The "Hall of Fame" opening preseason game last Sunday marked the end of the NFL offseason, and it's a welcome end for those of us who have been scratching our pigskin track-marks since the draft. The game itself is meaningless, of course, but even a short glimpse of first-string football is enough to blunt the edge of the stone junkie's withdrawal.




And we sure are NFL junkies in this country, aren't we? If the sports-media are any indication of the common fan's addiction, we're Tyrone Biggums, Eddie Dean, and Kurt Cobain combined. Four months without any substanative football action have left most of us so frazzled, we're easily tricked into avidly watching three and a half quarters of pointless punt-fests, whose few exciting plays are nullified by the men in striped suits.




And then there's the offseason's so-called drama of training-camp holdouts, QB controversies, and, of course, the neverending waffle saga of Brett Favre. Personally, I wasn't the least bit surprised when #4 proclaimed his return to the game, but I was shocked, however, by the accuracy of ESPN's infinitely anonymous sources on the story. Seriously, what happened to transparency in journalism?





Now, I know that most sports fans are fat, stupid sheep. [Sorry, fellas, but it's a fact. Most of us are dumber than preschoolers at naptime. And seriously, how cut can you be if you don't leave the couch during the entirety of the 18-day Olympic games?] But even we have no trouble detecting the laziness in the Worldwide Leader's reporting when roughly two-thirds of its "Breaking News" elements are credited to unnamed sources. It doesn't take much to see through this nonsense.


But I'll hold off on the detailed [read: boring] journalistic critique for today. Thank me later. The success of professional football in this country is on par with European soccer -- hell, we don't even have a problem staying up til midnight and shelling out 60 bucks just to play the latest version of computer-generated football on our XBOXes and PS3s. [Maddenites, you know who you are.]



And that's not even counting our growing obsession with Fantasy Football. And I'm no innocent there either -- our Raytonia Beach League is in its third season, we're holding our live draft Sunday at the 65TPT World Headquarters/Secret Lair. I'll do my best to keep you updated.