By MONTE DUTTON

The National Football League is fantastic at playoff time.

Early in the season, the best players look rusty, as if they didn’t play in exhibition games. In most cases, this is because they didn’t. To summarize, at the beginning of the regular season, most all the teams looked like the Carolina Panthers at the end of it.

At the end of the regular season, the best players on the best teams sit out to make sure they’re healthy for the games that really count.

The middle of the season has about a month in which the teams sort out what they are going to do because they just lost their quarterback who’s going to make more than Taylor Swift, anyway.

Come to think of it, without Ms. Swift repeatedly saying “Oh … my … God” in the suites, I’m not sure the NFL would have made it.

I missed the early games on account of I was watching Furman beat East Tennessee State at Timmons Arena. When I walked in the house, I was surprised to see that the Houston Texans were destroying the Cleveland Browns.

I knew the Browns should’ve signed Y.A.Tittle.

In their defense, Tittle died at age 90 in 2017. Joe Flacco had his fun, but it had to end, and throwing two pick-sixes was a hell of a way to go.

After covering many NASCAR races there, I can’t imagine why or how it gets that cold in Kansas City. I missed that game altogether, but it was not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the Miami Dolphins were unable to adjust to a change in habitat.

The Dallas Cowboys made up for Saturday Night Live running a rerun the night before. As a result, the Cowboys may be the “cold open” next week.

I enjoyed the game in a way sportswriters do. A writer wants either a great story or a great game. The Packers were a great story. The Lions and Rams played a great game.

The Green Bay John Facenda Packers. Facenda, now long dead, was the voice of those old NFL Films documentaries. He spoke of the “frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.” In the middle of the game, I was thinking of how impossible describing that clash of climate-controlled titans in the Jerry Jones Snobbatorium would have been for Facenda.

The Dallas Cowboys had won 16 consecutive games in the comfortable 70 degrees of home. The Green Bay Packers, accustomed to harsher climes, seemed invigorated as they trotted out onto the customized plastic of Stately Prescott Manor.

I giggled in disbelief. I haven’t rooted for the Cowboys since they left the Cotton Bowl and Dandy Don left them. I have a Texas friend who refers to the owner as “Jerruh.” That makes me giggle year around when I think of it.

Personally, I haven’t had a bona-fide “favorite team” in at least a decade. Teams I once adored have languished year after year. I’m ambivalent about most of them. Certain teams – Kansas City, Buffalo, Detroit – I like because, well, my soul just likes to see them do well. I don’t get bent out of shape if they don’t. Oh, well. I patiently await the recovery of my true favorite teams. I was 46 years old when the Red Sox finally won the World Series.

It feels as if it’s been the weekend every day since Thanksgiving. All those minor bowls at noon from Shreveport or 3:30 from Conway. Football and basketball going on at the same time. Dogs and cats, lying together. The words of the prophets are written on the subway wall.

It came as no surprise that the Steelers and the Bills had to be postponed until Monday because of blizzards blowing off Lake Erie, zero visibility and the rumored presence of Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty) heading up the local news team again.

Two nights last week, basketball games I had planned to attend were rained out. Rained out! Basketball games! I heard the real reason was the possibility of buses taking flight like a Boeing 737 MAX 9 and having a hatch pop out. My anonymous source was in line in front of me at ALDI.

One final point in this blog of nothing in particular:

The world has turned into NASCAR, and yet NASCAR is in inexplicable decline.

I hope you find my writing entertaining and unique.

Blue, Green, Purple & Red cannot solely be funded by advertising. There’s not enough room.

Thanks so much for the recent contributions. I’m aware that folks appreciate what I do, particularly the kids, coaches, parents and fans.

I used to list an address to send a check (DHK Sports, P.O. Box 768, Clinton, S.C. 29325). I finally got it through my thick head that not that many people write checks nowadays. For example, me. A more convenient means is sending a reasonable contribution to DHK Sports on Venmo. It keeps it going, and by that I mean in business and also on the road.

Support the advertisers, and help keep the site – the game stories, the blogs, the photos – alive. If you choose, make a monthly donation via Patreon. The Laurens County site is here. The Furman site is here.

Another way I can make a living is if you purchase my books at MonteDutton.net. They’re quite entertaining in spite of the fellow who wrote them. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. The latest, The Latter Days, is about baseball. I’m closing in on a 10^th novel.

Photo galleries are posted on Instagram @furmanatt and @laurenscountysports.