Thanks guys for all your pointers and suggestions for a team to follow.
Here are some points I wish to agree upon or follow up on…
The American Football code is a lot like Rugby League.
a) the stop start factor.
b) your 6 downs are our set of 6.
c) your touchdowns are our Tries.
d) anally retentive control freaks are a feature in both games. The Great Queenslander Wayne Bennett is an exception to this rule as his emotionless and stoic exterior hides all this, so if he is flustered by the state of play no one will ever know.
After some deliberation and research and going through the suggestions posted I am declaring to all that I will follow the Green Bay Packers… (well, as much as a fickle Aussie could devise)…
a) the colours: the Green and Gold, good Aussie colours (plus green is my favourite colour).
b) Wisconsin is dairy farm country, some off my best working days were spent on dairy farms in Tasmania and the bloke who suggested this reason painted a nice picture in my mind that brought back memories.
c) blue collar working class almost always appeals to me.
d) reading the latest reports the Packers have picked up a bit from last season and have come up since mid-season this season. So thats the underdog factor. Looks like they have just come off a winning streak as well, losing last game and needing a win against The Bears (?) Boxing Day. So I will be watching that. Any one up for a wager?
e) that poor innocent Aussie bastard sealed the deal when he asked “What is that they pack…?”
f) most hated is fine by me, popular teams and “pretty boys” can make the game “stink” at times… hatred is part of the animalistic blood-letting Footy (Football) brings out in us Post-Roman Western civilizations, so bring it on mate!
So hopefully I have made some new friends as No Doubt I will have more detractors by the end of the day!
I think you forgot the best reason to be a Packers fan… Cheesehead hats!!! (yes that is a giant foam slice of cheese you wear as a hat… why do you ask?)
If you count winning 18(?) consecutive games going back to last season (including the Super Bowl) and then losing one game a losing streak… (ETA: nevermind…I misread that…I’m reading the boards while baking)
…for that matter if you consider going from one dominant (though not necessarily championship winning) quarterback (Brett Favre) to another (Aaron Rodgers) in a matter of a couple of years to be “underdog”…
…plenty of reasons to love the Packers…Aaron Rodgers is hard to hate, and the fan base is pretty awesome… but those two aren’t it!
And it’s 4 downs, not 6.
Since you’re new here, I will also point out that Yanks don’t necessarily know what “Boxing Day” is (it’s the public holiday of the day after Christmas, dear American readers). Yep, surprised me too, but apparently Dec 26th is just a normal day over there. Obviously special rules apply if the 25th happens to fall on a Sunday or whatever, but there are no particular rules for the 26th.
I’m a Canuck, not a Yank, but we do, in fact, have Boxing Day here and in the USA. The traditions may be different, but the day is recognized…as an excuse to go shopping and buy things for really cheap.
Fine, then. In Canada we do, it’s called “Boxing Day”, it’s when you eat the leftovers and clean up from the day before and maybe go visit the family and friends that you couldn’t see on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and there are sales in the stores so people with gift certificates can make out like bandits and you watch football and hockey and people from my high school gather together in a local pub and drink themselves stupid.
This makes you an Aaron Rodgers fan; which therefore makes you a fan of his alma mater and mine, the University of California at Berkeley (aka Cal), which makes you and I blood brothers unto death.
My wife’s best friend’s husband is a native-born Aussie. They live in Broome, and he has taken quite an interest in American football. So, yes, some do.
Ahh, yes, I’d forgotten that! A friend of mine got a green-and-gold Australia sweatshirt for me when she went to Australia some years ago; she had decided I’d like it because it was the same colors as the Packers.
I was going to say, “the game isn’t on Boxing Day, it’s on Christmas night”…but then I realized that, for you to be watching it live, it’ll be on the morning of Boxing Day.
The Packers have the inside track on securing the #1 seed in the conference playoffs, which would give them home-field advantage throughout the playoffs (they have already secured a bye in the first round of the playoffs). They need a combination of one more victory, and / or one more loss by the San Francisco 49ers, to get the #1 seed. The Niners are playing Seattle on Saturday; while the Niners are favored, if the Seahawks win, then the Sunday game will be (relatively) meaningless for the Packers, as they would have nothing more to win or lose (except for the satisfaction of beating their long-time rivals).
The team was founded by a guy named Curly Lambeau, who, at the time, was working at a meat-packing company (initially Indian Packing, which was then bought by Acme Packing). The packing company put up the money for Lambeau to start the team in 1919, hence the “Packers” nickname.
If you’re in a border town, you most certainly know about Boxing Day. You’ll hear about it non-stop on Canadian television stations, and the parking lots of local malls will fill up as if it’s Black Friday all over again, only with Ontario-plated cars
In years past I would have suggested the Green Bay Packers, but since they’ve become the most popular NFL team, you might root for the Seattle Seahawks. They’ve never won a Superbowl since the Steelers robbed them of one, but they have the loudest fans, maybe the way their stadium Safeco Field is designed.
The strategy element is what makes football a better spectator sport than basketball and similar sports. It can get boring when the refs are calling penalties every other play, and I’ll agree that the refs interfere with the game too much, but there’s usually a few great plays that make it worthwhile, such as a 50 yard “shotgun” touchdown pass, an interception, or an endzone safety (tackling the quarterback in their own endzone).
Also, as the Packers are the only community-owned NFL franchise, you, Dennis Arthur PERRETTcan purchase a share and be an owner. Then they really are *your *team. *
*Restrictions apply. Shares cannot be sold. Team cannot be moved to Australia.
Excellent point! The current stock sale is only the fifth in the team’s history, and will only be going on for a few weeks.
Edit: uh-oh, just read this in the FAQ on the stock sale:
“Q Can I purchase from a foreign country?
A No. At this time, purchasers must complete transactions from an address in the U.S. or in a U.S. territory (no P.O. boxes).”
If it comes to that, I’m sure we can get a US doper to help out. It doesn’t say you can’t own the stock and be a furriner, just that the transaction happen from a US address.
I agree, there’s really a lot of similarity between the two. I used to be horrible confused about what was going on when I watched rugby, until I sat back and looked at it from an American football perspective: there are ‘plays’ and ‘downs’ and the concept of having to advance the ball a certain distance in a set number of plays. When I looked at it as “football with slightly different rules, and basically no stoppage of action between plays” it suddenly all made sense and became a very enjoyable game to watch. I know that’s a gross oversimplification of the game, but it gave me a framework in which I could understand what I was seeing, which was key to being able to understand anything else.
