Butterfat, Nickelback and Fantasy Quarterbacks
By MIKE TANIER
The games start at 12:30 p.m., 4:15 p.m. and 8:20 p.m. Eastern. The turkey goes in the oven just after dawn. The family is told to arrive at 2 p.m. sharp, which means they come sometime between noon and Saturday. Thanksgiving is the holiday you set your watch to, especially if you are a football fan. Here is a minute-by-minute breakdown of Thursday’s festivities, on and off the field.
9 A.M. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade begins.Tim Burton’s B-Boy balloon bears a macabre resemblance to Albert Haynesworth as it sinks to the ground and refuses to budge.
10 A.M. Coverage on the NFL Network begins two and a half hours before kickoff. It is excessive, yet preferable to the Food Network’s “Making You Feel Inferior” marathon.
12:40 P.M. The Packers-Lions game began 10 minutes ago. Aaron Rodgers is your fantasy quarterback. You forgot to set your lineup, didn’t you? Tyler Palko is now your starter. The Packers are already leading, 14-0. And your in-laws just arrived. It is already time to open that second bottle of wine.
1:15 P.M. Uncle Lou, who has been grumpy since Aunt Ethel joined the Red Hat Society, stands up in the living room and announces the following conversation topics off-limits: Tony Romo, turducken, the sudden relevance of the Lions,“Twilight” movies, Clint Longley, the ever-earlier arrival of Santa Claus at the mall, the Red Hat Society and Ray Rice’s height. Everyone sits in uncomfortable silence for the next two and a half hours.
1:50 P.M. Nickelback begins its halftime performance. If you own an expensive home-theater system with surround sound, realistic bass reproduction and studio-caliber equalization, this is a good time to regret it.
1:58 P.M. Ndamukong Suh leaps from a Marshall amplifier stack and spears the lead singer of Nickelback in the kidney. Commissioner Roger Goodell pretends to be shuffling papers at his desk so he doesn’t notice.
3:35 P.M. The Lions-Packers game ends, as Lions games often do, in an ugly brawl. Such violence and naked aggression! What would the early settlers and American Indians think?
3:40 P.M. The set of “NFL Today” is so cluttered with faux-festive autumn decorations that it looks as if a tornado struck an A. C. Moore warehouse. Boomer Esiason becomes dangerously entangled in artificial leaf litter, and Bill Cowher must cut him out with a makeshift tool fashioned from a cornucopia and the beak of a plastic turkey.
3:50 P.M. A final basting mixture of butter, honey, herbs and aromatics is applied to Jerry Jones’s cheeks.
4:21 P.M. The meal it took seven and a half hours to prepare is consumed in six minutes, which is just enough time for Tony Romo to throw two interceptions.
5:10 P.M. After gaining a total of 6 yards in his first 12 carries, Reggie Bush gains 15 yards on a reverse, to the delight of announcers who have been talking him up all game. “I will never forgive him for what he did to Kim Kardashian,” cousin Bernice says. Uncle Lou immediately adds the Kardashians to the banned topic list. Another hour of silence.
5:40 P.M. Your fantasy football season is ruined, your cholesterol is up 200 points, and your nieces and nephews are banging pie plates together throughout the house as if they were the Jackson State marching band. You are so stressed that even a single exciting event could trigger a coronary episode. Luckily, the Dolphins have the ball.
7:05 P.M. Dez Bryant leaves the Cowboys’ sideline midway through the fourth quarter. “Tomorrow is Black Friday,” he explains, “and I need to get to the mall by 5 a.m. so I can park in the fire lane and shop with my pants belted around my ankles.”
7:30 P.M. The Law of Conservation of Highlights states that as pregame shows expand and the number of games contracts, highlight reels begin to stretch to non-Newtonian lengths. You have now seen an early Aaron Rodgers touchdown so many times that it is more familiar to you than your reflection in the mirror.
8:35 P.M. It turns out that Thanksgiving with the Harbaugh family is more boring and tedious than Thanksgiving with your own family.
8:50 P.M. Your son and all of your nephews say they want Alex Smith jerseys for Christmas. You regret not taking advantage of that 6 for $10 sale on them you saw at the mall last year.
9:10 P.M. Late snack. You gnaw on a turkey leg. On the Ravens sideline,Ray Lewis gnaws on his own injured toe.
10:10 P.M. With the 49ers and the Ravens tied at 6-6 late in the third quarter and Mike Mayock spouting strategic jargon like a malfunctioning android, Brad Nessler starts screaming “Tim Tebow!” into the microphone in a vain effort to hold the nation’s attention.
11:30 P.M. As tryptophan, alcohol, butterfat and exhaustion start to overwhelm your consciousness, you drowsily reflect on how empty and strange Thanksgiving would have been if the N.F.L. labor dispute had left you without football to watch. You then realize that the N.B.A. lockout threatens the traditional Christmas basketball games, but figure it will probably not make much of a difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment