Futility!

The news breaks now that, amid a flurry of midseason coaching turnover, the Denver Broncos have booted out Josh McDaniels after approximately 1.75 seasons, citing both his abysmal record and allegations of cheating by videotaping the San Francisco 49ers at practice. (ESPN/AP). My comment on this is that at least Bill Belichick videotaped someone actually good at football.  

My mass spectroscopist and I (doing our usual routine of Monday morning quarterbacking) got into a discussion of which Coach is next on the hot seat. My vote: Jeff Fisher of the Titans. We hate to make fun of the Titans too much, but if you're 5-7, you haven't scored a touchdown in 13 quarters (and don't appear to be making progress on locating this "end zone," whatever that is), your team has legal and psychological issues, your defensive backfield has more punchouts than Manny Pacquiao, your quarterback is a nutcase, and Randy Moss can't even fix the problem, you're probably pretty well shafted.

Runner up: Marvin Lewis of the now historically awful Cincinnati Bengals, who suffer from whatever syndrome the Detroit Lions have which causes them to play for 48 minutes only (and additionally from whatever disease the Vikings have, which makes them awesome on paper but stinky trash in real life.)

Speaking of Detroit, the Bears are now 9-3 and I couldn't be happier. I'm hoping that the Bears meet the Saints in the playoffs (wild-card, anyone?), so that I can watch this game with my friend Catherine (occasional reader and Saints fan extraordinaire) - with me in Devin Hester's #23 and her in Drew Brees' #9. 

Fun Times

So I went to one of the yearly end-of-summer picnics earlier tonight, and as always, someone brought a football and we got to playing catch even though it was approximately four-hundred degrees outside. As I mentioned earlier, I've got terrible hands but an okay arm, and at one point I tossed the ball to Chris, another chemist. Chris, who is from Louisiana and loves his Saints, remarked, "You are better than Brett Favre! You didn't throw the interception." 

Which reminded me. Brett Favre is coming back to play for the Vikings. I think the whole yes-no-maybe-so drama is really rather ridiculous, so I'll cut-and-dry about it. In honor of Favre's supposed return, I give you all this. Vikes fans may throw things at will. Caveat emptor, as they say. 

The best part was later in the evening, when I took off running with the ball as someone chased me. I paused in front of Chris, obviously dropped the ball on the ground, and said,

"Now I'm Adrian Peterson."

Huzzah!

Today I (successfully) acquired fancy club tickets for the Chicago Bears' opening day game against the (potentially souped-up) Detroit Lions. So, on September 12th, my Lions fan-Better Half and I will be up in breezy section 313 of Soldier Field. We'll either see Jay Cutler stumble into a House of Spears, or we'll see what the Bears usually do to the Lions. (Yours truly hopes for the latter)

Even though that's like, two months away, I'm so excited that it's not even funny. 

Serendipity!

I never thought I'd see the day where obsessing about football at work would actually do me some good. I've had numerous Monday mornings where I have slogged into my laboratory and proceeded to rant to the nearest co-worker about how my team(s) completely blew a game over the weekend. "Why didn't they onside kick?!" I furiously foam at the mouth, "Why didn't they go for it on 4th and 2?" Most of my colleagues simply tune it out so it is approximately on par with yelling at a mailbox, but occasionally one of them will pipe up "Yeah. I agree. They shouldn't have punted."

The leader of my research group is a very understanding and generous fellow (and a football fan himself). He does not mind my disjointed rambling and adornment with various team regalia, and more than tolerates my annual pilgrimages to Soldier Field. Anyway, he found himself in a situation today. He holds season tickets to see the Football Team at the Large University Where I Work. As he cannot attend this weekend's long-anticipated rivalry showdown, he decided to give his tickets to the one person in the group who has proved him/herself the greatest gridiron goon: yours truly. 

And these are obscenely good seats, on the 45-yard line, with comfy seat backs, across from the press-box. So the brains behind Second and One will spend this Saturday evening under the lights, surrounded by alumni who make about five times my salary per annuum,  and I will thoroughly enjoy myself. 

Fans: Show your spirit at work. You never know where it might get you!

Full weekend recap to come later.

Ahhhh...

I swear, every football fan alive must love it when they go out in public on game day, wearing some piece of team regalia, and see other people, who are wearing pieces of team regalia, approve wholeheartedly of their choice in apparel. 

Case in point: where I live, even though it's not in Illinois, there is actually a fairly high population of Bears fans. I went to the grocery store today wearing my Devin Hester jersey (as I am anxious and excited to see what the Windy City Flyer will do in his first preseason game returning punts tonight. Probably nothing, but what the heck.) As I browsed around in the vitamin aisle, I noticed a guy wearing a Robbie Gould jersey. I thought about saying something witty, like "Hey man, are you kicking tonight?" but before I could, this fellow gives me the once over, half-smiles, and nods approvingly, as if to say "Well-played, my friend. Well-played." Like there's some kind of secret Bears Fan Illuminati that can't be openly discussed, but is totally awesome nonetheless.