FOOTBALL IS BACK!!!!

It is my little tradition on this blog to re-post this article every opening day of training camp. (Yes, I realize I totally stole this idea of "re-posting favorite articles" from Bill Simmons, but I have some new readers who probably never saw this previously.) Of course, some things have changed since the original posting of this article on 7/20/06. The Phils are actually an honest to goodness contender and the Flyers gave us an amazing run in this year's playoffs. As such, I'm not as desperate for football in July 2008 as I was July 2006, but it is awfully close.

Just today, I was walking around the office with a big smile on my face after spending 1o minutes talking about college football with a friend at work. Another co-worker stopped me and asked "what the hell are you smiling about?" All I could say is, "I just realized football is back and I'll have something to look forward to again." Unfortunately, I'm that simple a creature.

Now, onto one of my favorite posts:

Finally, football has returned to the sporting landscape and not a moment too soon in this God forsaken sports city.

After being forced to live through the Flyers' spectacular flameout over the last two games of their opening round playoff series and the Phils' catastrophic first half of the season, I need football, you need football, we ALL need football back in our sporting lives. Football is just flat out, a better sport than the other options.

As the TV ratings for Nascar have proven, the one game per week model translates into tremendous anticipation and excitement. Just about every week, I can't wait to wake up on a Sunday and turn on the pre game shows and read my Sunday paper. Since gambling and fantasy leagues are much easier and more fun for football, just about every game per week interests me. Plus, football is by far the best televised sport. It's the only sport that my buddies and I get together for to watch over some wings and beer. Even the weather during football season is more pleasant. Very simply, football completes me.

As my man Colin Cowherd of ESPN Radio said the other day, "we're all football fans at heart and just pretend to care about baseball and basketball until football returns." This statement pertains to pretty much every sports fan I know except my buddies, the Hayes Brothers, who have decided to live their lives as if we were still in the 40's when the NFL didn't matter. I feel sorry for them. They don't know what they're missing.

Plus, with the dawning of camp, we are thankfully about to be rescued from the most blah sports month of the year where all we have is our ridiculous local baseball franchise to occupy our time. Every baseball season, all I ask of the Phils is to bridge the gap from the end of hockey season until the beginning of football season, but once again, the Phils have failed to even fulfill that simple task.

Now that my good friend Football has returned to my life, I'm a happy camper, but we've got a lot to catch up on. So if you other sports don't mind, please excuse us for the next seven months as we get reacquainted.