“Are you watching ANOTHER game?! Who is playing this time?!”
Those of us who take in a lot of TV football have heard those two questions more times than we can count from our significant others, our parents, our grandparents and even our dear, loving Aunt Mildred, who selflessly gave up her nightly viewing of “Wheel of Fortune” so we could watch our games.
But why do we watch so much football?
It is to see if we’re lucky enough – and if the football gods are benevolent enough to allow us — to have a season like this one in which the two best games were the two biggest games.
It never seems to happen like that, when both the Super Bowl and the college football national championship contest – obviously the two most significant games of the year – are also the two best games. Either the Super Bowl is a dud or the college final fizzles, or vice versa.
But his time the stars were all aligned in just the right way for both to be not just the best games of the year at their levels, but among the best in history.
It started on Jan. 9 when Clemson defeated Alabama 35-31 on essentially the last play of game – there was one second left – as Deshaun Watson threw a two-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Hunter Renfrow.
Then last Sunday night, one day short of being exactly a month later, the New England Patriots edged the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in overtime on another two-yard TD on the final play, this time on a run by James White.
The Patriots rallied from 25 points down with two minutes left in the third quarter.
The Tigers trailed Alabama by 10 points heading into the fourth quarter.
Folks, it doesn’t get any better than that.
And the best part of this is that none of it was scripted. It wasn’t some “Survivor” episode.
It happened on its own, out of the clear blue. You couldn’t have turned in scripts like the ones that played out in these two games because the producers would have laughed you right out of the building.
Two trite. Two unbelievable. Too cheesy. Too contrived.
Perhaps so in most cases, but not this time – these two times, actually. It was real – they were real — and that’s what counts.
It is what makes sports, especially football, such must-see TV.
So the next time someone asks you why in the world you’re watching another football game, just tell them it’s because you just might see something special – something that people everywhere, in all walks of life, will be talking about for years.
