I too am a fan of football. Only two teams I dislike, the Raiders and the Cowboys. My college (Hofstra University) was once the home of the NY Jets. They would often make available home game tickets to lesser visiting team games. For instance, no tickets for Miami when Marino was QB, but if the Colts or Pats were in town, you'd be able to get tickets and a school shuttle bus ride to Shea Stadium in Queens.
Brett Farve was a great player. Didn't fair so well in Atlanta, but became legendary in Green Bay. Do you have cards from his short career with the NY Jets?
I'll forever be a Pats fan, and have a fondness for the Steelers. They were such an awesome team in my youth as well as beating the Cowboys and Raiders (Immaculate Reception game was against the Raiders IIRC).
The NFL 100 commercial was the best Super Bowl commercial, followed by the Bud Light knight getting killed by the Mountain that Rides from Game of Thrones just before one of the dragons toasts the entire tournament.
I played football in high school and junior high school. I wasn't very good, but loved it. I doubt I saw more than a few minutes of playing time my freshman year, but by my senior year, there were games I never left the field. Mainly due to a shortage of position players. I stay in contact with many of my high school football teammates.
As a treat, here is my freshman football team photo (summer 1978). I'm in the front row, far right. They even misspell my last name like most people do.
The football coach in the last row, upper left hand corner, is indirectly responsible for my military career and probably my entire adult family life. Coach Bob Schweitzer was a 5th grade teacher who was also the high school wrestling coach. He hounded me to join the wrestling team. I relented when I got to junior high school and started wrestling. I was pretty good and stuck with wrestling throughout junior high school and high school. I got a varsity letter all four years.
My coach was from Long Island and wrote a letter to the wrestling coach of Hofstra University. I went to that school to wrestle. The college housed the wrestlers and ROTC cadets on the floor where handicapped students lived. The thought being that when there was a fire, the cadets and wrestlers could assist in carrying down the students not physically able to make it down the stairs.
An ROTC cadet next door to me convinced me to join. I enjoyed ROTC and eventually enlisted in my local National Guard. I did well enough I received an active duty commission. I was discharged one day and commissioned on active duty the next.
During my first tour in Germany, I ended up deploying to the desert and then returned to Fort Knox in 1991 for my Armor Officer Advance Course. I met my wife at a Halloween party in Louisville that year and we were married a few months later (27 years in April).
I ended up with almost four years in the Guard and just over 24 years of active Army service (28 years total service).
Had I not joined wrestling, I probably would not have chosen that college in New York, may not have joined ROTC nor have met my wife and had my children. My life may have had a totally different path.
All this because a 5th grade teacher convinced an 11 year old to join the wrestling team.