Can you feel it? I can.

Its in the air like the toxins from a DeLillo novel and on my tongue like the guilt you can only find in the catholic church. Its right in front of my face and empirically impossible to deny and the smell, the smell is akin to the Merriman Valley in Akron when the wind shifts and brings the stench of the nearby waste management facility into the faux trendy bars. Its fall and its time for varying degrees of failure dressed in Brown and Orange as well as Scarlett and Grey.

Born into this like MF Doom we cannot help but to live and mostly die on autumn weekends with only alcohol to numb the embarrassing pain that New Yorkers and Bostonians cannot fathom. We die young and we die often with our Bernie Kosar jerseys but, like demented lemmings, we keep coming back for more.

My wife doesn’t understand it and my affinity for this pain is ineffable, irrational. But right now, right this second, as the lights of Times Square invade my office I am looking forward to kick off at 4:15pm this Sunday. Hoping that I will sleep soundly and wake up unafraid of the sports section and ESPN.com.