Using here a loose definition of the word “weekend.”
The AFC and NFC championship games. They’re usually more competitive than the Superbowl and, you know, there’s two of the them.
Yeah, that’s pretty much my thinking as well, Erdosain. I also came of age back when the NFC CG was the de facto Super Bowl. Those Dallas/San Fran games were great (even when they weren’t).
Opening week for me.
After months of no football, then the lame joke that is preseason, it really STARTS! There’s more football than it is humanly possible to watch. Every team’s fans can dream (however unrealistically), because their crew is undefeated. Every Fantasy coach is just as hopeful.
It’s just an awesome clusterfuck of activity.
The more accurate reply to the OP’s question would be “whatever Auburn’s last game of the season is.” This year it’s the BCS Championship. Most years it’s the Iron Bowl. This has been an outstanding year and every week was better than the one before. But the Iron Bowl is the one I will probably remember longest.
Thanksgiving.
Cowboys on Thursday. And some others.
UT/TAMU on Friday.
Bedlam (!) on Saturday and other games.
The rest of the pros on Sunday and Monday.
I picked the Divisional Round mostly because it’s the most competitive round with the most games. It’s better than the Wild Card Round because it features the #1 and #2 seeds and has action on both Saturday and Sunday.
It’s scary how much I considered the NFL Draft weekend though, man that’s some good fun, and it really shouldn’t be.
A couple other good ones that were omitted.
Thanksgiving was mentioned, but it’s usually also the weekend of all the HS State Championship games, you can roll that into the overall landscape.
NCAA Rivalry Week, usually the final week of the regular season when bowl bids and conference titles are decided.
Week 17 of the NFL, it’s got 16 games to watch, games on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and many playoff bids are decided.
Week 16 of the NFL, same as Week 17 with an added Monday night game and fewer teams rolling over and resting starters.
Bears - Packers week. Nuff said.
I picked “other”. My favorite day of football is great a college football Saturday. I love being able to watch 4 or 5 games at once. I think my answer would change if I had a NFL package that would allow me to watch more football but as it is now, NFL Sunday seems anticlimactic.
I went with Thanksgiving. Five days of football (inc. MNF), and there are lots of rivalry games in cfb. There’s usually a weekend where things work out earlier in the season for cfb where you get rivalries and big games (e.g. UT/UF, Bama/UT, UF/UGA), but it’s chance when it happens, so I don’t really count that.
I went with Superbowl. I get to gather with friends, sometimes I have a team in the game. And it means opening day and March Madness are just around the corner!
Joe
Opening weekend for me. August is a slow sports month and I’m tired of the endless contract disputes and holdouts from training camp.
Opening weekend, followed closely by divisional weekend.
Get to the sports bar at around 12:30. See all the folks who root for unfortunate teams that haven’t been out since week 6 of last season. Renew friendships. Get drunk by the third quarter of the first round of games. Remember how to watch 4 or 5 games at once.
Glorious!
I prefer the start of college season so I went with other. I enjoy college so much more then the pros and college starts earlier so its when I’m the most excited to have football back on TV.
Memorial Day Weekend.
A good regular season weekend in November.
Some college rivalry games, an upset that knocks off a title contender, my own team needs a win to get bowl-eligible, a couple good NFL matchups… really, a lot of it comes down to being able to watch the teams I want to watch. Getting to go to a game I care about is a plus. Getting one of my favorite teams on TV is a big plus (I am out of market for both), and so is getting teams I am interested in watching, because I like or dislike them or because I find their style of play interesting.
Some random weekend with four or five interesting matchups beats the playoffs for me.
NFL Opening Day. It’s the start of a new season, most teams think they have a chance, tons of games, tons of excitement.
I went with the Championship weekend as well. Usually you get two really good games between the two top NFC and two top AFC teams then. By the time you get to the Superbowl weekend, there’s a game in there somewhere that’s typically entertaining but it’s surrounded by so much hype and noise, that the game kind of seems secondary to the spectacle.
New Years Day for me. College football is >>>>>> than the NFL, and the Rose Bowl is the pinnacle of College Football. It’s too bad NYD has been watered down in recent years. If I were in charge of the world, there would be no games played after the 1st, and only a select few would be played on that date. Still, even in its diluted form, NYD is the best day on the football calendar.