We were traipsing away from EverBank field yesterday afternoon, wallowing aloud in the rank frustration of the Jaguars’ 17-9 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, when two friends of mine said something to one another on which I’ve been ruminating ever since. “Why do we do this to ourselves?” asked the first one. “Because football is a drug,” the other replied.
He’s right. Football is a drug. This is true of sports in general, but, because its highs are so high and the lows are so low, it’s true of football more than of its alternatives.
I was struggling to think of any other circumstance in which I could plausibly be flitting between abominable “never again” grief and sanguine “when’s the next time?” withdrawal, and the only thing I could come up with is the adventure on which you embark when you drink too much alcohol. If, for some reason, I were to be hit in the face with an iron bar, I would likely not inquire upon waking up in the hospital how soon I could repeat the experience. If, for any more serious cause than the undulations of the NFL, I am unhappy or stressed or scared, I do not usually look forward to a repeat. But watching football and drinking alcohol are in a different category, and in almost exactly the same manner (albeit with different effects on the body). When the hangover kicks in, you find yourself insisting to yourself that last night’s gin-and-tonic extravaganza was simply not worth it. But when that hangover disappears . . . ? Well, there’s the rub.
I have spent most of today feeling angry with the Jaguars for the litany of mistakes and missed opportunities that prevented them from going 2-0 and blowing open the early season’s narrative. If previous years are any indication, I expect that this feeling will persist until about tomorrow afternoon. And then it will be Tuesday evening, and, shortly after that, it will be Wednesday morning, and I will start to filter out all the bad stuff and remember the highlights instead: the Colosseum-lite pre-game show, replete with three-jet flyover; the weird punt that led to a turnover; Cisco’s acrobatic pick of Mahomes’s panicked throw; the closeness of the game at halftime. I’ll recall the number of trips to the red zone rather than the failure to capitalize; I’ll remember Christian Kirk’s 11 receptions rather than the rest of the team’s inability to catch the ball; I’ll remember the defense’s solid showing instead of the infuriating impotence of the offense; and, sure enough, before too much time has passed, my focus will be on 1pm on Sunday afternoon, when the Jaguars play the Houston Texans here at home, and, this time around, it’ll be different than last time, with no downsides to obsess over or headache to regret.