First Week of Football

Ah, what an interesting first week of football. Of utmost importance, los Gigantes de Nueva York beat the Arizona Cardinals 42-19. Six touchdowns! Eli Manning threw two (although he also threw two interceptions, which is why I'm glad he was on my fantasy team's bench).

Speaking of fantasy football, my Abalama Slammers scored the third-highest point total of the week in my league. Unfortunately, I was playing against the highest scoring team, so I am 0-1. Next week I play a team that also lost. This would normally be good, except the team belongs to one Ms N. Even if I win, I lose. Oh well, it should make for some interesting game-watching.

Back to the real game. Last night Jeremiah Trotter and Kevin Mathis got themselves eject from the game for getting into a fight. Ejections happen periodically during games. What made this different was this occured 35 minutes before the game! Oh, it made for some interesting pre-game commentary.

And for some other interesting commentary, Javon Walker of the Packers - a guy who was holding out from training camp in order to negotiate a better contract - suffered a season-ending injury in the third quarter of the first game. Much was made in the NFL during the off-season about Walker's holdout. Brett Favre broke the normal players' code of silence about other players' contract issues and spoke out against the way Javon was handling things. Superagent and slimemeister Drew Rosenhaus drew lots of attention for his negotiations involving Javon, as well as Eagle's wide receiver T. "Terrell Owens" O. and others. In the end, Javon declared that he was coming back to camp and was going to let his performance on the field prove to the Packers what he was really worth. Let's see ... he played 3/64ths of a season and made $500K+ ...

Actually, I feel for Javon. First - OW! Second, he is due a payday. However, in the world of football you do not renegotiate contracts until the final year. Next year the Pack would either trade him or pay him without hesitation. But this year - there's just too much time left on that existing deal. Now he runs the risk of getting himself cut at the end of the season simply because he hired a rat to represent him. And, if cut, he faces a much lower payday coming of an injury of this sort. He wanted to show himself the workhorse - now he's a mule.

It dawned on me that my favorite type of drama occurs in the world of sports. There is always something happening somewhere and between ESPN, Comcast Sportsnet, 610 WIP, the ol' watering hole, and the internets, there is always a place to go to get every different angle of the story. In a movie or book you get what the author gives you. In regular life, drama is attached with so many awful side-effects. But sports drama is different. It is fluid, yet static; close to home but safely removed. What fun.