CARLTON FLETCHER: I don’t need 12 steps to beat NFL addiction

‘Cause as carefree as you came to me, You turn around and became a memory.

— Jason Mraz

Maybe it’s a sign of aging. I prefer maturity.

But I am looking forward more this year to the Super Bowl commercials than I am the game itself. And I used to roll my eyes when one of my football-hating daughters said such a thing.

I think this is significant because I’m just two years removed from being one of the biggest Atlanta Falcons/NFL fans in the state of Georgia. I lived and died with our state team’s Dirty Birds, growing giddy after each victory and grumpy after each loss. I knew all the players — even the third-team offensive guard who was still on the roster because he owed the head coach money — and I could tell you the kicker’s comparable stats on natural grass, artificial turf, indoor stadiums and out in the open air.

Then the Falcons blew the Super Bowl … You run the ball three times, kick the field goal and you’ve got an insurmountable lead!! Gahhhh!! And something inside of me broke.

I half-heartedly followed the Falcons’ feeble defense (which was itself maybe third-hearted) of their NFC championship the year after their super el-foldo, watching/listening to maybe a half of each game before finding other pursuits, and this year I might have watched/listened to parts of six quarters the entire season.

What I discovered in my self-imposed 12-step weaning from the Falcons and the NFL is that, despite my intense passion for the sport through more than five decades, it was much easier to break my NFL habit than I’d at first suspected.

In fact, by the end of the recently completed season, I was so blase about the NFL that I didn’t even know which teams were in the playoffs. And while I did watch portions of both the NFC and AFC championship games (and what great games they were!), the prospect of watching New England win another title is about as appealing to me as watching a WNBA (or NBA, for that matter) game. (And, yes, I realize that part of my reasoning for that last statement is that it was New England that won that Super Bowl game that I’m trying to forget … There’s a difference in being aggressive and being stupid!! Double Gahhh!! (And I hate exclamation points, no less!)

Now me, being someone who played football all his life — or at least up to the point where my knees said “un-unh, no more of this” — and followed the game (mostly the Falcons … but … Oh, never mind) — religiously giving it up only a couple of steps into my 12-step program is, I know, insignificant for the most part. But the muckety-mucks at NFL Central who’ve made bazillions of dollars off of people like me over a lifetime of fandom should not only care, they should be worried.

Because if one of their true believers discovers that he can actually live without their product — make that their overpriced, overblown, played by nothing but whining prima donas product — well, imagine how easy it must be for casual fans to free up their Sunday afternoons (and nights).

The NFL was hijacked by a mediocre player who found a way to market himself as a martyr, and the league responded by doing nothing until its multibillionaire players — many of whom couldn’t speak in complete sentences when they came into the league — suddenly became spokesmen for causes that they obviously knew little or nothing about. To hear someone who makes more in a week than a typical fan — who pays thousands of dollars for tickets, paraphernalia, etc., dollars that he must sacrifice to save — makes in a lifetime call himself a “slave” … well, let’s just say that can be more than a tad off-putting.

And then there was all that disrespecting the National Anthem, disrespecting the people who paid those exorbitant salaries and just general boorish behavior that helped people like me realize that, no, I don’t need a Julio Jones (my former favorite player … now, I don’t have one) jersey, and I don’t need to make the semi-annual pilgrimage to Atlanta to watch my (former) favorite sports team play.

It was a small leap after that to extrapolate out that, you know what, I don’t need to watch the NFL on TV or listen to its games on radio (or online) either. So now, while I’m not necessarily football-free, I’m way closer than I ever expected to be.

So you pull for the Rams in Super Bowl whatever Roman numeral it is. Or you pull against the Patriots (Grrr!). I’ll be watching to see what clever multimillion-dollar 30-second spot Tidy Bowl came up with. Somehow, that seems appropriate.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.