Football wannabes to provide laughs in Japan Bowl

Get ready to be bowled over. Yeah, I know, it’s 80 degrees outside, but are you ready for some football?

The camps have opened, the pads are popping and Saturday night, you get the real deal – The Japan Bowl, a knock-down drag-out affair in which the San Francisco 49ers’ and Washington Redskins’ hopefuls (read: guys with no chance whatsoever of making the team) will fumble, stumble and bumble their way to a 9-6 final score.

You want to see the 49ers’ Jeff Garcia? Well, he might play a series. But you’ll have a better chance of seeing him on the sidelines, laughing along with the rest of us at the wannabes.

Not that I have anything against the wannabes. You see, I never was. But these games are more about “stuff and nonsense” (Split Enz reference) than tackles and touchdowns.

You’ll hear ESPN’s announcers repeatedly refer to it being early in the season. That’s a sure sign that teams are jumping offside and doing some illegal motioning and stuff.

The camera will spend more time following Washington coach Steve Spurrier than the action on the field. The announcers will refer to him as “the old ball coach” 50 times. They’ll joke about how long it will take for him to slam his visor (or one of his quarterbacks) to the ground. It’s not really about football at all, and that’s the nonsense.

If that isn’t enough for you, just two nights later, the NFL presents the Hall of Fame Bowl. The New York Giants meet the expansion Houston Texans. Ah, the rivalry. You know what I always say – when the Giants and the Texans get together you can just throw the records out the window.

It will be more of the same, only worse. Remember, the Texans have never played in a game before. They are likely to be (say in Elmer Fudd voice) “very, very bad.” There will be speculation as to whether they could beat Baylor, much less the Giants.

ABC’s announcer will speculate as to whether Tiki Barber and Michael Strahan will ever speak to each other again.

And it will go on and on. Football is here and it doesn’t officially end until the Pro Bowl game in Hawaii in February.

Oh, but there are plenty of bowls in between. There’s the big one, the Super Bowl. And in between the Tokyo Bowl and the Super Bowl there are seemingly hundreds of other bowls.

There’s the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl and let’s not forget the “granddaddy of ’em all,” the Rose Bowl.

For food lovers there’s the Peach Bowl, the Tangerine Bowl and the Outback Steakhouse Bowl.

For those who feel patriotic there’s the Alamo Bowl, the Liberty Bowl, the Heritage Bowl and the Independence Bowl.

The industrious can follow the Silicon Valley Classic, the Motor City Bowl, the Music City Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Insight.com Bowl and the Micron PC Bowl.

And there’s the bowl played on the funky blue field in Idaho.

I love college football, but that’s just too many bowls for me.

Personally, I prefer the chili bowl. Of course, that can lead to another bowl but we won’t go into that here.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.