University of Alabama Football Report for 8/25/06

I live in an NFL town. Oh, a hockey team plays here, too – when the arena’s not occupied by American Idol tryouts or Vince Gill and Amy Grant’s latest holiday special (Speaking of which, they claim that although they fell in love while both married to other people, they did not consummate their relationship until married to each other. Great, so Amy Grant’s not just a dreadful singer and a home wrecker, she’s also a tease). But no one other than the people forced to live here by the NHL play hockey in this town because this is an NFL town.

I live in an NFL town. Oh, the local university fields a team, but no one gives a shit. They play in the best conference in the nation and are perennially the worst team in said conference. If this school had a top-three NFL prospect quarterback, I bet they wouldn’t even have a winning—uh, never mind. Anyway, all the moral victories in the world don’t matter to the locals. After all, this is an NFL town.

I live in an NFL town. No, we don’t have an NBA team. The NBA team is on the other side of the state but it might as well be on the other side of the planet. Their games aren’t covered here. It would be a waste of airtime because this is an NFL town.

I live in an NFL town. Alas, the NFL team is not very good. But being bad is good because it means we can discuss the draft. Bad teams do very well in the draft. There was talk that perhaps that quarterback from the local university would play for our NFL team, but no. The NFL team took the quarterback from the national championship team, but he will not play. Apparently, one does not become as good as Mike Tomczak or Trent Dilfer overnight (just for fun, Google the phrase “mediocre NFL quarterback” and guess whose name is the first you’ll see?).

I live in an NFL town so I am familiar with the same four variations of the West Coast offense played by all NFL teams. And I wonder if the people who cheer for the NFL team in my NFL town will still cheer for them when the NFL moves their team to Los Angeles, since someone has to move to Los Angeles. Besides, many of those people don’t bother learning the names of the players on their town’s team anyway because those players may be in other towns next season, other NFL towns. The only players they remember are the ones on their fantasy teams because it doesn’t matter which NFL town you’re in when you’re talking about a fantasy team. In fact, I doubt it matters which NFL town you’re in, period.

I know men who can name the third-string back up center on an Alabama squad from ten years ago but I know no one who plays fantasy football for college teams. College football is its own fantasy league and it starts next week.

Roll Tide.