10 ways to kill time till the NFL season starts

It’s almost NFL season. “Almost” being the operative word in that sentence. The countdown begins as we inch hour by hour to the September 9th kick-off of another glorious season of professional football. It’s almost too hard to take when it’s this close, so here are a few things you can do to burn some time between now and the start of the season.

10 Fantasy drafts
Sure, not everyone likes playing fantasy football and some people even hate the guy that comes over on Sundays and vehemently complains when Jonathan Stewart gets the goal line carry in lieu of DeAngello Williams (“Serenity now!”) or completely loses his mind during every Tony Romo fumble, but it gives you a reason to look up stats and get your brain ready for talking serious statistical analysis come mid-September. You’re familiar with how players fared last year and you know that Mike Martz and Jay Cutler together is probably going to go down like the Hindenburg. It may not be something you stick with the entire year, but it gives you a good jumping off-point.

9 Pre-season football
You never get to watch your favorite players for more than a few series and sometimes you can tell the guys are just going through the motions. It’s sort of like the real season, yet it just doesn’t feel right to the rabid fans. Preseason is simply a tease — like a Hooters next to a strip club that opens in an hour . Sure the girls at Hooters are probably much better looking, but at the end of the hour, no matter how much money you spend, you’re not going to get to see what you really came to see. At some point you go next door and blow the rest of your cash on the real thing.

8 Watch the NFL Network
NFL news and stats all day for the next six months. You get breakdowns of every team, the top quarterbacks, every defense and their weakness — the NFL Network at this point in time is like an introductory class to the 2010 NFL season. They also play most of the preseason games and give you up to the minute news because all they do is cover NFL football. Just sit there and get informed as you rock back and forth on your recliner, biting your nails and wishing for September 9th to roll around.

7 Watch baseball
A lot of folks like baseball, but at this point it just makes some people angry and more antsy for football season, But if it works for you — by all means.

6 Go play football
The weather is starting to get a little cooler and a lot of recreational flag-football leagues are starting, meaning that you can go burn off some energy and time while doing your best Ochocinco impression. So get out your gold fronts and go throw the ball around or teach your kid or girlfriend to throw a tight spiral or how to spear someone without getting flagged. Remember to get as much exercise as you can because come football season because a lot of your Sundays may not be for playing football and getting exercise; it’ll be about drinking beer, eating wings and screaming at the television.

5 Spruce up the Man Cave
Make sure wherever you’re planning to do most of your Sunday football watching is in tip-top shape for the upcoming season. Make sure your TV’s settings are at optimal capacity for football viewing. If you need another smaller TV to put in the room so you can watch two games at once, make sure you are set up for that. Also make sure that new kegerator you bought for the basement is up and running at maximum efficiency. Give the room a few trial runs to make sure when your buddies come over that you’re primed, beered and ready to spend your afternoon in your “Cave.”

4 Go gamble on pee-wee games
I’m just joking! Everybody knows that pee-wee season starts a few weeks after the NFL season, so you can’t go gamble on the games, ha ha. But now would be a good time to scout. See which teams looks strong, talk to coaches, finds the fastest players and make note of it. What? Oh, I’m the bad guy? Look around people, it’s the only pure, untainted level of sports left… Plus you get pretty good odds.

3 Make sure you got “The Ticket”
Call up the folks at DirecTV and make sure you are all fixed up and ready to roll. Get the Superfan package and you get all the games in HD, you get the Red Zone Channel, The Game Mix Channel with eight games at once, fantasy tracking for like 20 players and of course, DVR, so you can watch that replay of Ray Lewis blowing up Jake Delhomme over and over and over again until it gets old or they come back from commercial break. If you can’t afford Sunday Ticket, you can spend this time finding somewhere that can and drawing straws for designated driver.

2 Go check out the gambling odds
Some people can just watch football and be content just watching football. Others need to spice things up a bit by gambling on the games. If you are one of those people it’s probably a good idea to start checking out futures bets and odds on the first week of games. Obviously you don’t want to get to cavalier about betting because we still have some preseason games left that could lead to injuries, but it’s always good to have a decent grasp on what’s going on and what the spread may end up being for that first week. Not that I would know or that I would have a favorite site or gamble on anything…

1 Send threatening letters to Roger Goodell demanding an 18 game season
If this had happened already, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, we’d be watching football right now!

* Please do not mention this article if sending threatening letters to Roger Goodell. We will deny its existence.

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