Caring Less About The NFL

The Ball Of Diminishing Returns

Well, folks, I'm breaking no news by calling tonight's MNF game an epic turdburger where the Packers got jobbed like nobody's business: all you need to have learned that is a pair of functioning eyes and an IQ that's above room temperature.

And I also know that I'm not going to stop watching the games. I didn't stop watching the Eagles during the Bobby Hoying Era, and while the current team is even more maddening, I watch every snap. I'm in my 40s, I've been doing this for 35+ years, it's like breathing to me now.

Once a year I take my mom to a road game, and we always have a great time, win or lose. That's not stopping.

I run a fantasy football league with keepers, and I like my team even though they are in last place.

I've written a picks column for the lifetime of this blog, with every game getting a blurb.

I watch nearly a half dozen games a week, and have ponied up for the NFL Network to make sure I get the Thursday games.

I own, and wear, a jersey on game days.

I am, in short, a lifer, an addict, and bad refs aren't going to change that.

Also, as badly as they were done by the refs tonight, the Pack still put themselves in a position to get jobbed. They had a fourth down chance to stop Marshawn Lynch to salt the game away and failed. They missed on a 2-point conversion that would have gotten them overtime after the abomination call. They nearly fumbled the game away with old friend Cedric Benson deep in their own territory, and had they not spent the first half neglecting the running game and short passes, this game isn't close enough to get stolen.

But, well, winning road games is tough under the best of circumstances, and it's a lot harder when the refs blow the call live and on replay, after multiple phantom calls that got them to this point. And it's just not something I want to care this much about any more.

So I'll still pick, and track, but won't bet. At least, not until the real refs come back. And maybe that leads itself to less devotion on other matters.

Besides, the NBA season starts in a month.

And my NFL fantasy team is already 100 points in the hole, and my Eagles are their usual fraud...