NFL Open Thread: Deutschland Edition

I will be absent for a little bit because I’ll be watching the Seahawks on DVR delay from Munich (6:30 AM starts are fine if it’s the usual Jaguars/Texans games from England but having real games at this time should be a violation of federal law.) Apparently football is really big in Germany:

Still, Vollmer fell in love with America’s sport. German football has come a long way in the 20 years since. Germany is now home to Europe’s largest NFL fan base, and most of those fans know what “third-and-10” means. It’s a transition that shocks the people who have seen it firsthand.

“When I would ride to practice on public transportation with my helmet, everybody would look at me weird, thinking I’m like LARPing or something,” says Jakob Johnson, the Stuttgart-raised fullback for the Las Vegas Raiders. “Now they’re tuned in every Sunday and follow the NFL and know who Patrick Mahomes is and know the basics of what a post safety defense is.”

This Sunday, the NFL makes its German regular-season debut with a game between the Buccaneers and Seahawks at Allianz Arena in Munich. According to the NFL, the league received 3 million ticket requests. That’s slightly more than can fit in the stadium, which seats 75,000.

“Football in Europe is not about whether your team plays,” says Patrick Esume, a German player turned coach turned commentator and commissioner of the European League of Football. “It’s whether the sport is playing.”

Meanwhile, while some other right-wing billionaires have had an even rougher week, between his failure to buy Oregon’s governorship and the failure of his NCAA outfit Phil Knight has having a bad one:

WHAT A ROCKET @themikepenix @tajdavis_ 🚀

📺: FOX
📲: https://t.co/cjF8BJVQ3O [https://t.co/NbyYpxjWZE] #NoLimits #PurpleReign pic.twitter.com/oiQw8AoO8l— Washington Football (@UW_Football) November 13, 2022