I liken the return of football to childbirth. In February, in the last seconds of the Super Bowl, the realization sets in that the five-month season is over. This awareness can bring pain and sadness and complete despair over how will the off-season be survived?
Depending where you live, you shovel, you sweat and you wait. And then one week your husband goes to his fantasy draft. He comes home in equal parts excitement and disappointment over which players he snatched from the other teams in a fight to the death and those who got away, respectively.
Then it is opening weekend and he’s actually up early, flipping back and forth between channels discussing the day’s games. He’s on his iPad making sure the best team for the week is in place. As Sunday goes on he is constantly checking his phone if we dare to be away from a TV. Monday he is in a tizzy because he has one player in the game that evening while his opponent has two and there is only a 15-point margin between the two teams’ scores.
And just like that we are back in the delivery room, giving birth to another NFL and fantasy league season. He has forgotten the suffering of last season and so have I. But with Week 1 upon us, it all comes rushing back. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Living and dying with each play. It’s a bouncing baby football season. Daddy and the newborn are doing great. Mommy not so much.
