Are you ready for some football?

SM is. Boy is he ever.

He, like many other fanatics, has taken football-watching to a new level. A new, geeky level.

Gone are the days of beer-guzzling, chip-chomping, ranting hours of transfixed cheering in front of ye ol' boob tube (which has less to do with the Bay Watch aspect of television than those who are fixated).

Oh no, my friends. Being a football fan means a whole lotta something else these days.

SM sits in front of the TV, not with a beer (okay, actually, yes, he does have beer) group of loud, boisterous friends dressed in their favorite teams' attire. No, not with friends. With his computer.

So he can check the stats of each team, of each player, as the games are played.

So he can monitor how his players on his fantasty teams are doing.

Geek.

This takes football-watching into a whole new realm. Gone are the days of group bonding and high-fives and victory dances as the scoreboard lights up. Gone are the days of singular loyalty, rooting for one and only one team. Heck, gone are the days of actually trying to go to see the game in person.

A new day has dawned.

SM still watches all of the games. But he has a new purpose. Not because he is so invested in the relative standing of his fave hometown team, the Patriots (because, he is still a huge fan), but because he wants to track how each player on each of his fantasy teams is doing. His team loyalty still rests with the Patsies, but it is somewhat diluted by the fact that his quarterback is Donovan McNabe. And his wide receivers are... (okay, I don't know who his wide receivers are, but he picked them in the first rounds).

He says that it makes the whole day (Sunday) more fun because he's invested in every game. I just think it makes him more of a geek.