This is undoubtedly my favorite time of year. Football is my favorite sport by far, and the start of NFL/Fantasy/College Football this year has me very excited.

Let’s start at the top:

The Detroit Lions
Every single year, I am overtaken with immense anticipation of what the Lions are going to offer. Continuously, it is an immense let down. The Lions are literally astounding at how they can grip their fans’ optimism and crush it over the regular season. The Lions hit rock bottom in 2008; finishing with a record of 0 wins, 16 losses. The PERFECT season of fail. 2009 was only marginally better; with a record of 2 – 14.

I have some cautious optimism this year; as the Lions appear to have some significant improvement in their offense with the likes of Jhavid Best, Tony Scheffler, and Nate Burleson. Matthew Stafford showed really pretty impressive numbers in the pre-season; so I maintain my optimism as we look to the season opener this weekend.

University of Michigan
The college football season opened last weekend, and Michigan played excellently well. It’s been hard for me to maintain a fanhood to a single college team over the years, primarily to the change in rosters and rancid BCS bowl system. But, having my cousin Ryan VanBergen as a starter on the U of M defense makes it very fun and exciting to watch.

U of M has some upward ground to climb to overcome two pretty awful seasons of their own. But, if their opener is any indication; then I have high hopes for them this season. Denard Robinson was somewhat a surpise start over Tate Forcier, but he killed it in their opening game. He rushed for just under 200 yards and has really improved his passing game as well. It was a really fun game to watch, the Wolverines looked like a strong team, and my cousin got a couple awesome hits in the game. I’m thinking RichRod finally has things turned around; and that’s a good thing – if he produces a losing record this year it’s pretty much universally guaranteed that he’ll be fired.

Fantasy Football 2010
Much to my own surprise, I have decided to play fantasy football this year. I have been pretty disgusted with how my last two seasons have turned out regarding fantasy football. I’ve drafted very competitively and intelligently. My teams have put up very good and even league leading numbers; but I’ve been in the bottom shelf of the league since its effing inception. Last year I thought was a breaking point, as I declared via bloggity that I was quitting for good. Vanlandw and others may call out my bluff here, and that’s fine. I’ve shown my ability to stick to my stubborn guns already this year as I quit watching 24 halfway through its final season.

Months of downtime has healed my fantasy wounds. I have overcome complete and whole frustration to forward-looking excitement and anticipation of the fantasy storm that ensues during football season. There are some good changes in our fantasy league that will breathe some freshness into it, and I did end up with a pretty decent draft.

I am going to make bold predictions that this is the year for the tri-fecta of turnarounds:

• Detroit Lions finish with a decent record (9-7 or 10-6) and may even make the playoffs.
• U of M makes a bowl game; following on the heels of their conference wins over MSU and Ohio State. 😛
• “The Double Rainbows” (my fantasy team) will win the effing league.

I look forward to updating this post in early 2011 declaring all my predictions completely wrong on all levels.