When I used to go to every game (pre kids), my preferred kickoff was 4 pm for a variety of reasons. A. with a 4 pm kick, the lots opened at noon (or 1, can't remember) and I wouldn't have to get up, get ready, etc., until 10:30 or so to leave by 11:30 and get to the stadium for a full tailgate. This left open the door for heavy Saturday night drinking and partying, affording me the ability to sleep off the night's imbibing. With 1 pm kicks, going out the night before was an extreme rarity.
For road games it didn't matter back then, but I certainly preferred a 1 or 4 kick because my friends and i all got together to watch the game at one of our houses and then we'd hit the bars after the game and we'd catch the later games at the bar. Night games were ok, but you really weren't able to hit the bars after for more than an hour or so. Never cared much for watching the game at the bar.
Now that I'm older and have two kids (6 & 3), it's very hard to watch a game when they're awake. they're both not napping anymore, and I know some guys' wives take the kids out during football games so their husbands can watch the games in peace, but that's not the case with me!
Watching a football game live is a three hour time commitment, and for most of us with young kids that's an unreasonable chunk of the day. So, thank God for the DVR. For 1 pm kicks, I'll DVR and start watching around 2:30 or 3:00 and the whole game watching experience is down to about an hour.
4 pm kicks aren't as tough as the 1 pm kicks because typically the kids are winding down around 5 ish, so I'll start watching the game on DVR around 5 (sometimes at reg speed without ffw through all the down time between plays so I actually get some of the game watching experience back).
I'll have the game on while I get supper ready and it'll be on when we eat. The game will be ending right around the time we start the kids' bed time routine around 7:15 or 7:30.
Night games are usually not a problem and I might actually enjoy a few beverages while I'm watching the game live. Last year's Monday night game in Miami was one of the first times I'd drank beers and watched a game in my own home in a long time.
The last non-night game I watched at regular speed (in peace, sans kids/wife
) was the Cassell game in Oakland from 2008...
Well, here's to playing football in 2011...
