I used to give zero shits about football. I mean, I grew up playing sports, from baseball and basketball to tennis and Tae kwon do, but no one ever taught me football. My high school didn't have a football team. I heard it in the background sometimes, at my dad's house or on Thanksgiving, but again--no one ever explained it to me, so all I had were the stereotypes and an outsider's glance at what seemed to be mindless titans demonstrating elementary physics with their bodies down a field while a bunch of lunatics in the stands screeched and roared and screamed in bad drag. Well, this is my mea culpa . I was wrong. Football does indeed offer good physics lessons and there are lunatics and the drag is terrible, but football is freaking awesome. How can you NOT know about football? some people ask. I assumed my dad taught me nothing because it was a sport I couldn't play, which was true as a girl growing up in the 80s (and still true most places). When I asked him
Can I...can I really believe again? Two whole quarters of great football and the Broncos looked competent, even dominated the team that was supposed to blow them out of the water. 23-point lead at halftime? Maybe they CAN do this! ...then I remembered the way they've been playing in the second half. And they played the exact same way. And blew a 23-point lead. And lost. It was like the teams that left the field at the half switched places and reemerged in the others' uniforms. I don't know what bodysnatching, midwestern hocus pocus Minnesota summoned, but it worked, and in both directions. Dammit.