150 Days of American Bliss, by Tyler Norris

Since my knowledge of football circulates primarily around the NCAA, I'll let my good buddy Tyler Norris break down the start of the 2009-2010 NFL season. For those of you who think this site is just about college football, let me throw out a simple quote from Howard Dean:

Byahhh!

(His on-point title also makes for a good follow up to the (500) Days of Summer review. I even thought of the unbearably corny title "After 500 Days of Summer comes 150 Days of American Bliss;" but as you will soon see, Tyler can actually write, whereas I can only ramble and come up with stupid titles.)

So now let's get to the goods...

150 Days of American Bliss
Tyler Norris

Today starts the greatest 5 months of the year. Yes, the 2009-2010 NFL season has commenced. And yes, that is 5 MONTHS of professional football. For those of you who think that that is too much, you must be a Yankee's fan or simply, Un-American. Super Bowl XLIV (or 43 for our non-Roman friends) is exactly 150 days away, which means that the NFL season is almost into the second week of February and that the Super-Duper-Extra-Special-Early-Bird Rate on hotels in South Florida is in effect.

American sports today has all become about the future. It ranges from betting on who will win the World Series to NFL Draft hype (where players will be effective in 3-5 years) or my personal favorite those tricky little March Madness brackets. The NFL is no different, we have football predictions or as we say in the industry, 'Pick 'Em's. This constitutes going through and picking each and every game each and every week. The winner of course being the person who correctly picks the most games out of the year (or usually who remembers to keep up with it each week).

The start of the NFL season is an exciting time for most sports fans. It is the start of spending over 8 hours in a bar in one day and not considered to “have a problem.” No, it is dozens of people wearing the jerseys of teams they love and worship. This is the greatest time in sports for most of the fans in this country, from the ASTRONOMICAL number of people who play Fantasy Football (I have 4 teams this year) to people who make amusing T-shirts to celebrate opening day... (i.e. “My Other Shirt is a Puffy Jacket, or “Back-up QB Hall of Fame”) for the Titans vs. Steelers. Which all brings me back around to my point – the beginning of the season and my predictions.

There are some obvious predictions such as that the Patriots and Chargers will make the playoffs and subsequently the Lions and Browns will not. But this is all part of the system, the system that no one agrees on and people over analyze and over think, I am one of those people. Still, there are some things that cannot be avoided in considering the outcome of how good teams will be this year. For starters, Strength of Schedule (SOS) is one of the greatest factors in sports today, this is how Tom Brady threw for 76 yards and the Patriots still go 11-5. After that it is simply a mix of weighing home field advantage, program coaching stability, skill position talent, and simply who is a better team (the Saints will most likely beat the 0-16 Lions).

But as the leaves start to think about falling, Rudy starts to do sprints in the Notre Dame Stadium concourse, and Christmas decorations start to fill the shelves, the pigskin is picked up by some of the greatest athletes in the world not named Phelps or Bolt. Coincidently, has there ever been a better name for an athlete than Bolt? I think not, I'm talking to you Chad Ochocinco! So me and my fellow fans clad in respective jerseys, pints of beer in our hands will cheer once more for our teams remembering that everyone is even in Week 1. And if not, we put our sights in the future, after all, the 2010 NFL Draft starts in 224 days.

Final Bullets:

-This is the 50th Anniversary of the AFL, look for the throwback uniforms from the original 8 franchises. This all coincides with the UFL opening its inaugural season in a few weeks, lets see if this future Triple A league can survive or be absorbed.

-The Detroit Lions have a current losing streak of 17 games, the NFL record is the 1976-77 Steve Spurrier-led Tampa Bay Buccaneers (26 games). The Lions do not play a sub-.550 team until week 8; which, if things go according to plan (or not according to plan, if you're actually a Lions fan), their streak could reach 25 games without much problem. Will this team make history with a failure of epic proportions? Wait and see.

-You can follow along and play against me in ESPN's Pigskin Pick 'Em. Just search for “Sully's World” group in the public leagues and sign up.

-Opening Day Pick : Steelers over the Titans covering the spread to win by a touchdown.

Other picks and yearly predictions to follow soon...