Are we ready for football - Ingles

For NFL fans who don’t bleed green or blue at this time of year, there are places to get football news in addition to the award-winning pages of the New York Post. With Thursday’s season opener between the New Orleans and Green Bay fast approaching, here’s a look at the top four.

Good, ol’ trusty Sports Illustrated comes through with an NFL preview we can all understand, and still give the biggest football geeks something to chew on. Yes, there’s a team-by-team catalog, but it’s reader-friendly. Also, a feature on football defenses was written so well, grandma would be interested in the evolution from simple 3-4 and 4-3 formations to the gridiron chaos practiced today. The magazine also delves into the art of tackling, an important topic as the league struggles to reduce the number of on-field concussions

ESPN has gone crazy over Michael Vick and has dedicated its September issue to the NFL star quarterback, whose brush with the law over dogfighting has made him one of the most well-known names in sports, even among folks who can’t tell a football from a soccer ball. The issue looks at Vick through multiple lenses, including the prickly question, what if Vick were white? We also liked the piece on Pittsburgh Steeler Troy Polamalu, which tracks the safety’s colorful and “life-altering” trip to his ancestral American Samoa homeland.

Sporting News ducks cover treatment of the sports’ big story, and instead settles on pages of coverage on Milwaukee Brewers All-Star Prince Fielder who wants to tack on a championship ring to his resume. Fielder seems to shrug off nervousness about his pending status as a free agent. The mag is clearly geared toward sports fanatics, so only pick it up if you are an addict. Otherwise you probably will feel like you’re reading Greek. For example, in touting the college football previews, the mag calls the Big Ten “the poster child for change in college football.” Huh?

Are you kidding? Lindy’s Sports Magazine claims that Steve Young was a better quarterback than Joe Montana. Sure, both were 49er legends, but Montana is arguably the best ever, period. That big mistake in Lindy’s 25th annual Pro Football preview is enough to make you not read on. If it wasn’t enough, than the fact that the preview, published once a year, came out before the labor dispute ended is enough to skip this edition. The magazine is made for hardcore football fans with complete looks at every teams’ rosters taking up most of the space. It reads like an almanac, but it’s out-of-date now that the strike ended. At least there are some cheerleader photos to break up the monotony.

In the wake of 9/11, the air was rife with pleas that the nation not fall prey to an era of petty partisan squabbling. This week’s New Yorker makes a persuasive case that those pleas have largely been ignored. When US servicemen returned from World War II, they were told to “Marry your sweetheart, have those kids, get that job,” notes veteran Larry Calloway. Now, former Navy SEAL Chris Berman is trying to start a company that hires veterans to retool Humvees that will be brought home from the wars. But shamefully, “The government keeps putting off the bidding,” partly because of a big Humvee maker’s clout with Washington lobbyists.

Newsweek throws its big guns at a memorial 9/11 issue. In addition to a piece by Andrew Sullivan, who admits he was still in bed when the planes crashed, there’s an exclusive about how internal efforts to warn FBI brass about a possible terrorist attack on the World Trade Center were “thwarted by a group of arrogant, slow-moving supervisors at FBI headquarters.” And then, of course, there’s ... wait ... where’s Tina Brown? You mean the editor is still on vacation, after skipping out on half the summer already? We must admit we’re a little concerned.

If you’re like us, you just can’t get enough of that mermaid-shaped couch discovered by Libyan rebel fighters at the sumptuous villa of Khadafy’s daughter Aisha. Time obliges us with a two-page spread of it, with the mermaid looking somewhat indignant as a rebel soldier presses the sole of his tennis shoe against the back of her golden head. Elsewhere, unfortunately, we get the usual workmanlike, sleep-inducing takes on the news (“Facing a tough re-election battle, the president maps out an attack against the GOP”). The diet tips from Dr. Oz were at least somewhat useful. (source New York Post)