. Why? Because the Dallas Cowboys play the Washington Redskins twice a year. Football allows for grown men to demolish eachother without using weapons of mass destruction. Of course, Iraqis also like to demolish each other without using WMDs, but some people fail to realize that.

I digress.

So how could a sport that proposes such militant behavior be all about blonde twins? These commercials fail to prepare me for both football and drinking beer.

What prepares me? Give me the sweepingly gruff voice of the late John Facenda (Harry Kalas will do today), spitting gusto about the changing seasons. Give me a slow-motion image of a tired warrior gasping out a cold breath. Give me cleats digging out of mud and dirt. And give me a charging orchestra with trumpets. That’s football.

Football is tackling your man one yard shy of the first down marker on third down. Football is a receiver stopping the perfect spiral with his hands as he leaps above his defender. Football is the running back changing his speed and shifting his upper-body at the last second, faking a charging linebacker away from the play. Football is a flawless play-action fake, allowing the quarterback to find himself with plenty of time, and a receiver wide open downfield.

Of course today, that receiver is most likely a closet cocaine addict, and that quarterback has taken more painkillers than Rush Limbaugh. Maybe the cornerback covering the receiver was accused of first-degree murder, but as much as times change, the game remains the same.

Real football fans can see beyond Janet Jackson’s nipple and instead admire Adam Vinatieri kicking a clutch game-winning field goal for the second time in his Super Bowl career. Real football fans can see beyond a Bon Jovi performance and instead admire Freddie Mitchell catching a fourth down and 26 yards-to-go prayer, one yard past the first down marker. Though entertainment has turned football into a major international industry – case in point, the giant blown-up digital screen that “magically” shows up in stadiums during ABC telecasts – the game remains the same.

I’ll be watching the games Sunday afternoon, sporting an Eagles jersey, living and dying with my team’s every snap, juke and dive. I’ll block the twins and the screaming skinny fans from my mind and call my father after every Eagles touchdown. They’re playing the New York Giants on Sunday, so my phone bill may increase dramatically.

Casey would be proud, as there is much joy in Philadelphia this fine autumn day. Thousands of hungry, overweight, obnoxious football fans are awaiting kickoff. Thousands more are already drunk from waiting. Football brings out the warrior in every man; whether you break your wrist punching the carpet after a penalty call (true story), or you throw snowballs at Santa Claus (true story), you feel like the king of the county; the keeper of the house.

So for Philadelphians – and myself – another season of dreams begins; hopefully it will end at the Super Bowl, when Donovan McNabb hoists the Lombardi trophy.

If not, “there’s always next year.”

Oh, and if you’re wondering: Eagles over Ravens in the Super Bowl.