The NFL Season Begins Tonight

At 7:30 pm to be exact. The Indianapolis Colts will play host to the New Orleans Saints in the inaugural game of the 2007 NFL season. And does it feel good.

You can only go for so long on signed DUI citations, Where are They Now segments, and interviews with the Mayor of Kansas City. At some point, you demand real football. While its not the Chiefs just yet, tonight's game will merely whet my appetite for Sunday's season opener. We are going to stomp all over the Houston Texans and Sunday will be a good day.

As I was thinking about the game on Sunday, I flashed back to the street outside my house. That is where, during half time of the Chiefs games, my dad and his brothers and my brother and I would play touch football. Looking back on it, we couldn't have played that long because half time is less than a half hour, or right about that. But it still seemed like the score ended up being 42 to 35, with my brother and I scoring all of the touchdowns. Inevitably, the game broke down to a yelling match between my dad and his brothers over a phantom pass interference call. In fact, my uncle used to call pass interference on every, freakin' play. I remember being nine years old and having that annoy the hell out of me.

We don't play those games anymore. New family members, new jobs, old bodies and a general lack of time have all contributed to us not getting together over the last decade or so. But the Chiefs games, and especially my innate urge to play a game outside during half time, still remind me of times when I was just kid and half time football games were all that mattered. To a certain degree, I think that is why I've continued to love the Chiefs so dearly. For me, the Chiefs are at least part of a life long chase towards your childhood dreams. Back to times when I really did think I was a great backyard football receiver. To a time when being the best quarterback in the neighborhood meant something to you and the other kids.

Today, I pour over stats and blog entries and message boards. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy doing it, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. Its just...different. Its more complicated and more serious. The highs are higher but sometimes I feel like I've lost the simple love of the game.

If this blog disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't mind going back to a time when my football experience was simply a pick up game of football in the street, during half time of a Kansas City Chiefs football game.

And that, my friends, is why I love football season.