Symptoms of my football deficiency

I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not. Tonight I watched the preseason Monday Night Football game between the Panthers and Giants.

Yes, I watched a NFL game.

Normally I disdain the No Fun League, but right about now my football withdrawal has become so severe and complete I will tune into anything focusing on the ol’ oval pigskin. About a month or so ago I watched a replay of the Fresno State-USC game from 2005 (the game when Reggie Bush compiled over 500 yards total offense); for a couple minutes last week I tuned into a repeat of the 2008 Stanford-UCLA game; and this weekend I resorted to using a classic Florida-LSU game from the late-‘80s to salve my football insufficiency.

But tonight I sank to an unusually low depth. When I make a conscious decision to watch a NFL game (“Hmmm… Dodgers or football?”) things are pretty bad.

Needless to say, I’m hurtin’.

I will say this though: it was a decent game. At least it ended well. Down by eight, with less than two minutes to go, the Panthers drove the length of the field and tied the game with a touchdown and two-point conversion. After stopping the Giants, the Panthers got the ball back with seconds remaining. Their third- or fourth-string QB, the guy who orchestrated the game tying drive, dropped back for one last play before overtime and had the ball knocked out of his hand as he threw it. A Giants linebacker snatched it out of the air for an interception and rumbled to the endzone for the game winning touchdown as time expired. Mike Tirico called it (if I remember correctly) “the most dramatic ending in preseason history.”

There’s just about two weeks left before college football kicks off. September 5th, 4 pm (Pacific), South Carolina-North Carolina State, ESPN. Can I make it?

Hold on, man. Just hold on. You’ve made it this far.