Football mini-posts

Ricky Manning, Jr. = Bloggers' Sworn Enemy
I once had a student in class who was poking fun at those who would dress up as characters to stand in line for Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, who memorize and know the minute details of the sagas, who talk about them all the time. When I asked him how that is different from people who paint their faces and dress up and tailgate before football games, or memorize statistics, or talk about sports all the time, he muttered, "That's different. It just is."

Of course, it's not. To each his own. Die-hard sports fans are geeks, and should embrace that. And most sports bloggers are the biggest geeks of them all: we know excruciating minutiae about our favorite teams, and we devote hours to talking about sports online. Furthermore, many of us may have been geeks in high school.

And isn't the case of Ricky Manning and his posse beating up a guy in a Denny's for using a laptop computer just a hyper-exaggerated version of jocks picking on nerds?

And so, Ricky Manning, Jr. comes to stand for all we hate. And now he's on the Bears.

Draft Exhaustion
It's NFL Draft Week; I should post about what the Vikings might do. Of course, I've been doing that for weeks. So has everybody else. I can't possibly come up with something new right now. Draft hype might be worse than Super Bowl hype because of the longevity and scope of it. For two weeks, we get way too much Super Bowl hype, and then to watch actual football being played seems like a pure, real experience. But the hype for the draft lasts months, involves every team, involves hundreds of players, AND HAS NO PAYOFF. The experience of watching the draft is a lot like draft hype: all speculation and potential, no real performance.

Viking Fashion Show
Thursday at the Mall of America, some prominent Viking players will be modeling the new uniforms. There's something surreal about such an event: bulked up tough guys marching around a stage to be voyeuristically ogled by ridiculous fans for nothing other than their presence and their attire. I can't wait to see it. One of the benefits of living in the Twin Cities is that I'm close to all these things that happen. It takes me about 20 minutes to get to the MOA; I simply can't justify NOT going to this show.