I’m sure there were some good football games today, on the last day of the NFL season. I know there were several games that were important to the teams involved and their fans. Playoff positions were being decided, and every single one of the 16 games played was available to me by satellite (except, of course, the Raiders’ game, which as always was blacked out in the local market because it didn’t sell out).
But I couldn’t watch a single one of them.
Oh sure, I’d peek in every so often and watch a few minutes. And you’d better believe that I followed the scores very closely. I cringed when the Rams beat the Jets in overtime, and I cursed my own stupidity when the Vikings couldn’t even beat the Redskins with a playoff spot on the line. But I couldn’t watch, because money was involved.
In fact, I probably wouldn’t care about any of these games if it weren’t for the money. Why should it matter to me if the Saints and Panthers knock each other out of the playoffs? I don’t even care about the home team, the once-proud 49ers, because they are so horrible. Watch all those games? If it weren’t for the money, I wouldn’t even check the scores.
But you see, I’ve had a pretty good year picking winners in the family football pool, and I only needed one more successful Sunday to win the whole shebang. By week 17 in past years, I’ve usually been fighting for third place money, but this time around I was in first place by what should have been a comfortable margin. Would have been if I had more confidence in my picks. If, in other words, I really knew what I was doing.
This week I picked ten out of 16 games right. That isn’t very good. And I won’t know until tomorrow if it was good enough to keep me in first place. That’s why I was afraid to watch the games. And now I’m afraid to open my email, in case I learn that I’ve slipped to second place (although second prize is still okay, and I wouldn’t turn it down). |