NFL Dad, Week 14: Snow makes everything beautiful, even Colts-Bills

The year my daughter was born, the ensuing winter broke me. Newborns have a way of giving first-time parents cabin fever, and a prolonged snowy winter (I remember three separate snowstorms in March) only worsened that feeling. Having kids changed me from one of those people who says, “I like seasons!” to one of those people who says, “I swear to God I’m moving to California.”

It’s three years later, and I’m still in the same dumb place with winter. Occasionally, I’ll pitch a Fermi problem to myself: How many man hours have my wife and I lost to winter since we had kids? How many cumulative hours have we spent cajoling my daughter to wear her hat? Or outfitting the strollers with those comfy little sleeping bags that keep the kids warm? Or just squeezing them into the boots and jackets and extra layers that the season requires? I figure I’ve lost entire days (weeks?) of my life to swearing under my breath while wrestling little toddler arms into sweaters.

Then it snows. A wet snow, clean and pristine, that sticks to trees but melts in the street. The city’s pace slows, its noise muffled. It’s beautiful.

And my daughter, to whom we’ve read The Snowy Day dozens or maybe a hundred times, picks up a stick and, like the protagonist, uses it to smack a snow-covered tree. When we go back inside, again influenced by the book, she tries to put a snowball in her pocket. I wouldn’t trade the moment for anything in the world.

Except California. I would definitely still rather live in California.

— I turn on the games around 1:15 p.m. It’s better to wait a few minutes to let RedZone warm up. At the top of the hour, Scott Hanson is always showing off the Octobox while opposing quarterbacks shake hands and sideline reporters give final updates. I’d rather squeeze in a few extra minutes of parenting, and today it gives me the chance to put my son down for his nap.

— The kids are worn out from my sister and her family visiting this weekend. My nieces are 12 and 8 years old, and they are GODS to my daughter. So on Saturday night we let her stay up 90 minutes later than usual, which gave her a chance to spend time with her cousins and feel like a big girl. The fallout is that she’s cranky as hell today, and not rested enough to communicate her feelings with words.

— Eli Manning gets a raucous standing ovation from the home crowd. The first offensive play for the Giants is an Orleans Darkwa fumble. Ereck Flowers recovers the ball, though, which is probably the first Ereck Flowers play that Giants fans have appreciated this season.

— Touchdown Josh Gordon! His grab evens the game at 7, and afterwards he sports some sunglasses on the sideline.

Why don’t more players wear sunglasses on the sideline? Everyone looks cooler in shades. (This is rhetorical, I don’t need to be reminded of the NFL’s stentorian uniform regulations.)

— HOLY SNOW IN BUFFALO. YES. GIVE IT TO ME.

The visibility is so poor that the broadcast shows an Adam Vinatieri field goal attempt from the sideline view, rather than the usual view from behind the play. Vinatieri misses, because he’s only the best kicker in NFL history, not a god.

With the miss, the game remains scoreless. This should be a wild ride: I took the Bills as 3-point favorites today without realizing that (A) the game would take place in a snow globe or (B) Nathan Peterman is starting for Buffalo. Never bet on anything.

— I read my daughter a book while she poops. Since last week, she filled up her poop chart, so we watched Moana together. It was a hit, of course. But now the poop problem has been flipped: Instead of holding it in for days at a time, she’s eager to squeeze out a poop even when she doesn’t have to go, because she knows she’ll get a chocolate and think it will lead to another Moana viewing, though my wife and I haven’t consented to that yet.

So it takes her 10 minutes or maybe more in the bathroom — time kind of dilates when I’m sitting on the floor of a bathroom encouraging someone to poop — and when we finally emerge, Kareem Hunt scores a short touchdown to put the Chiefs up 10-0 over the Raiders.

— It’s Week 14, which makes it the fantasy football playoffs for three of my four teams, which means I am ready to be filled with regret about every decision regarding a flex spot. Right now that means bemoaning my benching of Duke Johnson, who scores on a shovel pass to give the Browns a 14-7 lead over Green Bay.

(pokes Packers with stick)

— After my daughter goes down for her nap, my body starts shaking with hunger. A cool thing about parenting is tending to every whim of your child while ignoring every fundamental need of your own body. I make myself a grilled cheese because we have no other food in the house. I swear we JUST got groceries. Why have kids when you can invest in locusts?

— LeSean McCoy already has 15 rushes for 97 yards, and seeing him dance through the Colts defense reminds me of the 2013 snow game when he single-handedly carried the Eagles past the Lions. McCoy’s built a career with jukes, but there’s something more refined about his style in the snow: He tends to make a single, decisive cut, and it devastates defenders. It’s like a pickup game where everyone’s wearing old sneakers, and McCoy’s the only player who brought cleats.

