Football '14 Week 8: One Last Chance.

       Well, I am on the road again.  I have spent the last few days here in New Orleans drinking too much and meeting celebrities and now, finally, it is game day. 

I am ready for a do-or-die game against the Packers on Sunday Night Football; I really will be waiting all day for Sunday Night...

You might look at that photo and wonder what is draped across my tickets...

Somehow, I forgot my lucky stadium day helmet (I blame leaving at 4am on Thursday).  So I had to improvise and yesterday I came across this glorious thing at the Black and Gold Shop in Metarie.  And I must say, it makes me look fabulous.  Besides, what fun is football without silly hats?

At 2-4, the Saints need this win in the worst way.  In a poor division, 9-7 could easily mean a playoff spot.  If they do find a way to blow this game as they have so many this season, I do have a back-up plan.

I got a hatbox full of junk wax cards to go through (gotta love the antique shops in this town), which, after a drink or three, should yield some amusing results.  But I hope it doesn't come to that.  I want a dominating win followed by an evening of late night decadence.  Luckily in New Orleans, it is hard to tell the victory celebrations from the defeated drownings. 

Football '13 Week 6: Road Trip! (Cancelled).

       When the schedule came out earlier this year, I got very excited at the prospect of the Saints playing the Patriots.  This match up doesn't happen very often - every four years to be specific.  Plus, since it was an away game, it gave me the rare opportunity to see the Saints close to home as Foxboro is barely a three hour drive from the house.  Not to mention that New England in October is quite the spectacle to behold, nature wise.  I was psyched.  I was all set to get gouged on StubHub and make the trip.

       And then my brother and sister in law decided to have a child.  This fact is kind of a big deal as it is the first of the new generation in my family.  They like children and are far more god-fearing than I am and in that, they decided to have the Christening this weekend.  I love football but family comes first, so I begrudgingly gave up my road trip to southern Massachusetts and instead I am headed in the other direction this morning, on my way to Pennsylvania.  I am not looking forward to a morning in church but ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.  It helps that the kid is absolutely adorable.  

So in honor of my aborted trip, here are the 1998 Bowman Interstate Parallels.  Baseball used the international theme and flags but since 99.9% of football players are from the United States, they used state maps instead:

And as a delightful bonus, on the back they put a mocked state license plate with a position or player appropriate pun (check out that Rickey Dudley):

One of the best parts of a road trip is finding these on other people's cars and chuckling, groaning, or trying to figure out what the hell they are trying to say. 

I liked these silly cards so much, I made two pages, one of veteran players and one of rookies:

1998 had a great rookie class, granted, these are some of the lesser lights. 

The silver lining to the day is that it is a late afternoon game, so all of the church nonsense and most of the family hobnobbing will be done by the time kickoff, um, kicks off at 4:25 (not to mention my brother has a much much bigger TV than anyone else I know).  So rather than getting pelted with objects in the upper deck of Gillette Stadium, I'll get to have seconds of a catered spread in the comfort of my brother and SIL's living room while watching the game.  Hmmmm, maybe they did me a favor?

I'm Not Ready For Some Football.

       Who's bright idea was it to open the season on a Thursday night?  The NFL continues to be both the smartest and dumbest professional sports league possible.  Anyway, I may or may not be able to watch the kickoff of the Ravens/Broncos game this evening because I am currently somewhere is Tennessee, driving down to New Orleans for their opening game Sunday Afternoon.

A football game that kicks off at noon? On a Sunday? Who ever heard of such a crazy thing?  There might be some travel dispatches if something interesting happens between then and now, otherwise, you are on your own while I kick back and eat and drink in the Big Easy.  Who dat!

Football Week 12: Another Road Trip.

       Last January, the Saints were feeling very altruistic in the first quarter of their playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers and decided to spot them 17 points right off the bat by fumbling and generally not playing any defense.  Then remembering that this was not only a league game but a playoff game, the Saints ripped off 32 points in three quarters but it was not enough.  They fell to the Niners 36-32 in a wild, borderline insane game.  Needless to say, this game left a very bad taste in my mouth, so when the schedule came out this spring, I immediately circled the game as the one I wanted to get to in person. Now, I did have a serendipitous trip to New Orleans in October, when I saw the first win of the year.  But this is the one I have wanted from the beginning.  This is payback. 

I have a bunch of 49ers cards from the heyday of the team in the 80's and 90's.  I kinda want to burn them right now.

Here is a bunch of random Joe Montana cards.  I hope the Saints send whomever starts at QB for the Niners to a place where he can see John Candy too.

Montana was the first player honored as an Upper Deck Football Hero:

Now he shills for Sketchers on the most awkward commercials possible. 

Jerry Rice is one of, if not the greatest, wide receiver of all time:

He also lost on Dancing With The Stars and is one of the most unwatchable faces during all the ESPN football shows.

Rice never played a regular season game for the Broncos.  That is a marvelous zero year card.  That is a genuine Rice rookie card in the center there.  It also has a big ass crease across it.

Watching Steve Young on TV makes me sad:

Here is a man with a law degree, a 150 IQ, and one of the rarest commodities in sports commentating, common sense.  Watching him as the other talking heads bandy about banal nonsense is like watching Albert Einstein referee a cockfight.

I will be in my usual seat up in the Superdome, section 610 row 35 seat 24.  As you can probably tell from the high row number and section, they are not the best seats in the world, but trust me: they really are. Who Dat!

Football Week 5: Road Trip!

       The glorious autumn weekend finds me in Indiana for a wedding, and, since I'm about halfway there anyway, driving down to New Orleans for this evening's Saints-Chargers game to utilize the family's season tickets. 

This will be my first live game of the season and with any luck, it will bring good fortune to the Saints since the first 4 games of the season have gone about as poorly as they could have without the team bus driving off a cliff.  I will be up in section 610 screaming our boys on (as though they could hear me from such a distance) and drinking to excess to either drown my sorrows or celebrate our first victory.  And, as an added bonus, I might see a little esoteric history if Drew Brees throws a touchdown, since that will be his 48th straight game with a TD pass; that will best Johnny Unitas' 50-something year old record in that regard...take that Joe DiMaggio!

Oh, and please go read this post; it is probably the best thing I have written on this blog.  Who Dat!