13 Ways to Never Miss a Football Sunday - Part I

During my first few seasons of fantasy football, I believed spending ten and a half hours glued to the tv every Sunday was my God-given right. Absent of any semblance of responsibility, I was free to focus on the important things in life like finding new ways to torment my Jets fan friends for drafting Kyle Brady at ninth overall or deciding who I should start at QB - Jeff George or Dave Krieg. Ah, the good old days, I can almost hear “Informer” blasting from my boombox.

Fast forward to present day, work and relationships have made it increasingly harder to devote one seventh of every week to sitting on my ass watching football.

If you have to work on Sunday you’re pretty much screwed. Sorry, it sucks and I feel for you. You going to need to get a new job. But if your girlfriend, wife, whatever is booking apple picking trips and dinner with the in-laws every weekend through December, well here I can help you.

Behold, thirteen effective and sometimes deceptive ways to ensure you presence from the first time Chris Berman says something stupid on Countdown all the way through the Sunday night wrap-up.

1. The Drunken Reverse: So the old lady has big plans for you on Sunday that will prevent you from watching the games? Good for her. Take her out on Saturday night to reward her for her diligent planning. And then just get her completely hammered. I recommend Jameson shots by the truckload. The goal is to ensure that she’ll be catatonically hung over until early evening Sunday. If you are successful, she’ll cancel Sunday’s plans, you’ll be free to watch the game and you may even pick up some brownie points if a commercial break coincides with her cries for the Pepto Bismol bottle.

Caution: If she can drink you under the table this is a very dangerous strategy as you could end up too drunk to function on Sunday. This may get you off the hook in the short term but she’ll have you locked inside Linens’ N Things for the next four Sundays as revenge.

2. The Pre-Emptive Planner: Nothing flashy about this technique. Simply sacrifice your Friday and/or Saturday by doing whatever your girl wants to do, thereby earning the right to spend Sunday at the bar or on the couch. Not a good choice if you want to watch College Football all day Saturday.

3. The Good Friend: You’re buddy needs your help. Maybe he lost his job, maybe his girl left him, maybe that sore isn’t responding to conventional medicine - bottom line, your friend is blue and it is your duty to cheer him up.   If it means sacrificing your Sunday to come to his aid, well then so be it. By the way, none of this needs to be true as long as it gets you out of the house. A solid option, if used infrequently, but it doesn’t work well if your girl is familiar with your friend in need.

4.  Gotta Pay the Bills:  Another relatively straightforward play call - a last minute cancellation of that scenic Sunday drive through the country due to an unavoidable work-related emergency.  Sure your significant other will be disappointed, but hey, so are you, right?  Sorry honey the mortgage doesn’t pay itself.  Very important to do the necessary prep work on this.  Mapquest the route ahead of time and makes sure she sees the direction printed out.  Research some romantic stops along the way, perhaps a vineyard, and jot down some phone numbers on the directions to show how pumped you are about the trip.   A little corny, yes, but it’s not like you are really going anywhere.  And well-worth the effort when you are live streaming games from your office PC on Sunday.

5. The Ultimate Sacrifice: If all else fails, kill off a friend or distant relative. Don’t ‘clip’ a close family member - your girl will want to go for support. You’ll need to plan a day or so in advance (to allow time for the funeral arrangements) - but who can argue with death? A little unethical but you can argue the same about furniture shopping on a Sunday when you’re battling for a playoff spot. Note: To clarify, the goal here is to fake the death, not actually kill someone - the Internet requires such clarifications to be plainly stated.

Stay tuned for part II.