The news is that the Philadelphia Eagles have signed dog-butcher Michael Vick to a two-year deal.

Christ, and I was really trying to like football.

I tend to support the Commissioner in his Vick decision. He tried to square the circle and did a pretty decent job. It would have been righteous to say “Vick deserves a second chance. He does not, however, deserve a second chance to make millions of dollars playing a kids game. Instead, we will support him in any way we can to find a decent job in ‘normal’ society and offer our very best wishes for his successful life.”

Fair enough, we all know that wasn’t going to happen. So I expected the Commissioner’s Solomonaic decision to result in Vick being signed by somebody like the Cowboys, or the Giants. You know, a team without a soul. Instead the friggin’ Eagles sign him?

So ends my honest attempt to be a true Eagles fan. They’ve lowered themselves to true scumbag levels. With a little luck they’ll end up at the very bottom of the standings for the entire League this year and for all future seasons.

Thank God that’s over. And the commercials sucked.

Ten days until pitchers and catchers report. Thank God for that too.

You know something? To hell with New Orleans.

Coming as it does now, it sounds like sour grapes. I wish I’d had this all written down Friday night and Saturday morning when the idea finally coalesced. The hell with New Orleans. They’re not worth any sympathy, empathy, money or good will.

A great deal of the pre-game coverage – even in Philadelphia, home of the quote “Brotherly Love? Not on Game Day.” – said that New Orleans ought to be permitted to win. Even that folks ought to root for the Saints to win because the Big Easy needs the win. They deserve it.

Bollocks to that.

I once had some sympathy for New Orleans. They’d taken some lumps. They’d effectively lost their city. But it’s a fun town, a little bit on the edge, and ought to be resurrected if only to preserve a place that maintains an attitude that the United States need. But now? The hell with ‘em. First it was the stories of the bad behaviour during Katrina. Parking lots full of school and city buses sitting unused while people desperately tried to evacuate. Then it was the wholesale looting, bowb your buddy week on a grand scale, the multitudinous horrors of the Superdome.

OK, so they took some lumps. Mistakes were made. Fair enough. Now’s your grand chance to rebuild, to do it right this time, to ensure nothing of the sort ever happens again. The money comes in by the bucketload, blue ribbon commissions are established to make the new New Orleans the best city in America. And what happens? First, the citizens re-elect the same small-minded backstabbing politicians that caused the problem. Not the same sort of people but different enough that some change might be OK. No. The exact same people. Now I read that even the most minor building code requirements designed to limit the damage in a Katrina repeat are being merrily ignored because people feel too bad to rebuild correctly. Doomed neighborhoods are being re-established with doomed houses on doomed streets because the damned doomed people are absolutely blind to the possibility that the next time won’t be any different.

So the hell with them. The next time I hope New Orleans is wiped off the face of the Earth. I hope every idiot who wouldn’t move to higher ground or reinforce their foundation or build their house a little higher drowns horribly in the muddy swirls of the Mississippi. I hope the Feds shrug at the requests for money and say, “We helped last time, and you ignored the good advice. You’re on your own this time.”

Bollocks to New Orleans. I hope they merrily rot in hell.

How about ‘dem Iggles?

Happily I can now rationalize my inattention to the bulk of the football season: it’s bad luck. The years I don’t pay attention the Eagles do well. If I do pay attention, they do poorly.

Screw you. It works for me. It doesn’t have to be truly true. Wanker.

I do have a real football question: was this past weekend anything more than a naked grab for a longer season and greater television revenue? I never really considered the NFL playoff system before. I assumed it was like baseball: three divisions in two conferences with the second rated team in the conference that didn’t win their division designated a wild card to round off the playoff brackets. Now I find out that there are four divisions and two wild cards! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Is there any possible explanation for this outside of greed? What’s wrong with four teams playing a divisional playoff: first seed against third, second against fourth. That’s fair right? It would get the Superbowl back into January at least.

Fugging football.

France v. Italy? That’s the final? That’s what we’ve come up with after nearly a month of high grade football?

I never held out much hope for the USA. Like many have said – sooner and better than I could – the USA just isn’t a football nation. Might never be, in fact. At least, not until ties are completely eliminated. So, I cheered on the Aussies – until they lost. Then I rooted for the English – until they lost. The last and final hope were the Germans, damned near unbeatable – until they lost.

Until this very moment I was considering supporting the Portuguese. Now what? I suppose the long wait for 2010 will do.

Man, I was so hoping for a rematch of 1940 – France v. Germany on the sacred soil of the Fatherland.

I wrote a very delightful rant on how filthy football people wear baseball caps on the sidelines. I’ll not go into that now but damnit! Come up with something original: overdeveloped, underevolved monkey men!

So, what’s a brother to do when faced with a postseason like this? Can’t perzactly cheer for the Iggles. Swine. I hate the Steelers with only slightly less bile than I reserve for the Yankees but I’ve got to pick those fellows on account of people I respect being great fans. And hell, they dominated pretty much all their games. Congrats.

Now then, Carolina and Seattle. Who cares?

I’ve chosen to go East Coast. Keep it in the family. The hell with anyone west of the Mississippi. Bunch of pioneering wankers. Hurrah for Carolina! Where the hell are they from, anyway? There are two Carolinas and one hell of a lot of cities. I hate state-named teams. It’s like someone being called the Dakota Wastelands. Man, there’s a lot of Dakotas. And a lot of wastelands.

The real solution to this miserable state of affairs: wait breathlessly for my 2003 & 2004 Red Sox films to show up so I can absorb something delightful. Blame my cousin for buying me – at my request – the Sports Guy book for Christmas.

I so intended to get a photograph of myself in front of Legends Field in my Sox gear. Missed it on the last trip south, but there’s only two weeks until the next. Something similar to my famous V sign to Buckingham is well in order.