Are You Ready For Some Football?

I'm getting rolling now…
Monday Night Football made its (pre-)season debut last night with the Hall of Fame game between Miami and Chicago. I had it on, if only to see how Ricky Williams looked. The first thing I was reminded, before the game even started, is that some how, some way, the people who put on these productions have no fucking clue how to get in touch with the actual fans…

The opening scene for last night's game included the Muppets. The goddamned Muppets! Now, do they think there are actually young kids who are familiar with the Muppets interested in watching a meaningless pre-season game? Or are they attempting to "connect" with my generation, who grew up with The Muppet Show? Either way, it seemed like a bad idea. But it got worse. Out came the "old timers" (the ones who used to sit in the balcony heckling Kermit and Fozzie, I think their names are like Waldorf and Dinkleberry, or something like that) sporting Miami Dolphins caps and jerseys. And huge gold chains. The scene went something like this (and, dear god, I WISH I was making this up):

Waldorf: "Yo yo yo, are you ready for some football, dawg?"
Dinkleberry: "Fo shizzle my nizzle."
Waldorf: "The Dolphins are in the hizzouse."
Dinkleberry: "Word up."
*Dramatic pause*
Waldorf: "I have no idea what we just said."
*They both break out in laughter*
*Enter Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, sporting Bears clothing*
Kermit: "Hi ho! Are you ready for some football?"
Dinkleberry: "Fo shizzle, froggy-nizzle."
Kermit: "Then let's get the pigskin ready and get this party started!"
Miss Piggy: "Pigskin?!?!!? Haiiiiiiii-Yaaaaa!"
*She karate chops all three of them*

Like I said, I wish I had imagined that. But I hadn't. And if that's a sign of things to come from the NFL pre-game, post-game, halftime, and commercial breaks this year, I might just have my TV on permanent mute.

I only half watched the game really, I mean, it's frickin pre-season. But I did catch a fairly interesting interview with Ricky Williams. For the first time in recent memory, a sideline reporter during a game actually asked a few GOOD questions. Among the questions: "Did the lawsuit with the Dolphins suing you to get back millions of your contract money have any influence on your decision to come back?" (Ricky didn't say no, but didn't say yes. You know it had to.) "How are your teammates treating you after you stood them up last year?" (Ricky basically said that he understands that he let them down, and has to put in the hard work to show he's serious about contributing this year." And, my personal favorite, "Do you think you are going to be able to avoid further problems with smoking marijuana?" I couldn't believe they asked this, I actually laughed and cheered when they did. I think Ricky was a little surprised too. He basically said that he's planning on moving forward, he learned a lot in his time off (yeah, like he can't pay his bills without an NFL paycheck) and thinks he can control himself.

In other football news, Madden 2006 comes out today. I'm going to try and pick it up during lunch. I'm a little bit apprehensive because I have been a ESPN NFL2K fan over the past several years, and always picked up that one over the Madden series. But with EA Sports and NFL banging out an exclusive multi-million dollar deal to be the only ones with rights to use actual player names, Madden is now the only game in town. They even merged with ESPN to use the graphics and style and stuff this year. So I'm just hoping there isn't a huge difference between the gameplay and franchise modes I've learned to love in NFL 2K. And I'm looking forward to playing with Seattle's revamped defense. Lofa Tatupu is getting plugged in at starting MLB no matter what they have his rating at.