Football started last night! While watching my fantasy team implode in the first game of the season, I started thinking about my little team at home.

From the time I was a small child playing flag football and throughout my football playing life, I was always told that a football team is a family. And, as cliche as it is, it’s true. You protect your teammates, they have your back, you have theirs. Everyone has a role, and if everyone executes that role well, you succeed.

Last night, I started filling in the starting offense of my family football team. The one I mostly struggled with was the quarterback position. Was it the mom? Or the baby?

Ultimately I’ve decided that, unless we were calling mom the head coach, she had to be the QB. She’s really the one that makes the offense go. Her production makes the running back even better. She “feeds” the baby the ball. The stronger her game is, the stronger running game/the baby will be.

I decided that our friends were the receivers. They’re on the outside, sure, but they can make some big, big plays. Things like bringing us dinner, taking care of the baby in an emergency, or giving the QB a break with ladies dinners.

Our family (Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins) is our security blanket. The people we can rely on no matter what. They’re the tight ends of our offense. They fight for the tough yards, they’re our red zone target and they’ll draw plays up with you in a hotel room (3 people got that).

That leaves us, Dads. The most under appreciated part of this offense. For we, Fathers are the offensive line. We protect the QB, we open the holes and we do the work no one appreciates. Well, our QB appreciates what we do. She may not be buying us a Rolex when we execute a perfectly time glass of water. She may not take us to a steak dinner when we bust out a 3am diaper change/burp combo. But, without us, our team is going nowhere.

Cheesy? Yeah… Accurate? Hell yeah.

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