NFL Dad, Week 16: Pay it forward

Christmas is difficult, even if you like it. As the days grow shorter, the responsibilities mount. You need to buy more gifts than is financially responsible. Buy and decorate a tree. Purchase and send Christmas cards. Arrange travel during the most difficult season to travel. And if you’re a parent, there’s a whole other slew of things to be bought and baked and dropped off at school.

Perhaps you are the kind of person who buys gifts throughout the year, then labels and stores them in a logical place. Maybe you can come home after a long day of work and crank out 30 Christmas cards while listening to Bing Crosby. I am not that person. I abuse my Amazon Prime membership to get gifts delivered in time, and I still end up shopping on Christmas Eve, which is also when I wrap gifts. The holiday cards we send — kids smiling, bullet points about the family — inevitably get mailed in the days after Christmas. (They say “Happy New Year” for a reason.)

On Friday, my grandmother had a massive aneurysm near her heart. She survived surgery but lost a kidney; the doctors said that similar conditions are fatal 90 percent of the time, and of the 10 percent who survive, 90 percent never leave the hospital again.

And of course I hadn’t sent her card yet. I dashed off an attempt to be positive, commending her toughness through the ordeal, which wasn’t over. I dropped it in the mail, and she died 12 hours later.

She never met my kids, but that didn’t stop her from lavishing them with gifts on their birthdays and Christmas. I called infrequently and visited less. And because of who I am, a bullshit deadline artist who can’t work ahead of schedule, a nice old lady didn’t get to see a couple more pictures of her great-grandchildren before she died.

I woke up to the news on Christmas Eve morning. My wife asked if I needed a few minutes. “I think so?” I said, and she went to get the kids up. But they were attuned to my absence. My son caught a glimpse of me in the doorway, and he ran to me yelling, “DADDY! DADDY!” with my daughter in hot pursuit. I gathered them in my arms and told them that I loved them, and if they didn’t see my tears, it’s only because they don’t yet understand that I’m fallible, flawed.

I wept because I can never repay the love I’ve gotten. I wept because I can only pay it forward.

In lieu of play-by-play of Week 16 RedZone action, this week’s NFL Dad is a retrospective on the season so far.

Football: Tony Romo in the announcing booth is “like breathing pure oxygen after YEARS of Phil Simms leaking carbon monoxide into my home.” Elsewhere, Tom Savage gets mauled by the Jags for six sacks in the first half, and Bill O’Brien accidentally discovers that Deshaun Watson is his franchise quarterback.

Parenting:

Quick story from the kids’ birthday party. One of the dads there had a thick orange cast on his hand. He was a bookish guy: slim, glasses, graying hair and gray beard neatly trimmed — a Brooklyn Dad like many other Brooklyn Dads. One of the other dads gestured to his cast and said, “What happened?”

He sighed. “I smashed it pretty bad at Burning Man.” A long pause, and none of us interrupted it. He added: “... as one does.”

Football:

In Pittsburgh, Sam Bradford is a late scratch due to his knee rejecting last week’s touchdown implant. Case Keenum will start, and if I had a bookie I would put my salary on the Steelers today.

Parenting:

My daughter broke her clavicle last week. It’s a common injury for young children, not just Tony Romo. She fell out of a chair a few minutes before we had to leave for her second day of preschool, and I didn’t think it was a serious injury at the time. “We have to go! Can’t miss the second day of school!” was my thinking. I should be an NFL team doctor.

So she’s in a sling for Week 2 of the NFL season (and for the next four weeks) while my son happily toddles around the house. Just kidding! My son is battling a 102-degree fever and an ear infection. Ha! HA! Let’s watch some football!

Football: The 0-2 Saints start doing wild stuff like playing defense in their win over the Panthers; the insane ending to first half of Steelers-Bears deserves revisiting; Deshaun Watson’s brilliance isn’t enough to overcome the Pats in New England; the Eagles need a 61-yard field goal at the end of the game to beat the Giants.

Parenting:

My son’s other obsession tonight — besides smashing his face into the couch — is the hokey-pokey. He’s no good at putting his hand in and shaking it all about, but he DOMINATES at turning around. He spins around in circles until he careens left and crashes into the credenza. He thinks it’s hilarious. He is correct.

