We’re going camping!

People, can you believe it? It’s so damn close now, it is almost unbearable. The long dry stretch of time without football is almost over. We’ve survived it one more time. It only feels like we’re gonna die without it. When we can’t take another moment… football season is here again.

And thank God for that, eh? I mean I like baseball and all, but compared to football? YAWN.

I need to hear the crunch of pads crashing into helmets, hold my breath when the QB lets a bomb fly down field to a receiver under double coverage, I even want to feel the outrage of a bad call and the vindication when the coach throws down the challenge flag. I need me some 1st downs and 4th and inches and flea flickers.

In just seven days, training camp starts! Pittsburgh is the first full team scheduled to get their well toned butts to training camp and I can feel my excitement growing already. Even better – in FIFTY days the 2007 season opener will be played between defending Superbowl Champs the Indianapolis Colts and The New Orleans Saints.

Are your keggerators ready?

SI.com’s Peter King released his Pre-Season Power Rankings today. I want to make a point to mention that King has my San Diego Chargers at #3 and my Chicago Bears at #5. Now my good friend Nacho Friendly and his brother over at Sports Brethren are Carolina boys. And King has their Panthers ranked at #16.

Ouch.

Do I agree with the Power Rankings saying Carolina is going to be that mediocre this year? I don’t actually. They have a lot of questions to answer, that’s for sure. Hopefully their new offensive coordinator, Jeff Davidson, can solve some of QB Jake Delhomme’s issues. Carolina is a team with three former USC players in Keary Colbert, Ryan Kalil and Dwayne Jarrett, so I watch them regularly.

I would place Carolina at about 13. I believe Tennessee, Detroit and the Jets will be worse teams than the Panthers.

As feared, the Bears did not come to an agreement with Lance Briggs by yesterday’s 3pm deadline. This is problematic for a number of reasons. The Bears placed a franchise tag on Briggs back in February. His only option now really, is to take the one year $7.2 million contract offered him and hope for the big money deal next season. Briggs has threatened to sit out the first 10 games of the season, and only play the final 6 in order to get credit for being an active player for the season. He vowed never to play for the Bears again if he didn’t get the multi-year deal he was seeking. And, he didn’t.

So much of the time, the Bears defense seems like the Brian Urlacher show. Everywhere you look, there he is. One season my ex-boyfriend and I developed an intricate drinking game based on Urlacher, but I’ll get into that at a later date. Without Briggs, Urlacher can’t be Urlacher. In order for Urlacher to zip from one side of the field to the other, he needs Briggs’s strength holding down the fort, so to speak. Briggs’s athleticism is on par with Urlacher’s.

This will be an interesting situation.

Also failing to reach a multi-year deal today were the Pats and Cornerback Assante Samuel. Also a franchise player, Samuel and the Pats face the same situation and threat as the Bears and Briggs do. Samuel is coming off his best season yet.

That’s all for tonight fellow football fans!

-Your Gridiron Goddess