For the past 11 days, NYC relationships have been on the injured list. Ever since the Giants kicked off the NFL season with a loss to the Dallas Cowboys, men have retreated to a zone defense in their caves, and women have been trying to lure them out with wildcat plays.
A full-contact affair is difficult, especially for rookies who are just now realizing their partner’s love for football is deeper than a Hail Mary pass. Brandi Sneed, 26, of Harlem learned as much last season. She knew her boyfriend, Bob Canada, 31, was a die-hard fan because they had been friends for a year before dating. But when the season finally began, she saw Canada couldn’t love football more if he actually wore a helmet and shoulder pads.
“I knew the type of fan he was,” says Sneed. “But what I didn’t know is I would not see him most weekends, so that took some adjusting.”
Canada, the owner of three fantasy football teams, spends his entire Sunday watching games, and never misses his faves, the Seattle Seahawks. Sometimes he hits the Harlem Tavern to watch multiple games, so Sneed has learned to lure him home with beer. She’ll stock the fridge when she wants him to stay home, so at least he’s around, even though he’s distracted.
Canada says he considers himself one of the lucky guys. “It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t get jealous of you enjoying something that doesn’t involve them,” he says. “Especially when it falls on days you might usually spend with them.”
Jaci Rae, a psychologist and author of “Winning Points with the Woman in Your Life One Touchdown at a Time” says it’s because football falls on those “quality-time” days that some men start throwing “incomplete passes” in an effort to get her to understand his devotion to the game.
“Men don’t get the idea that a woman would watch the game with them if they had a reason to tune in beyond the game itself,” she says. “Women love football jas much as men. They just may have a different way of connecting with the game.”
One way, she says, is through the narrative of the players lives. Men obsess over stats, but women root for the guys under the helmets. Super fans should school lady friends on which hunky quarterback plays for their favorite team, and maybe toss in a few details about his Brazilian supermodel wife.
Kim Kaster, 23, says that would have helped her better understand her ex-boyfriend’s absurd fandom for the Oakland Raiders. The Bronx resident met him in the beginning of last season, with no clue that Sundays were going to be a wash for them as a couple.
He disappeared every Sunday in fall, only surfacing to text her messages such as, “I really need you to hang in there for me.” “It would’ve been better,” Kaster says, “if he would have invited me to watch a game with him.”
Some women, like Antonia Floyd, 25, choose to enjoy the game from the sidelines. Her secret to making it through football season with boyfriend Matthew, a Giants fan, entails keeping busy with errands or relaxing on her own. She also has a trick play to counter the time he spends watching games.
“I watch ‘Real Housewives’ and that’s throughout the year,” she says. “So it’s fair for him to have his Sundays during the football season.”