For sports fans, the weekend is a cornucopia of wonderful games to watch. This is particularly true in the fall with its traditional pattern of College Football on Saturday and NFL Football on Sunday and Monday. As the parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend of a sports fan, this can be a challenge. It must be true that some games are more important to watch than others but it’s hard to know which is which. As a sports fan, the power of habit and hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars get in the way of remembering to take a break from sports and do something with your parent, child, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, husband, wife, roommate, or best friend. To aid all of us in this, and just because it’s fun, I’m going to write a weekly post highlighting a single game that is ideal for skipping. Use this to help tell yourself or someone else: “Do not watch this game!”
Sunday, 1:00 p.m. ET, NFL Football, Baltimore Ravens vs. Carolina Panthers. It’s on CBS but do not watch this game!
I’ll start this week by copping to the truth about this game — there is a reason to watch it. There’s a single plot that will be played out on Sunday that’s almost fascinating enough to make the game worth watching. Steve Smith Sr. was a wide receiver on the Panthers team for 13 years. He’s their all time leader in basically every receiving statistic out there. He was also the heart of the team for more than a decade. At 5’9″, he’s a lot smaller than you’d expect for a player of this reputation, but what he lacks in size, he’s made up for in furious intensity. He’s a great player. Over this past summer, the Carolina Panthers let Steve Smith walk. He walked right into the Baltimore Ravens starting lineup and has been one of their best players this year. Now, he gets to play against his old team. This story is the focus of this game — the Charlotte Observer called this “Steve Smith Week.”
You know what? That’s going to make for a really frustrating game to watch. Revenge fantasies very rarely come to fruition in sports, especially not in football where there are so many players on each team and so many factors which go into winning or losing. Smith is likely to have a couple big plays that, if you want to, you could point to as being a big narrative deal. But no one player, not even Steve Smith, can decide the outcome of a game. There are larger issues at hand — can Cam Newton’s offensive line keep him from adding another injury to his bruised ribs and sprained ankle? Who will run the ball for the Panthers since their running back core looks like an ambulance corps? Can the Panthers’ defensive line win over a Baltimore offensive line that hasn’t allowed a sack in two games?
The coverage of this game is going to be so slanted towards the Steve Smith story that it’s going to be frustrating to listen to and a let-down to watch. Do not watch this game!
Of course, if you or the fan in your life is a Baltimore Ravens or Carolina Panthers fan, this isn’t a good game to skip. As an alternate, skip the Sunday early afternoon game between the New Orleans and the Dallas Cowboys. Why? Because the Cowboys have the worst pass defense in the league and the Saints are going to feast on them like they’re étouffée.