Ten on Tuesday

Ten Reasons to Watch Football

1. It's like wizard chess with much brawnier pieces.
   
2. It makes a nice change from baseball. Grant is a huge fan of baseball, any game, anywhere, (almost) any level, and, while I like baseball — except for not being able to watch close games while the Sox are in contention, which, fortunately for my fingernails, is no longer the case — it's not the only sport in the world.
   
3. In just about every game, you will see something that is physically impossible. Granted, this is true of every sport — think of the famous Swoboda catch or "Havlicek stole the ball" — but just watching Randy Moss catch a ball floating 20 feet over his head (I exaggerate only slightly) is nearly worth the price of admission.
   
4. You can get a lot of knitting done during commercials.
   
5. You can get a lot of knitting done between plays.
   
6. Not to mention halftime. Recently someone analyzed a typical football broadcast and concluded that only 9 percent of it involves actual playing of football. That's a lot of knitting time; I feel justified in letting it take up three of my ten entries.
   
7. In just about every game, you will see a call so bad you can hardly believe your eyes. Again, this is not unique to football (memo to Bud Selig: give the kid his perfect game already), but watching it happen, waiting for the challenge, and seeing if the challenge will succeed makes for great theater.
   
8. There is also the possibility that Bill Belichick will once again demonstrate his encyclopedic, eidetic, maddeningly pedantic knowledge of the rule book. That assumes that you're watching a Patriots game, of course, but I can include this one because I usually am.
   
9. So-called sportscasting analysis is great fun. "Now, leading 10-7 in the fourth quarter, what the Patriots really don't want to have happen here is for the Colts to march down the field and into the red zone." Seriously? I would never have figured that out. (The baseball version of this is, "Down 3-1 in the ninth and with a man on first, the Yankees will bring the tying run to the plate." If you are down by two runs and have a man on base, by definition every man you bring to the plate represents the tying run. Any baseball fan over the age of three knows this without being told. Stop trying to wind up the tension already — see fingernails above.)
   
10. Reading about it afterward makes a lot more sense if you've watched the game. Of course I only want to read about it if my team won, but if they did I want to enjoy the rehash.