The next time I find myself sitting through one of those interminable dead stretches when they’re pitching Buicks and shitty cell phone service on CBS or ESPN while I’m sitting in the hot sun twiddling my thumbs, this will probably be going through my head:
“One thing is experience,” Kaaya said. “You don’t really know how the rhythm of the game goes. One thing that really shocked me at first was all the TV timeouts. It seemed like every time my freshman year when we’re about to go out on the field, I’m feeling good, I’m feeling warmed up and there’s a TV timeout right before I’m about to go out and we have to wait five minutes.”
Five minutes? Seems longer than that, sometimes. But I can definitely sympathize, brother.
Get The Picture 
Kind of makes you wonder how the fan and player experience might change if they played commercial free quarters followed by 5-10 minute long breaks between quarters and your standard halftime.
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It seems like they have a TV timeout after every score, change of possession and injury now. Then again we’re just 93,000 extras at a TV show now.
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this /\
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It occurred to me that these injuries could be a direct result of all the time spent sitting on the sidelines. (subtext to Kaaya’s comment about being loose and ready and then having to wait) What if the overall greater risk of injury in football was actually TV’s fault?
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This is a first world problem. Just saying…
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Show me the money, and I’ll grovel forth to retrieve it.
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This is why I DVR every game these days (even the big ones), wait 1-2 hours after starting, and then watch and play catch up. It saves me so much time and frankly makes the game much more enjoyable, as I have no interest in watching the same ED commercial for the 11th time, or putting up with the local car dealership screaming at me about their low priced Kia’s.
Personally, I don’t know how anyone watches a game from the beginning straight thru — the same goes for attending games in person and putting up with all that dead time just baking in the sun (or freezing, getting rained on, etc).
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I love attending games, but I hate the dead time, which is probably the main reason I now go to zero away games.
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I use the TV time outs to pace my libations.You must refresh at each one. End of quarter and halftime are predictable. Long drives for scores are OK. Pick sixes, TD returns, breakaway scores (h/t #27), fumbles, and the replay booth are wild cards. You may only have two standing servings at one time, all others must be consumed. Opa!
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I tried to pace my cocktails to one just before kickoff and only one per quarter. But I find that in my excitement my bourbon and waters turn into triple bourbon on the rocks and by the 4th quarter my wife won’t sit in the same room with me.
Need a better plan.
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Sounds like a perfect plan to me…
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Yep, I don’t see anything wrong with that.
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Try 100% agave tequila shots. It tastes better and you don’t get the hangover. Of course, you have to tape the 4th qtr.
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There’s a 4th quarter?
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Kirby couldn’t come up with an interesting quarterback quote for the story.
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I accept the guy shouting about screen passes and draw plays, I have yet to accept the lull of the tv timeout
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There always seem to be 2-3 other games I can flip to during timeouts and ha
halftime breaks. I keep the radio low in the background so I know when it is time to switchback. Not saying it isn’t aggravating, but it can be put to good use. It is horrible when attending live, no way around it, and worse in sucky weather.
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It used to be just an inconvenience to sit through the TV time outs, now with the 1,000 decibel music playing it is torture. Ear plugs are your friend.
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Once during a TV timeout I talked to my wife. Once.
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Were you sporting the ” She said she wasn’t gonna tell me twice” shiner the next day
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Tell me again.. I always mess that joke up.
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