I wasn’t planning on it. In fact, it kind of caught me by surprise because I didn’t even realize what I was doing before it was too late. Cassandra spent most of the NBC Kickoff Show (the 30 minutes before the first game of the NFL Season) in the shower, and when she got out, I found myself having to tell her everything that she missed while she was gone, because there were too many notable events that couldn’t go unmentioned.
All of the sudden I had a pretty good start to a running diary, and we hadn’t even seen John Madden in action yet. At this point, I felt deeply obligated to fire up the laptop and keep a spontaneous running diary of the 2007 NFL Season Opener.
8:04 PM – Kelly Clarkson kicks off the night by singing her new song and although officially I don’t care, secretly I’m thrilled. Cassandra is in the shower and misses me doing my Kelly singing voice as I watch. She’ll be disappointed.
8:09 PM – Cassandra is out, and just as I expected, she’s devastated when she finds out I did the voice without her.
8:10 PM – John Mellencamp is now performing on the field… A song from many many years ago.
8:11 PM – Mellencamp is drunk! He’s slurring his speech and not even singing the right words to his most popular song ever. Apparently along with the line “I was born in a small town” it now includes “My wife was 13 years old when I wrote this.” The song came out before I was born and I still know all the words. How did he forget? It was probably all the Ford-juice.
8:17 PM – Back outside for a performance by Faith Hill. The song? “This Kiss.” Because when I think football, I think Faith Hill and “This Kiss.” Also, why don’t the girls get to perform inside? Because it’s football? Probably.
8:20 PM – A commercial break, and guess what’s back for the 2007 season. That’s right, The Ford truck “Oooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuur Cooooooouuuuuuuuuntry” song. Kill me now. Actually, you know what? I’m starting a count for the season to see how many times while watching football I hear that song. That’s one.
8:22 PM – They have Mellencamp introduce the Colts as they run through a giant Super Bowl ring. When they had the meeting to decide who should introduce the champs, I think it started with “I think we should just have Mellencamp do it.” Then someone else said, “I guess. But only if he’s really wasted.”
8:23 PM – Mellencamp: “Luddesengent Men: Yurrr Soup Bull Champins… … … … The Indinaplis Cuuuuuuuulllts!”
8:25 PM – The Colts unveil their championship banner… And it actually gets unveiled. Here’s the part where the Mavericks staff needs to take out their notebooks.
8:28 PM – Rich Eisen announces “It’s football season!” He forgets to add “uhhh… you know… right after this commercial”
8:30 PM – Pink has apparently been demoted from the NBC Sunday Night Football theme, because some random girl is singing it right now, and my guess is Kelly Clarkson because she’s got the Clarkson-flab on her arms. Cassandra is doing the research.
8:31 PM – Turns out it’s Faith Hill. Maybe now my sister will like football. Also might be worth doing some arm workouts for Faith.
8:33 PM – John Madden appearance number one of the regular season! Another year crazier for Madden. His opening line about the Colts, “Football is what they do. Manning is what they do. Harrison is what they do. They just play the game.” I don’t even need a joke for that.
8:37 PM – “Our Country.” That’s two. First time Cassandra sang along with it even though she declared “I hate that freaking song.”
8:38 PM – Peyton Manning makes his first two commercial appearances in back to back commercials. Nothing has changed since last year it seems. Also, neither was funny.
8:40 PM – My new kicker, Olindo Mare, is about to make his debut with the Breaded Veal Cutlers by kicking off to start the game. Good luck this season Olindo.
8:41 PM – Happy football season, everyone.
8:41 PM – On the first play of the game Joeseph Addai just got nailed and hasn’t gotten up yet. I just clapped excitedly as all the idiots that took him 4th overall in all my fantasy drafts just let out a collective “Oh s—!”
8:44 PM – The NBC down / to go graphic that they overlay on the field is a big tear drop. I’m not a fan.
