Peak or Valley? Never More Untrue...

  Apply whatever metaphor you want for the coming St. Louis Rams - New York Giants game tonight on Monday Night Football's national telecast. I know the game time announcers will have their cliche prompters bags full of "Dominating - Potential - Real Deal - When the Chips are Down, You've got to Make That - The Best in the NFL..." hyperbole. All these cliches will have the appropriate effect on fans, causing head nods and shakes at will.

  When all is said and done, this game will cast light one way and shadow in another. One team will have a 1-1 NFL win-loss record, the other 0-2. It's to early in the season to call either possible record either indicative or insurmountable, but words will fly through the ethereal world pronouncing one or the other to be true and absolute. Rams and Giant fans will teeter on the proverbial sword's edge till the contest ends, hoping against hope that light will be their way forward. You know that, one way or other, any pronouncement for either team will be a load of tosh, right?

...The teams facing each other tonight are the merest shadows of who they really are or will become. Injuries and untested players, both will add to the drama tonight, with hopes and expectations running high. Judgements will be cast or pontificated, because it is the path of least resistance, not the necessary right. It will happen though, and drive each fan to a peak or valley that is their way...

  I'm going to look further down this NFL season's toil-full road, because no matter what happens tonight, the Giants play a powerful Philadelphia Eagles team next week and the Rams, a recently embarrassed Ray Lewis led Baltimore Ravens team. There is both possible shadow and light ahead for each team. It is coming at each team in a 14 game tide to challenge and roll fans hopes and emotion. For the Rams and Giants there simply is no room to rest for moments to cast judgement.

  This will be a great game, between the Rams - Giants. Previous contests, between these two teams, fill NFL lore as each can lay claim to histories from the very beginnings of this professional sport.

  What I love about games like this is the cumulative will each team brings to the contest. Patched and bandaged, they take the field to dig deep within themselves to find who they are in their private and hidden souls. They will be teams of men with goals and dreams in common, hiding pain with the will to cast their lotts to become part of NFL history.

  Oh, how I do love the NFL each and every year... Each and every game too...