McCoy’s work sets up the first score of the game, a short fade to Kelvin Benjamin, who holds on to the ball as he falls into a snow bank. After the score, six Bills gather around the spot where Steven Hauschka will kick the PAT, which seems ill-advised. Nevertheless, Hauschka’s kick is true, and the Bills take a 7-0 lead.

— My daughter doesn’t want to nap. I explain to her that it’s time to rest, that it’s not time to get up yet. She says no, but I’m firm. As I walk out, she yells, “DADDY! DADDY!” Then she screams it.

I don’t go back in. I am resolute. I am a rock. I have missed a cool Dez Bryant touchdown.

— My wife leaves to get us groceries. With our daughter fighting her nap and our son already asleep for the last 80 minutes, I am definitely going to have to do some actual parenting today. But the other option is we all starve, and I don’t want to hear that much crying.

— With 10 seconds left in the half, Adam Thielen catches a 4-yard touchdown on a fade in the back corner of end zone with the sun directly in his eyes. It’s an incredible catch, and the Vikings lead Carolina 17-14 at the half.

A few minutes later, I look at scoreboard and the Panthers lead, 14-13. WTF? They overturned it? (shakes fist at sky) CAAAAAATCH RUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLEEEE!!!

By the way, any time a catch like that gets overturned, some Johnny Mansplainer emerges from his toilet home to be all, “Actually, if you read the language of the catch rule, it’s obviously NOT a catch.” YEAH MAN, WE KNOW THE RULE. IT’S BAD. EXPLAINING THE BAD RULE DOES NOT MAKE IT GOOD.

— My wife has barely been gone when my son wakes up crying. Usually, when he wakes up from a nap, he’ll chirp a little bit but take his time waking up quietly. Not today. “DAD-DEE! DAD-DEE!”

I’m getting tired of this phase where he only wants Dad, and never Mom. Like, it’s great to be wanted, but I’m starting to feel more like an abused personal assistant than a beloved caregiver. Ask for Mom! She gave you LIFE. Show some gratitude, dude.

— With my son cuddling next to me on the couch, Cam Newton dances away from pressure on third-and-7 and flings the ball to Devin Funchess for a touchdown.

Cam may struggle with accuracy and consistency, but when he’s at the top of his game, there’s nothing a defense can do. Just tip your cap and take the L.

— Ugh, RedZone just showed the replay of the horrifying fencing response Tom Savage exhibited after a hit. Naturally, he came back into the game five minutes later.

So now T.J. Yates is under center for the Texans, and there’s really only one rule to playing quarterback for Houston: Throw it to Nuk.

The touchdown gives the Texans a 16-13 lead, but no lead is safe when Jimmy Garoppolo is on the other sideline. That’s where he was when his team came back from a 28-3 deficit in the Super Bowl. He does his best work there!

— Browns?

Browns!

Yes, it’s the fourth quarter, and the Browns lead the Packers 21-7. But it doesn’t last long: Brett Hundley capably leads a drive that ends with a short scamper by Jamaal Williams to cut the lead to seven. There’s still PLENTY of time for the Browns to Browns this up.

— With less than four minutes remaining in Buffalo and the score still 7-0, Jacoby Brissett scrambles for a first down on fourth-and-6 to keep the Colts’ hopes alive. We’re gonna have a fun finish in the snow!

— My son has gotten antsy. After climbing down off the couch, he closes my laptop and says, “All done!” So that’s it, everyone. That’s the end of the column.

No, I join him on the floor for some coloring, although mostly he just takes crayons out of the box and puts them back in. I take game notes on my phone when I can.

— The Bengals are getting OWNED by the Bears today, and MAN would I hate to be a Bengals fan. The sheer breadth of ways that they can disappoint is incredible. Like, being a Browns fan is fine: You just lose. You can insulate yourself from losing when there’s no expectation of success. But the Bengals manipulate their fans with tiny glimpses of success, constructing a grand stage before falling through a trap door of their own design.

I have two friends from the Cincinnati area who grew up Bengals fans. One of them stopped following the NFL this year; he said the best thing about it is not following the Bengals. The other texted me after the Bengals lost that ugly, vicious primetime game against the Steelers: “This is definitely my last year watching NFL. Just can’t watch that shit anymore.”

— The Colts score a touchdown somehow (look, I’m parenting, OK?), but a PAT is too risky. Chuck Pagano opts to go for the win, and Jack Doyle catches the two-point conversion. Bills fans throw snowballs at him, probably because the 3-point cover is hopeless now.

But wait. There’s a flag on the play, and it’s offensive pass interference. It’s too far to go for two, so the Colts will have to kick after all. And let me just tell you with complete sincerity that this is the most exciting PAT I’ve ever seen in my whole life.

TIE GAME! The Bills can still push with a field goal or cover with a touchdown. GAMBLING IS GREAT, EVERYONE SHOULD DO IT.

