And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Frenzy

Are you hungry for some football? Well, I for one am not exactly famished, though I could do with a little snack it that's not too much trouble. And I will do so with a little bit of shame, since I feel as though I have spent the summer trying hard not to watch reports of all "the troubles" with the National Football League and its owners. Baseball is currently being played, after all. The Women's World Cup provided plenty of drama on a big grass field. Why would I care if the Hall of Fame game got cancelled? Maybe it's because I am conditioned to respond negatively to being deprived of my football.
Back in 1988, when replacement players walked the earth and season ticket holders had to be bribed to fill their seats, I expressed my ire by getting a custom jersey printed up with the number zero and the back bore the name "Scab." I wanted the NFL and its ranks of millionaires to know that I was fed up with their money-grubbing and I wasn't going to take it anymore. As it turns out, the Denver Broncos ended up going to the Super Bowl that year, and so I ended up watching every game as if it really mattered. And that jersey became something of a good luck piece that year. It only occurred to me much later that the money I spent on that souvenir, due to licensing and the like, went directly into the big vat of money I was protesting.
So now we are told that we can get back to business as usual. Just like the debt ceiling, we know that Moody's won't actually downgrade our triple A rating, but we just don't ant there to be any more trouble. A new collective bargaining agreement should keep anything untoward like a work stoppage or lockout from happening again for some time. The games will continue to be played. Fans will file back into the stadiums. Television networks have something on which to hang their beer and truck ads. And souvenir jersey sales can resume.