I used to love to watch Turkey Day football.
I used to love watching the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions play against other teams in what were usually good ball games to at least get my mind off eating way too much turkey, stuffing and having to mingle with distant relatives.
I sat in my apartment (this year was a stay-at-home Thanksgiving for me), eager to view some spectacular football with our own Joey Harrington playing against the touchdown-passing machine that is Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts.
Even the Cowboys playing the Chicago Bears interested me with two brothers, Julius and Thomas Jones, each running backs, playing against each other on this day of thanks.
Well thanks for nothing, NFL.
The most excitement I got was from seeing whether Manning was going to throw for 10 touchdowns in one game against the Lions’ terrible defense.
The Lions got torched all game and Manning looked as though he could tell what the defense was going to do before the defense knew.
My train of thought as a defensive coach after a quarterback has tossed four first-half touchdown passes: Maybe they’re going to keep throwing the ball in the second half. I guess that didn’t cross the mind of the Detroit defense.
Something looked all too familiar during this game as well. An Oregon quarterback not being able to succeed due to bad protection, with the weapons around him being injured most of the season.
Hmmm… where have I seen this before?
Oh right, this year’s Oregon football team and Kellen Clemens.
Harrington has battled through the injuries of wide receiver Demetrius … uh I mean Roy Williams and was without the services of running back Kevin Jones most of this season. He also lost Charles Rogers (again) for the season.
It’s something Clemens dealt with all season — something Harrington never had to deal with in such a dramatic fashion while at Oregon — with nagging injuries to Demetrius Williams and Tim Day that crippled the passing attack.
Enough grumbling about Oregon football; back to bashing the Thanksgiving football that was shoved on my plate like an over-cooked turkey with burned stuffing, heals of bread and lumpy mashed potatoes.
While the first game at least gave me something to watch with Manning and Harrington (before he got pulled), the second game quite honestly might have been the most boring NFL contest I have ever seen.
Dallas and Chicago were both offensively challenged, and that’s being nice about it. Watching Dallas quarterback Drew Henson, who hadn’t played in a game for about four years, was terrible. The Chicago offense looked horrible.
I needed to watch something else in a serious way.
Unfortunately, my options were limited.
My search for more sports to avert my eyes from what the NFL was calling football was for naught. I have no cable and other networks subjected me to parades with oversized SpongeBobs going down the street and people I will never meet waving at other people that I will never meet.
Who watches a parade anyway? Even as a kid I never understood the concept of giant balloons floating down the street and people throwing candy at other people while avoiding horse droppings.
But possibly the stupidest thing on television while I was avoiding the painful Bears/Cowboys game was a dog show, announced by Seinfeld’s Mr. Peterman.
I know dogs are “man’s best friend” and all, but having a competition to determine who is “Best in Show” is ridiculous.
The dogs have to do laps around this ring while total strangers (i.e. the judges) stick fingers in their mouths, pinch their skin and rub their hands all over their fur, excuse me, their coats.
Why don’t they just throw a stick or a Frisbee and see who is the fastest? Insert your favorite Qyntel Woods joke here.
The greatest part of the whole thing was that the No. 1 dog in the country, according to the announcers, was this toy poodle that weighed about two ounces and had a grandma perm on the top of its head.
That’s what my Thanksgiving Day “sports” came down to: boring football, balloon SpongeBob and grandma-permed poodles.
I decided to take a nap.

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