— The Vikings have staged an incredible fourth-quarter comeback, but Cam successfully unlocked FULL CAM MODE.

— I haven’t mentioned the Lions-Bucs game at all, so here ya go: With the game tied at 21, the Lions put together a drive that ends with a game-winning 46-yard field goal. You didn’t miss much besides a FAT GUY TD when the Bucs ran a tackle-eligible red-zone play.

— DeAndre Hopkins may have had a monster game, but he also fumbles with his team trailing 23-16. The Niners recover and kick a field goal to go up 10. Ballgame.

— With time running out in overtime, LeSean McCoy breaks through for a touchdown, the win, and the cover. SNOW ANGELS FOR EVERYONE.

— Moments later, Davante Adams scores a walk-off touchdown in Cleveland.

I know I’ve ridden hard against overtime in this column throughout the season, but these two overtimes gave me extra snow football and the possibility of Aaron Rodgers coming back and running the table to get into the playoffs. I can’t be too mad about it today.

— Five games on the late docket today: Titans-Cards, Jets-Broncos, and Washington-Chargers have already kicked off, while Seahawks-Jaguars and Eagles-Rams kick off at 4:25 p.m. ET. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I probably won’t be taking many notes on those first three games.

Before the last two games start, I leave to take my dog for a walk (it’s my last chance for a clear head before I get mad about the Seahawks). My wife is unloading the dishwasher, and as I exit the front door, I see my son pull a paring knife from the silverware rack. There’s a reason this video went viral:

It is universally relatable to anyone with a son.

— Todd Gurley caps the Rams’ opening drive with a touchdown, and the Eagles respond by stringing their own scoring drive together. Carson Wentz caps it off with a short pass to Zach Ertz.

— While my wife prepares dinner for the kids, she hits the nuclear parenting button: She plays “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana on repeat. Now, I listen to the entire soundtrack from start to finish almost every day, but this is madness. We make it through the song three times in a row before she advances the playlist to “You’re Welcome.”

When my daughter and I watched the movie, she got upset when the credits came on the screen. “I can’t see Moana! I can’t see Maui!” I had to explain to her that the movie was over: Moana led her people on new voyages, and Maui went off to have other adventures.

It didn’t soothe her at all. She got up off the couch and started to walk away. As she started to turn the corner for her bedroom, she stopped and turned to me with her eyebrows raised. “Daddy, can we talk about it?” Wait ’til I tell her about the internet.

— The Chargers are cruising. They already lead by 10, and they just picked Kirk Cousins, which leads to another field goal.

— Here are all of the notes I took when Josh McCown threw an interception with the Jets trailing 10-0:

Jets-Broncos: no

— Trailing 20-6 and facing fourth-and-4, Cousins has a receiver open but the ball falls off his fingertips, just out of reach. This isn’t Washington’s day.

— My daughter throws a tantrum at the dinner table that is wholly the result of her exhaustion. She refuses to eat and demands that my wife turn off “Despacito.” BEFORE THE CHORUS. Come on! Can you just let your parents LIVE for four minutes?

— Trey Burton scores his second touchdown of the game to put the Eagles up 21-7. I like to make fun of Doug Pederson’s golf wig, but the Eagles went for it on fourth-and-1 when they could have settled for a field goal on this drive. They have an aggressive game plan, and they’re executing it well.

— Before I had kids, diapers were the thing I feared most about parenthood. Which is stupid, because the thing you end up fearing most in the entire world is your own mortality. Diapers are fine.

That said, I just changed a diaper filled with the scent of death and campaign promises. I’ve changed several diapers almost every day for more than three years, and there’s about one per year that makes me gag. This was it. A tip of my biohazard hood to my son for that one.

— Russell Wilson takes a deep shot to Doug Baldwin that gets picked by Jalen Ramsey. Can’t say that I thought Wilson would throw an INT in this game before Blake Bortles, but hey, sometimes you have to ignore the tape and challenge one of the best cornerbacks in football by throwing a jump ball to a 5’11 receiver.

— I play with the kids as Seattle finally puts a drive together at the end of the half. It’s a totally cliché act of dad-ness, but I chase them around as the Tickle Monster. In moments like this, fatherhood feels less like something I do as an individual and more like a series of shared experiences. I am Everydad.

Oh, and Blair Walsh misses wide right on a 38-yarder in perfect conditions. The Seahawks trail 3-0 at the half. No problem, Seattle gets the ball first in the second half.

— My wife has the kids in the bath, and I take the opportunity to change out of my Seahawks T-shirt. Gotta change up the juju! When I come back out of my bedroom, it’s 30 seconds into the second half and — wait. Why do the Jaguars have the ball? AW HELL, RUSSELL.

