As of this writing, Super Bowl XL is approximately 146 days and 13 hours away. Give or take, that's about 5 months.

32 teams, 16 regular season games apiece, and you're talking about 256 regular-season games to be watched, fretted over, analyzed and dissected.

Throw in the post-season, with three divisional winners and one wildcard in each conference and you're talking about another 12 games leading up to a Super Bowl that will undoubtedly culminate in a spectacle that lives up to and, quite possibly, exceeds its marketers-dream XL billing. Super Bowl 40? Please! February 5 in Detroit will be extra-large, indeed.

What's your point? you may ask.

Simple. For those of you who do not or cannot appreciate the next 147 days of 300 pound behemoths trying to take each other's heads off, for those of you who cannot see beauty in a post pattern, for those of you who have no understanding of the inherent differences between a 3-4 and a 4-3, a nickel and a dime, a go-route and a curl, a fullback, a halfback, a quarterback, and a tailback, I ask now, politely, to just bear with those of us who do and can.

I'm tempted to tell you that football represents the most team-oriented sport out there, that any person who ever played football and any other sport will agree that the dependence on any one player is vastly diminished in football compared to the other sports they played. You can only ride a golden-armed quarterback so long; the best linebacker in the game is not going to win you a championship all on his own. Football is simply not a game that any one person can take over.

But what I really want to do is make a deal. A pact, if you will. For those of you who do not "get" football, I ask for your indulgence. I ask you not to complain when you realize, mid-December, that football is spillin' into February again. Football season is NOT too long. Hockey season is too long, and that's after giving me an entire season off! I ask that you put up with the mood swings that ripple through the house over four quarters. I ask that you take the dog around the block when you find him whimpering by the front door because I cannot, I simply CANNOT, leave the house between the two minute warning and the end of the game. I ask you not to schedule "dinner-club" at the house until February 6, and have any expectation whatsoever that I will participate in any way, shape, or form. I ask you not to act befuddled and confused, blindsided if you will, when I tell you on any given Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday that there's a game on. I ask you keep a picture of me handy, so that you can't use that old, "I don't even recognize you anymore," line.

In return for this indulgence I promise you the other 210 days of the year. Honest. I promise to clean up the graveyard of chicken wings and pizza boxes after the game. I promise to walk the dog every morning, no matter how cold and rainy and snowy and icy, all while you stay snuggled, toasty and comfy, in bed. I promise to pay the bills on time.

I do not promise to watch figure skating. Even I have limits.

Football is back and it should be better than ever. The next time I look around we'll be thick in the middle of a dreary mid-Atlantic winter, but it's a price I'm willing to pay.

Football season is nirvana, and for nirvana I'll even take the garbage out.

Promise…

You may always reach Alex Cudaback at cuda24@yahoo.com