Football: Antonio Brown gets angry and flips a Gatorade cooler; the Dolphins get shut out in London while Jay Cutler’s no-effort Wildcat play goes viral; Dalvin Cook’s season ends with an ACL tear; the Jets beat the Jaguars in overtime; the Bucs defense is so bad that Eli Manning scores on a 14-yard scramble.

Parenting:

With the exception of Moana and maybe Frozen, the rest of the Disney princesses are a scourge on parenthood. The Disney Princess Industrial Complex essentially operates like the anti-vaccine movement. No matter how many parents want to raise their daughters to be action-oriented, independent problem solvers, there’s always a nanny or a grandmother who’s pushing Sleeping Beauty or Snow White (which are the SAME DAMN STORY), and that shit spreads like the plague.

And regardless of your feelings on feminism, the message isn’t a great one to send your kids. “Got a problem? Just go to sleep and someone will take care of it.” That only works if your dad owns an NFL team.

Football: Myles Garrett gets a sack on his first NFL snap; the Browns finally get their first lead of the season (it doesn’t last); Ben Roethlisberger throws five INTs, including consecutive pick-sixes, in a blowout to the visiting Jags; Odell Beckham suffers a season-ending injury; HOOOOO-WEEEEE look at this Cassel-Cutler shootout at the half.

Parenting:

My son is up from his nap. He sleepily staggers over and throws his arms around me in a big hug. I know that doesn’t really pop off the screen as anything special, but trust me when I say my brain is FLOODED with dopamine from his carefree smile and chubby arms.

This is the bone that human biology throws to parents. “Oh, is every day with a young child the hardest thing you’ve ever experienced? FINE, bathe in the warmth of infinite love.” And all of us stupid parents are like, “Oh, yeah, that’s good. This is worth surrendering my house to childproofing measures and chiming plastic bullshit.”

Football:

The Falcons were 11.5-point favorites at home, and they lost to Jay Cutler. Gonna have to fumigate the whole stadium after that one.

Parenting:

My daughter runs into the room wearing a pink cape. She eats a tortilla chip that my son discarded on the couch. “I’m a superhero!” she says.

“What’s your superhero name?” I ask.

“HMMMMM.” She has obviously not done the groundwork on her origin story.

“Are you the Pink Crusader?”

“Yeah!” She runs out of the room, then runs back in. “I’m a superhero!”

“What’s your superhero name?” I ask again.

She yells, “The Pink Crusader!” Again, she runs out of the room.

She runs back in and stops in front of me. She casually leans an arm on the couch and says, “I’m the Pink Crusader.”

Football:

The Bears earned zero first downs in the second half and became the first NFL team to win with fewer than five completed passes since ... the last time John Fox coached in the NFL. I’d rather have a block of cement coach my team.

Also, Joe Thomas tears his triceps :(

Parenting:

My sister had kids years before I did, and I was the typical ignorant drunk uncle when it came to her devotion to the kids’ naps and schedule. “What’s with the schedule? Why can’t the kids just power through this one time?” Because the schedule is GOD, man! The schedule is all powerful. It is the weather; it is the earth beneath your feet. Reject it and your life will be untethered from reality, a nonstop maelstrom of tears and tantrums.

Football:

The Texans-Seahawks barnburner owns the late afternoon games. And while Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson will rightly be remembered as the stars of the game, I’d like to point out that at one point Pete Carroll challenged a Wilson incomplete pass, claiming it was a fumble. The challenge was successful, and the fumble forward was good for a first down. That game was WILD.

Parenting:

MIRACLE: Both of my kids are eating their dinner without complaint or hesitation. They ignore the TV to pay attention to the Halloween book my wife is reading. Years from now, when their grade school teacher praises their attention spans, I’m gonna get up in the middle of the parent-teacher conference and do Mick Jagger’s rooster strut.

Football: Julio Jones drops a wide-open touchdown in the end zone on 4th down; Tyreke Hill scores on an end-of-half Hail Mary that was 40-plus yards short of the end zone (the Alex Smith special); A.J. Green and Jaelen Ramsey are both ejected after Ramsey provokes the normally calm Green into an MMA takedown.

