Just wanted to remind people that I love when you subscribe. It makes my digital-gratification addicted Millennial heart sing. Better than drugs. So sign up now if you haven’t already. And consider the paid version. It’s VERY cheap considering the top notch quality of writing you get every week. Just under a dollar a week! It also helps me afford to be able to do this every week! And you can feel like a 15th Century Venetian Doge, a true patron of the arts.
I know. I know. Two sports-based newsletters in three weeks. My readership’s second-least favorite type of newsletter. Bear with me. Allow yourself to be open to new things. Let the wheels of your imagination turn, the doors to your mind open, it will be worth it.
I am but a simple soul who needs to write his truth. A simple soul who desperately needs football to be back on television. In case you are a sports agnostic or do not care for American football, February 13th, 2022 was the last time a new NFL game was aired on TV. The next time a new NFL game will be broadcast across this great nation? September 8th, 2022. That is far too long a time to go without football.
Of course, if you have access to cable or the internet, you can watch re-broadcasts of old games 24/7. But this is merely a sorry placebo for the real thing. A faint simulacrum of the far greater glory of a new NFL season’s worth of games. To put it in far less faux-erudite terms, nothing is better than the real thing.
Eagle-eyed readers may be wondering why I’m writing about the NFL season starting soon, if the first game of the 2022-23 NFL season doesn’t kick off until September 8th. That’s ~39 days away, depending on when you’re reading this.
The reason why I’m writing about football now is that NFL training camps have begun. This is an important first step, the delicious build-up to the full season. An aperitif if you will. The beginning of training camp announces the end of the off-season and the beginning of a new one. The creation of a wild and wonderful 18 weeks plus playoffs of the best professional football in the world. If you like to listen to music while reading this newsletter, Vivaldi’s Spring would be the perfect thing to play at this moment.
I’ve been trying to think of a comparison for all my non-sports fan readers, i.e., most of you. Imagine you have a favorite book series, one that’s been going on for a while, but isn’t yet finished, like Game of Thrones or something. You’re waiting and waiting for the next one. You read every interview with the author, hoping for a little bit of a hint of what the book will be about, or even just a release date. And then one day, a chapter leaks. A chapter that may not even be in the book as is, could be just a draft or something. You’d be excited about that. Very excited. I feel the same way about training camp starting.
Now, the glorious capitalist machine that is the National Football League – the NFL – would like you to believe that there is no real “off-season” in football. In fact, they’ve designed a whole suite of products during what was previously a fallow period, to disguise the fact that there are no football games going on. Well, to disguise the fact, and to reap millions in advertising dollars that they don’t share with the players. The now bloated three-day Draft, the Combine, much-hyped summer OTAs, and various other smaller events all join to create the sense that there is just as much happening when people aren’t playing meaningful NFL games as when they are.
This is a lie of course. A convenient one, but still a lie. The continued expansion of the NFL world into larger and larger markets is the true goal of all this mishegoss, not providing more content to fans. It just serves to sate the hungry maws that make up the owner’s bank accounts. I say all this and still also consume all that garbage, so it is working on some level. To quote Hoobastank, I’m not a perfect person.
The thing is, once football activities actually start, once players are practicing, balls are being thrown, pads are being worn, playbooks are being memorized, I sort of forget all that other nonsense. I can’t even really watch training camp footage anywhere due to it not being recorded, but just knowing that it’s going on in thirty-two locations across the country is a nice thing. Like a little pervert NFL gremlin, starved for games, I even read write-ups of training camps exercises. There is no reason why I need to know how some eighth-string WR for the Philadelphia Eagles performed in a 7-on-7 red zone Drill. That player, Keric Wheatfall, will get cut in a couple of weeks and I will forget their name. No offense Keric. You’re a thousand times better at football than I’ll ever be. Despite the fact that much of training camp is winnowing exercises, I still read all about it, and watch whatever footage I can, just to get a little glimpse of AJ Brown doing a one-handed circus catch over some poor sap of a backup safety. I live for it.
The thing to know about training camp is that it is very much about training. Prior to 2016 a lot of coaches would have their veterans running around, sweating, and tackling each other with full pads from day one. This doesn’t happen much anymore. The players union limited the number of times that pads and tackling can be used in training camps. On top of those restrictions, several coaches don’t even use their full allotment of padded practices anyway. In the name of safety and limiting injuries to star players teams have decreased the amount of contact there is during training camp. They’ve used the extra time to increase the number of technique drills, play-walkthroughs, and other smaller impact activities. Veterans largely don’t even play in pre-season games anymore, leaving those for younger players fighting for a spot on the team. In short, you’d have to be a football sicko to watch it.
All of this makes sense of course. Football is a dangerous sport, and decreasing the risk that your best, and highest paid, players, will get hurt before the season is just good business. There are some meat-head idiots who complain about players getting soft and there’s always a coach or two who tries to make a big deal out of running the players hard, but they’re very easy to ignore. Not to say that football isn’t still full of macho dipshits, for example, one player just said that he regretted getting a COVID vaccine because usually he just likes toughing out being sick, but most of them have gotten a little better about hiding their dumbass views.
I’ve gotten off track from my initial premise here. That’s okay though. This is a newsletter, a blog essentially. Let me just reiterate my initial point. Football is back. A sign that fall is just around the corner. A sign that Sundays are busy. There’s nothing better than that.