That interception leads to a Dede Westbrook touchdown, and the Seahawks trail 10-0. (I find that French commentary helps me deal with an opponent making highlights at my team’s expense.)

By the way, I have three Seahawks jerseys, four Seahawks T-shirts, and a Seahawks hoodie, and none of them are the prototypical “lucky” piece of fan gear. Every single one of them has been taken off at halftime after 28 minutes of ineffective running plays on second-and-10 before a two-minute drill to set up a field goal attempt.

— The Chargers get a short rushing TD following a flea-flicker bomb to Keenan Allen. That makes it 30-6, Chargers, and I can happily ignore this one the rest of the evening.

— I have come to grips with a Seahawks loss, so I crack a beer to celebrate giving up. Wilson immediately hits Baldwin deep beyond the double coverage. An absolute dime of a throw, but the Jags defense stiffens, and Seattle settles for the field goal. Stupid Seahawks. Just lose! Stop trying to make me invested in this game.

— I help get the kids out of the bath and into their pajamas. I give my son his milk and read him Where is the Green Sheep? Sammy Watkins scores on a short pass play to cut the Eagles’ lead to 24-21, and my son hands me the book again. He wouldn’t sit through an entire book for the first year and a half of his life, and now he wants a reprise? It’s not even CLOSE to one of Mem Fox’s best books. “Seep, Seep,” he says. Oh, fine.

— RedZone cuts back to Jacksonville, where it’s 10-10. Wait, how did the Seahawks score? What happened? I don’t get to enjoy the tie game, because the play is a 75-yard catch-and-run to Keelan Cole.

— I take an antihistamine, because sneezing fits are dangerous at my age. You can throw your back out sneezing, dislocate a rib. Getting old is the pits.

I come back to the TV and the Rams have taken the lead, 28-24. I only see a brief close-up of the guy who scored entering the end zone. It was a skinny player with a jersey number in the 20s. Did Carson Wentz throw a pick-six? That hardly seems possible.

Luckily, Twitter is always there for me*:

*Twitter is always there for everyone, waiting to ruin your day. I deleted it from my phone, and the quality of my life improved dramatically.

— RedZone shows the Seahawks punting, and my blood runs cold. RedZone only ever shows a punt for three reasons, and two of them would be bad for me:

It’s option 1: The Jags returner gets tackled at the 1-yard line, and Leonard Fournette punches it in on the next play.

I am only just learning that Bobby Wagner is out of the game with a hamstring injury. The Jags have scored three touchdowns on the three plays he’s been off the field. Cool. Cool cool cool.

— With the Cardinals leading 9-7, Marcus Mariota gets picked off, leading to an Arizona field goal. This is already too much information about this game.

— Wentz gets hit hard while scrambling in for a touchdown, but there’s holding on the play, so it doesn’t count. Four plays later, he throws a touchdown on fourth down to Alshon Jeffery, who makes an incredible catch.

The Eagles lead 31-28, and this game is delivering SO HARD.

— My daughter’s sitting on the toilet before bed, again convinced that she can poop even though she just did it a few hours ago. She wants to count all of the hearts on a house in a book, and she nails the first baker’s dozen. Then: “Thirteen, 15, eleventeen ... Daddy, you can count the rest.”

I come back to the TV after putting the kids to bed, and the Rams are back in front, 35-31. Wentz is limping into the tunnel, and Erin Andrews reports something with a look of gravity. It would probably be useful if I listened to RedZone with the sound on, instead of a playlist of Christmas music.

— The Seahawks, by dint of a bomb to Tyler Lockett bomb and a subsequent defensive stop, will get the ball back with a chance to win the game. They absolutely have no business being in this game.

— Chris Long gets to Jared Goff for a sack-fumble, and the Eagles get the ball with short field down 35-34. Time for Nick Foles to do some hand offs!

— The Seahawks don’t get an obvious call, and their drive stalls before it can really threaten the Jags. Then there are fights and ugliness that I don’t care to explain, defend, or even really think about.

— Sometimes I get sick of RedZone by the end of the day. When there are only one or two games still in play, RedZone’s assault of highlights I’ve already watched drains what energy and attention I have left. I’d rather have the steadiness of one booth calling a single game, cutting to commercials I can tune out.

So I click over to FOX for the last bit of Eagles-Rams, where the Rams’ last-ditch attempt to score via rugby laterals ends up as a defensive score for Brandon Graham. It’s a Pyrrhic victory for Philadelphia, which tightens its control on a playoff bye but loses its star quarterback to a torn ACL. The sky darkens over the L.A. Coliseum and the surrounding wildfires, creating a palette of red and purple that awes the fans.

It isn’t beautiful the way that snow football is, but it doesn’t need to be to inspire awe. In a way, it’s all the same: The sun sets, snow melts, bodies are broken, and everything beautiful comes to an end.