E-Mail This Article to a Friend I am ready for some football BY MITCH KRPATA

"Are you ready for some football?" So goes the immortal musical query by Hank Williams Jr., which has for years assured that every Monday night from September through December, Hank Williams Sr. is spinning in his grave furiously enough to power a midsize urban area.

My answer is always "yes," to some degree. Sometimes the scheduling is so laughable that I can’t quite claim to be enthused by Hank’s exhortations. Take the upcoming season’s prime-time match-up between the Jets and Dolphins — the only reason neither of those teams will be 0-16 this year is because they have to play each other a couple times. But I can’t recall ever watching the intro to Monday Night Football, deciding that, no, I’m really not ready for some football right now, and then flipping the channel to watch Sean Hannity browbeat Alan Colmes. I’d watch the Holliston High School Panthers lose by 40 points to Bellingham if it were broadcast on Monday night.

Nevertheless, with the New England Patriots opening their preseason tonight at home against the Philadelphia Eagles, I think it’s safe to say I’m not only ready for some football, but desperate. This has simply been an agonizing season to be a Red Sox fan, even though they’re well positioned for a playoff spot and seem to be putting it together for a triumphant stretch run. Still, to be able to settle back and watch the Patriots, a team working on a 15-game winning streak, is going to be the panacea I’ve been waiting for. Even if they lose tonight, it won’t matter for many reasons, all of which are that it’s the preseason.

I have wonderful plans for this game involving several types of chips, most notably the corn and potato varieties. I envision a spread of the most sumptuous salsas and dips arranged in a semicircle on my coffee table, each located precisely one arm’s length away from me. Most importantly, the fridge will be stocked with cold beer. I’m certainly ready for some football tonight.

Or, rather, I would be, if I were going to be home during the game. In fact, I’m going to be traveling to Western Mass for a wedding in my girlfriend’s family. This is the same girlfriend for whom, when I was courting her last fall, I skipped the Monday Night Football game between the Patriots and Broncos. You remember it: that was the one where the Patriots rallied for the miracle comeback, in Denver, by deliberately long-snapping out of the end zone to give the Broncos a safety and assure themselves of the favorable field position they needed to score the winning touchdown with 30 seconds remaining. Yeah, I was watching Mystic River that night. And I had been so feverishly ready for some football.

So I won’t get to watch the game tonight. It’s possible I’ll be able to listen to it on WBCN, at least until we reach the radio wasteland of Central Massachusetts. Then I’ll have to close my eyes and imagine I’m on my couch, dusted with a half-inch of potato-chip crumbs, French-onion dip smeared about my face and chest, watching up to one quarter of real football before the second-stringers and practice squad guys go in and the game quality devolves to Pop Warner levels, only with more posturing. That’s still enough to get me excited about the upcoming season.

See, the NFL preseason is like opening one present on Christmas Eve. There’s still so much to look forward to when the main event rolls around. Like another several months of malapropisms, spoonerisms, and other unintentionally hilarious isms from the NFL’s stable of incompetent play-by-play men. Announcer ineptitude is prevalent across the sports spectrum — my favorite moment of last year’s ALCS was when Joe Buck said, "This is Pedro Martinez’s first time on the mound ... at Yankee Stadium ... this year ... in the post-season" — but football broadcasters take it to another level. The word "succeed" is in none of their vocabularies. Teams always "have success," or, if they fail, "don’t have a lot of success." And every week, analysts try to identify the keys to the game for every team. These are helpful pointers like "don’t commit turnovers," "control the time of possession," and "don’t give up a lot of first downs." It’s like saying the secret strategy to winning a marathon is to run 26 miles faster than anyone else.

Maybe the most tantalizing appetizer to the 2004-’05 football season is the recent release of Madden 2005 for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and X-Box. Recognized as the undisputed king of football video games, the Madden franchise finds new ways to bury the competition with each new iteration. This year, they’ve added a "create-a-fan" feature. You can select any number of hairstyles, body paints, and skin colors for your custom die-hard. You can even pick one of two body types: "average" and "heavy." This is not to suggest that fit football fans don’t exist, just that they’re not usually the ones standing shirtless in sub-freezing temperatures, hoisting a giant foam finger on one hand and an $8 cup of Bud Light in the other.

In the inaugural game of my 2004-’05 Madden season, I took on my buddy Stoo. I was the Colts, and he was the Eagles (it’s understood that when two New England fans are playing each other, neither gets to pick the Pats). Over the course of the game, I threw my controller to the ground twice, yelled "What the hell was that?" at least five times, dropped more F-bombs than you’d hear in a conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Eminem, and still eked out a 31-28 victory. I really wouldn’t blame Stoo if that was the last time we play each other this year.

But the outcome wasn’t important. What mattered was watching Video Edgerrin James rush for a total of 16 yards and remembering the Patriots’ epic goal-line stand against Indianapolis last year, when the Edge couldn’t punch it in on fourth-and-one with 14 seconds left. Or when Video Peyton Manning coughed up a fumble on his own 20-yard line, conjuring memories of his four-interception collapse against the Pats in the AFC Championship game. My animal self that has lain dormant since February, the loutish id that shouts "DEFENSE!" without irony and is willing to hug another man to celebrate a timely interception, is waking up. And it’s hungry.

It’s almost time for another five months of first downs, touchdowns and bogus pass-interference calls. Seventeen consecutive weeks of spending entire Sundays on the couch. Chris Berman’s "rumblin’ ... bumblin’ ... stumblin’ ..." shtick. The Patriots’ winning streak extending to who knows when.

Hank Williams Jr., you have laid down the gauntlet. And I answer emphatically: yes, I am ready for some football.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Mitch Krpata can be reached at mkrpata[a]phx.com