On Wednesday night, fate smiled on this blogger as I was given a random opportunity to go to the Redskins-Steelers preseason game. A girl I work with had an extra ticket and asked me not thinking I’d really say yes. Little does she know that I’d be willing to put up with someone I’ve talked to 10 minutes total in our time on the project together for 4+ hours in order to watch a meaningless preseason game. She severely underestimated my need for football, alcohol and a diversion from the soul crushing job I have. Ha, I just put down $300 in order to join a pool just so I can have a rooting interest in every game every week (I’m a little too excited about this. 4 points riding on the Texans-Titans showdown in late December? Sure why not). I’d electrocute a dog for some preseason tickets at this point. She tried one more time to get out of it by saying, “Just to warn you, I’ll probably be smashed the entire time.” Like this would dissuade me even a little. She really doesn’t know me. Anyway, I feel the need to write about this game without giving any indication as to my true scouting I did (must keep absolute secrecy until Labor Day weekend and the fantasy draft).
Kick off is at 8, arriving to tail gate at 4, meeting said co-worker at 3, let’s start drinking at 2. I went with the choice of straight Jack because at this point, I’m fairly certain I cannot get drunk off of beer that is less than 7%. The thought of being stuck with cheap light beer (a likely choice) scares me some what, so I feel the need to pregame a 4 hour pregame. I might have a bit of a drinking problem.
Forgot to mention that this co-worker is a Steelers fan, as are the rest of the people I’ll be attending with. Why God chose to taunt me by constantly putting me around Steeler fans is beyond me. I’m still bitter about the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets playoff loss in 2004 and half of my friends that I talk football with are now Steeler fans. I don’t know how this is possible since I’ve never been within 200 miles of Pittsburgh.
I will say this though, I do respect Steeler fans. I’d say 35% of the crowd was wearing black and yellow and Redskins fans are pretty hardcore. Just a tremendous fan base that is destined to piss me off.
At least this co-worker is one of the few females who can actually talk football with. There’s one in my office who considers herself a die-hard Broncos fan who asked me “How many cornerbacks do teams have?” (This did lead to my favorite quote of the off-season. I told her that they picked up Dre Bly and she asked me why since they already have Champ Bailey. Without hesitation, I replied, “Because your other one was killed in a drive by shooting.” I still don’t know if I should feel guilty about that quote.)
Of course, it wouldn’t be like me to just have seats fall into my lap. No, these seats had to be awful, even though we were in the lower level. It was in the last 10 rows of the lower level, so the upper level was overhanging us. I could not see the scoreboard without moving my head three feet. Added onto that was the fact that there was a pole directly in front of us. I couldn’t see one of the end zones. I thought they did away with those things in modern stadiums. This isn’t the old Boston Garden.
Despite my awful luck again, I wasn’t too upset. The one thing about preseason games is that there is absolutely no urgency. I was just there to drink beers and watch football. It could have been a high school game for all I cared.
The one person who didn’t get the memo that it was a preseason game was the guy sitting next to us. After Jason Campbell got hurt, he was screaming at the D Lineman to die. That’s right, he telling another man he should fear for his life during a freakin’ preseason game. This wouldn’t have been warranted if Campbell has torn his ACL, never mind just a bruised knee.
The girl I was with went to Penn State, so we started talking about those games. I could talk to anyone from a major college telling me about their football experiences. I really regret going to a school with no football team. Two Thanksgivings ago, I almost berated my cousin who went to Florida for how good she had it. I held back because I felt bad for spending half of Thanksgiving dinner texting my brother back and forth as to the quality of education Florida had. We both laughed out loud at the table when someone commented on the difficultly getting into that school was. I think the best line my brother had was, “I could get into UF doing my SATs and application drunk while getting my dick sucked.” I commented back “Bullshit, the hardest part in that is keeping it up for the entire SATs, not the actual application.” And him and I wonder why the rest of our family looks at us weird.
After getting enough in me, thoughts like this started running through my head: “OK Barney, you might have a chance tonight. However, would this help or hurt your chances of her hooking you up with Penn St-Notre Dame tickets that she talked about earlier?” I’m pathetic. I was more concerned with getting hooked up with tickets rather than pussy. And you wonder why I was recently told I’d be 35 and single if I didn’t change. Oh well, that’s nothing some bourbon won’t cure.
Anyway, this was all for naught as our ride back (a couple that she was friends with) decided A) it was a good time to get in a fight and not talk to each other and B) to put a chair in the middle of the backseat. Because plastic chairs are a tremendous aphrodisiac. I’m now getting cock-blocked by inanimate objects. Lovely.
Ok, I think that’s it. I woke up Sunday, decided that I didn’t want to deal with the hangover on Sunday, so I started drinking at 10:30 and put off the hangover til Monday. (that fuck you that you just heard was from my liver).
I guess I have to concede that the Free Ookie campaign is done. Since he’s done with the Falcons, I guess I’m going to start pushing my other big idea…that he not play quarterback. Some team should sign him for the minimum and use him how the Jets use Brad Smith. You will not be disappointed. Peter King touched on two things today that made sense. 1. He re-ran his comments after Vick’s playoff game in Green Bay. I remember watching that game thinking I was watching the future of football. Now, it’ll just be a reminder of lost potential. 2. A lot more attention is being paid to Vick than Darrent Williams’s death. Because apparently people care more about cruelty to dogs than humans. And for the record I had the idea of putting him at running back on Sunday and didn’t get it from this article.
I’m not ready to discuss Chad Pennington’s performance on Friday night. Two interceptions for touchdowns had me hitting the bottle even harder on Friday. Please have the regular season start soon so I don’t have to worry about games that don’t matter.
And finally, Steeler fans might have a recent championship and travel all over to support their team, but they have the gayest mascot ever…Steely McBeam:
http://news.steelers.com/article/79593/
That’s the gayest thing since gay went to Gaytown. It reminds me of that time on The Simpsons where Homer finds out that the whole steel industry is gay. I wish I hadn’t been too drunk to remember finding out about ol’ Steely last week. I would have gotten my ass kicked but laughed my ass off. I feel almost redeemed from the playoff loss a few years ago.
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