8:48 – Turns out the Saints new tight end LEFT San Francisco because (as Al Michaels noted) “They want tight ends to do more receiving in New Orleans.” Given the reputation of each city, I find that pretty hard to believe.
8:53 PM – Not a great start to the season for Mare on the Breaded Veal Cutlers. He misses a 53 yarder wide left. Be careful, Olindo… I only have 1 kicker roster spot and there are plenty of others available. If you think I won’t drop you after week one, just keep missing field goals.
8:54 PM – Manning commercial number four of the night. This one without Reggie bush.
8:58 PM – Madden names Marvin Harrison “One of my favorite wide receivers in the NFL because of the way he plays.” This, of course, is a follow up comment to when he was doing Cowgirls games in the 90′s and named Michael Irvin, “One of my favorite wide receivers in the NFL because of the drugs he chooses to do.”
9:01 PM – Manning to Harrison for the first six points of the 2007 season. I’d like to say I am excited but I’m not really because it’s still three more days until the Broncos play. Things just won’t be as fun until then.
9:04 PM – Does a kid pretending to be Peyton Manning in a commercial count as a Manning commercial? I say yes. Tack it on.
9:07 PM – One of the most exciting plays in football. Drew Brees just caught his own pass on a deflection and almost picked up a first down, but ended up a couple yards short. We should get to bet on this stuff in Vegas, like “Quarterback with the most receiving yards” or “Player to first expose himself in an obscene touchdown celebration.”
9:10 PM – End of the quarter. This seems like a good time to mention that this season of Last Comic Standing has sucked bigtime. Only two of the final eight are even remotely funny (Gerry Dee and that girl) and the one guy that I hate the most is in the final three (John Reap). John Reap should be serving fries somewhere, but I’m convinced that he’s got his immediate family voting for him, which must include everyone in Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi, each of which is both a sister, a parent, and a cousin. Seriously, I would like to see him do that stupid head shake once and have an aneurysm, fall down and start flopping on the stage as everyone fake-laughed at him thinking it was part of his act, until blood starts to overflow off the front of the stage and the audience realizes what is really happening and then change to real-laughing hysterically at him because everyone secretly hates him, but since NBC, on their moral high horse, won’t rig the show to get the guy thrown off even if he’s single handedly tanking an entire season of one of their most popular shows. I hate bad comedians.
9:19 PM – “Our Country” number three. This one was a shortened version but it still counts. And what’s more, I just heard them say “Chevy” at the end. Is it really a Chevy commercial? For the last two years I’ve been thinking it was Ford. Hmm, maybe the “Lame song where we never mention our product” has kind of backfired. I can’t be the only one who has made that mistake. Fortunately, I didn’t end up with a non-patriotic truck.
9:23 PM – For the record, at this point the score of the game is 7-7, with Manning throwing both touchdown passes, and the score in both of my fantasy leagues is 1-0 Cutlers with Olindo Mare scoring the only point on the board.
9:25 PM – Our Country: The long version. Four. This is the one where they show people playing football and sing about our country.
9:37 PM – Andrea Kramer just grouped Tony Dungy winning the Super Bowl with Martin Luther King and desegregating school systems on the racial progress list. I think we may need to take a step back and think it over for a minute next time we decide to give her a microphone.
9:39 PM – Tony Homo stars in a Pepsi commercial which basically sucks, except that he gets drilled by a Giants player at the end. Basically, the story is that the Cowgirls coaching staff has no idea what they’re doing, the players have to idea what they’re doing, the team is in general disarray and it ends with Homo getting drilled and (I assume) fumbling a crucial kick hold later in the game.
9:43 PM – The first Saints penalty is a false start with 4:25 left in the first half, which leads us to this week’s “Guess the ref betting on the outcome” game. This is also a good time to mention that the NBA preseason starts in about a month.
9:46 PM – The two minute warning in the first half brings us “Our Cooooooouuuuuuuuntry” number five. This one is the medium length version, I think. They really do have about four different versions of this commercial which are all equally annoying.
