DREW MAGARY ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SATURDAY NFL FOOTBALL

[Editor’s note: Drew Magary a/k/a Big Daddy Drew of Kissing Suzy Kolber and Deadspin has written this guest column because he wants you to purchase multiple copies of his book, Men With Balls: The Professional Athlete’s Handbook, either as gifts for your friends and coworkers (the terms are mutually exclusive in most cases), or to chuck at those annoying Christmas carolers. We’d suggest aiming at the older ones due to their diminished reflexes, but recent international events have caused us to reconsider that position.] My wife asked me to install a new toilet paper roll holder in our bathroom recently. It’s quite a lovely toilet paper roll holder, as toilet paper roll holders go. It’s got the nickel plating, the burnishing, and what not. Now ideally, I wouldn’t have to install this holder until February. Because my spouse and I have an explicit understanding that this is the time for football. That means I get to put off all manner of annoying and backbreaking weekend chores: cleaning gutters, raking leaves, seeing my children, etc. I quite like the arrangement.But I wasn’t able to use football as an excuse this coming Saturday. And you want to know why? Because, apart from the NFL Network’s primetime game that evening (now available on Sky6 Broadcasting in Nova Scotia!), there is NO football that day. Of any kind.And that makes me angry. Very angry. So angry I could take Roger Goodell’s big stupid head and slam it under my car hood until he stops twitching. This is the third year in a row that the NFL has taken away its slate of Saturday NFL December day games. They never bothered to explain to fans why they took these games away. I don’t even think it occurred to them that someone might notice. Yeah, well I noticed. I noticed it immediately, with a white hot fury blazing in my eyes. Let me explain something to you people at the NFL. It’s December. Okay? That means FOOTBALL SEASON ISN’T OVER YET. From Labor Day until the divisional playoffs, I expect and deserve football on the television during the day on both Saturdays and Sundays every weekend. No exceptions. For years, the NFL helped pick up the slack on Saturdays in December for college football, whose teams continue to inexplicably cap every season by taking A F--KING MONTH OFF. But now, the NFL has decided, without any input from the fans, to abandon that tidy little arrangement. It’s not the lack of games that annoys me (okay, perhaps a bit). It’s the fact that the NFL took them away without warning, and never gave a clear rationale for doing so. People love the NFL. Why would you go out of your way to provide less of it? I understand the NFL likes having a showcase game for it dopey little network on Saturday nights. But day games wouldn’t diminish the appeal of that. They’d enhance it. I only get a set amount of football-packed weekends per year. After that, they’re gone for months. They’re important to me. I’m passionate about them. So to cut out the number of games I can watch over the weekend, at a time of year when the end of the season looms ever closer, when I want to watch as much football as I possibly can (especially if relatives are visiting). I’m sorry, but that really makes me want to hit someone in the face with a fire log. Now, perhaps some of you may disagree with me here. Perhaps you’ll say, “Hey Drew, it’s just a couple day games. You should keep things in perspective. Get a life, why don’tcha?” Well, if you disagree with me, you can kindly go drown in the ocean. I love football, and refuse to apologize for it. And I certainly won’t apologize when the NFL decides to take football away from me without telling me. THIS AGGRESSION WILL NOT STAND, MAN! Alas, the NFL remains silent on this issue. Which means I’ll be spending this Saturday putting a g--damn toilet paper roll holder in my bathroom. I expect more than few holes to be punched in the wall that day.