Parenting:

I want to make it clear that when your 18-month-old child usually naps for 2-3 hours in the afternoon, then circumvents that with a 25-minute doze before noon, you don’t just have an awake kid instead of a sleeping kid. You have a walking tire fire instead of two hours of silence. I will run for office and/or lead a revolution to eliminate seasonal clock changes.

Also, this memory would be lost forever if not for this dumb column:

[My daughter] brings over a small bowl of cashews, climbs onto the couch, and sits next to me. I say, “Oh, you brought me cashews!” as I take one, because Stock Dad is the role I was born to play. But then she feeds me a cashew, so I feed her one. And we go on that way until the bowl is empty. There’s football on TV, I guess.

Football: In the fantasy crime of the year, the Saints score six touchdowns on the ground while Drew Brees throws for none; rampant stupidity at the end of Chargers-Jaguars leads to overtime; John Fox challenges his team having 1st and goal at the 2, resulting in a Bears turnover. Coaching Move of the Year.

Parenting:

It’s weird the different stages kids can be at despite being similar sizes. My daughter, at age 3, is capable of having a conversation and expressing her feelings with words. My son, 18 months, understands everything we say, but is less a human than an organic chaos engine. The kid does forward-facing trust falls off stairs.

Football: Jay Cutler throws three interceptions in the first half, Alex Smith throws two against the Giants (including one on a shovel pass), Shane Vereen and Travis Kelce both throw picks on trick plays, and Nathan Peterman tosses FIVE on 14 passing attempts in a single half against the Chargers. Also, this Brock Osweiler interception is my favorite play of the year:

Parenting:

My daughter is 3 years old and has still never seen Moana (or any movie), but frequent exposure to the soundtrack and a couple of plot points — “Moana has to save her people” — gives my daughter enough information to guide her body language, and we can see it in the way she play-acts.

When she’s Cinderella, I have to pretend to put a gown on her, and we dance together at the ball. When she’s Rapunzel, she flips her hair around; Ariel, and she holds up a scarf as a bikini. But when she’s Moana, she throws her shoulders back, struts with purpose, and thrusts her fist into the air — something she’d only previously done when saying, “I’m Batman!”

Football: Alex Smith implodes (again); Julio Jones destroys the Bucs; Broncos-Raiders is barely underway before the main event, Crabtree-Talib II: The Re-Snatchening.

Parenting:

I’m familiar with the schools of thought that say you shouldn’t incentivize potty training, and that’s how we started off, too. Then my daughter started holding in poops for several days before struggling to crank out the hardened rock in her butt, and we implemented a multi-tiered system of bribes that would put FIFA to shame.

Football: Tom Brady yells at Josh McDaniels; Eli Manning’s ironman streak is snapped by McAdoo-induced self-benching; the Jets-Chiefs shootout ends in Marcus Peters throwing a referee’s flag into the stands.

Parenting:

The kids play Ring Around the Rosie, and at the end of the song, only my daughter falls down. She looks at me from her back. “I just scored a touchdown.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask.

“I’m the Seahawks!”

My wife cuts in. “If you were the Seahawks, you wouldn’t get in the end zone so easily.” HARSH, WOMAN.

Football: LeSean McCoy carries the Bills to an overtime win over the Colts in a blizzard; Cam Newton single-handedly defeats the Vikings; the Browns choke away a two-touchdown lead against Brett Hundley’s Packers to keep their winless record intact; the Eagles-Rams heavyweight bout lives up to its billing, but Carson Wentz is lost to a torn ACL.

Parenting:

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.

Football: Aaron Rodgers returns to save the Packers’ season, but the Panthers win to kill their dreams; Nick Foles coolly throws four touchdowns in his first start in relief of Wentz; catch rule shenanigans continue, with the ending of Patriots-Steelers the most pear-shaped; Teddy Bridgewater retakes the field to throw an interception.

Parenting:

Two- and 3-year-old kids have moods like the weather: Sometimes a thunderstorm hits, and there’s not much you can do but hole up and wait for it to pass. Eventually, the sun breaks through like nothing happened. As a parent, you feel your child owes you an explanation or apology for the 30 minutes you just lost, but you’ll get none. The weather has changed. You may as well shout at the sky, demand an explanation from the passing clouds.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Thank you for dealing with me and my kids this season. NFL Dad will be back with an especially loaded Week 17 edition next week.