9:47 PM – I just did the math. Assuming four game slots per week (early, late, Sunday night, Monday night) and about four more thrown in over the course of a 17-week season, and five “Our Country” commercials per half, we’re on pace to see that commercial 720 times in the next five months. That doesn’t include playoffs. Fortunately for me, I’m taking blood thinners so when I decide to slit my wrist after number 325, I’ll bleed to death quicker.
9:58 PM – An odd play towards the end of the half ends with an “illegal touching” penalty which is without a doubt the dirtiest sounding penalty in football. I’d much rather be “Unneccesarily roughed” than “Illegally touched.”
10:00 PM – Halftime. 10-10, 4-0. 4-0. NBC just promo’d their new fall shows. I won’t watch Heroes because towards the end of last season it got sucky and I was bored every time I watched it. Journey Man could be good, but chances are I won’t get to see it because TiVo doesn’t have it on the list of programs available to record yet and who knows what the odds are that I’ll remember before the show actually starts which leads to me remembering after the second episode and thinking “Screw it, I don’t want to have to get caught up” and blowing off the show entirely. All of this was set to J-Lo’s new song “Doin’ it well” which is very catchy and might be my current favorite song to listen to in my car with the windows up, but change the station with the windows down.
10:05 PM – Toyota’s ad campain: “Our trucks have breaks!” Good one.
10:09 PM – Costas just set up Tiki Barber to take a shot at Eli Manning during the halftime show, but he did the “Wait until Sunday to see what I say” thing, which means it probably won’t be that exciting. I think we need Eli and Tiki both on the NBC show. That way both the Giants and NBC are better.
10:16 PM – Bill Parcells has joined the Coors Light fake press conference rotation. I think only good things can come from this.
10:18 PM – They just did a feature on Peyton Manning getting a hospital named after him. Ugh. That’s not necessary. Name a street or a stadium after him. What has he ever done for the medical community?
10:21 PM – Madden explains a blocking rule: “If you start your block in a legal position and end it in an illegal position, it’s legal.” The same cannot be said for certain other, umm, things.
10:25 PM – Addai scores a 2 yard touchdown and flashes a gang sign with both hands. I’m sure that made Roger Godell really happy. I guess if anyone calls him on it, he can just explain that in this league if you kill dogs you get suspended, but if you kill people they don’t really care all that much.
10:35 PM – Peyton Manning just left one of his wideouts out to dry, hanging a pass high over the middle. The receiver made the catch and then got hammered in the ribs by the DB as he caught the ball. Of course, Madden follows that up with “This is what Peyton Manning does so well. The play action pass.” Yeah, you know, when he’s not getting his receivers injured.
10:37 PM – Indy goes up 24-10 on a Reggie Wayne TD catch. Sixty nine yards in four plays on that drive which culminated with Manning waving his arms around like a retarted four year old in celebration.
10:41 PM – Quote from Al Michaels on the Saints possession: “Deuce squeezes through the middle.” No further comment.
10:45 PM – An on-camera with Madden and Michaels in the booth that I can’t even come close to explaining, but it involved Madden trying to measure stuff with his hands, his eyes getting huge while looking at his hands, and then about six of those Madden-esque laughs that cannont be mimiced.
10:48 PM – Brees just threw an interception. He must not realize that Olindo Mare is hanging on by a thread with my fantasy team at this point. If he doesn’t come up with another FG or two, he may not be here next week.
10:54 PM – The Colts get a field goal off the Saints turnover, leading me to think that bed is a good option since the score is 27-10. There weren’t even any good commercials on during that timeout break.
11:00 PM – I’m going to bed, feeling good because finally, I have that safe feeling that I’ll never be alone on a Sunday for the next five months. Cassandra turns off the light, gets into bed and says, “I love you.”
I respond, “I love you too, football.”