It is obscene what the NFL gives to us. 1000 hours! Fall and winter! Excellent TV shows give us 10-12 hours of content per season. Walter White is still 52. What is a novel—20 hours? 256 games means 256 miniseries. It's almost not fair, the idea that other cultural objects can compete in the middle stages of the technocracy, and not just that, but that the RedZone channel is free in Week One.

But I begin the day in the old world. With my father-in-law at my wife's childhood home I watch the Bears' horrendous opening two series on regular network TV and smile smugly when Cutler throws a pick-six. I don't dislike the Bears, I don't, but I'm a Wisconsinite transplant to Chicago, which means something, and they are not my team, despite how much I like listening to Waddle on the radio, and JWebb Nation is endearing. Bears' losses provide a complicated kind of pleasure and I look forward to them finding a way to lose to the rebuilding Colts today.

It's early; already, Cutler is making his glazed and doll-like face of disengagement. I eat a danish and nod. Thinking other things, I tell my father-in-law that surely the Bears will dominate the game and go on to have a fine 8-8 season.

12:58 p.m.

Having driven at unsafe speeds from the middle of Chicago to its northern perimeter, baby googing and geeing in back seat, I have returned to my home, to Siciliano. After successfully depositing baby into naptime, I have reviewed the various first quarters of the early games and now settled in to the soothing sounds of Siciliano's voice as he leads me from storyline to storyline, real-time. Apparently RG3 (Bob Griffin) looks good.

My old friend Marc, an NFL purist, is here with me, visiting from Green Bay—he is lying on my couch, in fact, watching me frantically watch RedZone. "Watching you watch this is like watching the Beethoven part of Clockwork Orange," he says. "With the eyeballs. This makes me uncomfortable. The NFL game is pristine. It doesn't need enhancements. You are sick."

I show him the notes I've taken. RG3-to-Garcon for 88 yards happened at 12:30 and I have gone back to look at it again. Siciliano points out that it was an 88 yard play and that Garcon's number is in fact 88. Marc and I both reflect on what that might mean as we watch Garcon truck down most of the Superdome's turf on his way to the endzone. Again.

"That guys is French and fast," Marc says.

"He's Haitian," I say. "But yes."

1:30 p.m.

The Jets are in their two-minute drill now, and Marc and I discuss our various objections to the Jets as a franchise and entity in the universe. Tebow. Sanchez. There is the problem of Favre, and that aspect of the relationship, but Marc (deftly) points out that there is a Jets receiver named Kurley, and we both agree that this both good and difficult, spelling-wise. Kerley, actually. Kerley scores a touchdown.

1:52 p.m.

Siciliano asks me (the nation) about Nate Washington's TD celebration dance.

1:55 p.m.

Twitter answers Siciliano and tells him that the dance is the shark dance from_ Any Given Sunday_. I wish badly I had been the one to send the tweet to him explaining it.

2:25 p.m.

Sideline camera holds long shot on Mike Smith, and Marc says, "Is Mike Smith not wearing an undershirt again? Dude has the rawest nipples in the NFL." I ignore this and note, with satisfaction, that the Lions appear to be in trouble against the Rams. The baby is still down for his nap. The Bears have turned things around and have crushed the Colts, as was their duty. I feel complicated feelings. Andrew Luck has thrown 19 interceptions but has done so with incredible poise and confidence for a rookie.