Are you ready for some football? If your answer is a resounding ‘No’ then you may be familiar with the reference ‘football widow.’ The expression ‘football widow’ refers to spouses/relations of football fans who become invisible to their families from September to January. As a fan, your man must follow the 17-week NFL schedule. There will be multiple football games that he must watch, listen and talk about. This schedule does not include the draft, pre-season games, post-season playoffs and the bowl games. And, for fear that so many hours of NFL coverage does not satiate your man’s appetite for football there is also, the fantasy league. What’s that you ask, some sort of continuous dream about football - you can bet on that and more.
Fantasy football enables fans to take a personal role in professional football. It introduces a significant investment of time and mental energy used to create a winning roster of players that are drafted from actual NFL talent. These leagues apparently increase the enjoyment of the sport while sustaining the ‘football widow’ aspect of the scenario. With this fantasy association fans transform from enthusiastic spectators to owners/managers of their own football team. Teams choose a starting lineup and compete between various teams in their league every week. With this additional element added to the mix, interest in a favorite team expands to interest in every game and all the players. Fantasy football also usually includes prize winnings - both monetary and bragging rights - instant messenger pop-ups for talking smack and time consuming research on the actual performance of all the NFL players.
Is football season payback for Lucy tricking Charlie Brown in all those Peanuts comics and television specials? Maybe. Even so, many modern women have discovered a number of ways to cope with their men during the NFL season. They include doing something else while football is on, bicker or whine about the reduced time your man spends with you during the season, or try to learn the game.
If you choose to leave your man alone during his addiction, you get time to explore the wonders of nature, sales at the mall, a movie with your gal pals, a cup of java at the local café, or practically any selfish interest you desire. It is important to develop independent interests so that while your man watches the game, you can do something that you enjoy. There is acceptance, respect and some compromise when partners can embrace unique interests and can accommodate each other’s desires and not feel shafted. And you might be surprised that on the occasional Sunday afternoon you may even choose to root for the home team.
Those that choose to stick around on game day are in for a rude awakening. Quarrelling about leaving the toilet seat up would probably be less frustrating and more practical than trying to talk a man out of watching football on a Sunday afternoon. If you desire to have a weekend with your hubby without football, a word to the wise, plan ahead of time and make trade offs. Plan to do things together in the morning, so that your man can start watching football at 1pm. Trade offs may be tricky to juggle since in one’s busy life there are limited times in the course of a week that a couple can engage in activities together therefore not leaving game day to be the day of togetherness and harmony. By the end of October, if you find cobwebs connecting your man to the coffee table and the television, don’t bother to dust; it will make Halloween freakier.
Now for those of you that enjoy watching the sport, those cheerleaders out there, consider yourself lucky because 35 games highlight the primetime schedule and about the same number are covered nationally on daytime television. Also, for all you that love the uniforms and the tradition and know some players and plays, then you are going to enjoy the time spent with the males that are ready to pump fists, track statistics and shout at the television. I can’t tell if female followers really love the game or if they are attempting to not allow some exclusive male territory. But the season is long and there is plenty of time to learn if that is what interests you.
So as football season begins to hit its stride, I plan to use my Sunday afternoons to buy new shoes, complete my Christmas shopping, and tune up my guitar. By the time February roles around, it will be interesting to meet my man at the end of the season to see what he has won.
