I’m not sure how things work outside the New York City television market, but we have this annoyingly restrictive setup when it comes to NFL broadcasts.  Whether or not you like the Jets or Giants, they’re almost always the only games you get to watch on Sunday afternoon.  And it usually works out that the Jets game is on at 1, then the Giants at 4.  There are no other games broadcast opposite them, and the networks pretty much never cut away to another game even if it’s a blowout.

What this means is that if you don’t feel like a) going to a bar or b) coughing up some big bucks for DirecTV and the NFL Sunday Ticket package, you’re pretty much screwed.  The situation got a little better for me when I moved to central Jersey about 4 years ago, as I’m now also in the Philly market and get the option of watching Eagles games.  But not much better, as I’m a lifelong Raiders fan.

My worst nightmare, come to life

I’ve come to accept my lot in life, and the fact that any football talk I’m exposed to around here is logically focused on the Jets and Giants.  But I fear that this situation will quickly become untenable, with the recent announcement that the NFL’s premiere drama queen, Brett Favre, was traded to the Jets.

This is not good, not good at all.  To no one’s surprise, the usual legion of Favre worshipers in the media are already working themselves into a nice lather over this momentous occasion.  Witness Sports Illustrated‘s Peter King – always good for at least one worthless/ignorant/insanely hyperbolic statement per article – declaring that, “One of the biggest stories in recent sports history just got a lot bigger: Brett Favre is a New York Jet.”

No Peter you giant tool, it’s not one of the biggest sports stories in recent history.  It’s an irritating display of aggrandizement on Favre’s part, and you clowns in the media have been all too happy to help.  It got so bad that ESPN, which fell on the wrong side of the credibility threshold a long time ago, introduced a separate “Favre” ticker item at the bottom of the screen.

I don’t begrudge Favre for wanting to play another season.  Pro sports is not like most jobs – once the window has closed on your useful playing life (which for the majority of players is in their 20s), it’s closed forever.  But this insane amount of press coverage does nothing but reinforce what has to be his belief that the sporting world revolves around him, and that people outside Wisconsin and Bristol, Connecticut actually give a shit what he does.

And so now he comes to the Jets, and the most intense media market in the country.  I will be helpless to escape the gravitational pull of his ego and the obnoxiousness of Jets fans.  And now I have to suffer through the usual game time pabulum like “he’s a real gunslinger” and “look at him, he’s just having fun out there!”.

And just wait until John Madden rolls into town.  I think he may actually spontaneously combust now.  And I may just light myself on fire.  I guess I could always watch the Giants or Eagles instead.

Man, now I’m really depressed.