The NFL Season 2006-07 Kicks Off To-Nigth

[Littlejohn]

The Steelers and Dolphins will be kicking off the season when they face off Thursday at 8:30 ET on NBC...

Ahhh, it's football time again       
 
 The last time a meaningful football game was played, Paul Tagliabue was the commissioner, Terrell Owens was a Philadelphia Eagle, Mario Williams was a virtual unknown, Roger Goodell wasn't much more well known, a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was a pipedream, the dreams of quarterback-needy franchises in Miami and New Orleans were just as far-fetched, and the talk in Pittsburgh was a lot more about "The Bus" than any motorcycle.
 
 But now, with the 2006 season upon us, with Miami and Pittsburgh about to kick it off, the football landscape has been reset, not unlike the bones in Ben Roethlisberger's jaw.
 
         
 The Super Bowl champs will start the season without their leader, Ben Roethlisberger.          
 Had we not witnessed all the changes spread over the past seven-plus months -- and right there is the ultimate proof of why there is NFL Network for football 24/7/365 -- they would be hard to process.
 
 After 17 years -- 17 illustrious years -- Tagliabue's name has been wiped off the football and Goodell's has been stamped on it.
 
 It is a change, a big change, but this season has plenty of them. To the dismay of Dallas head coach Bill Parcells, Terrell Owens plays for "Team Discovery" some of the time, and the Cowboys in the other. This, of course, is something of an old story, but there are notable new ones.
 
 Reggie Bush has been left to rebuild a franchise and a city, while Mario Williams has been left with the relatively simple task of upgrading Houston's defense and proving his selection was anything but Bush League.
 
 Players have surfaced in spots in which it took a full preseason to get used to the sight of them in different jerseys. Daunte Culpepper now wears aqua and orange; Drew Brees black and gold; Edgerrin James red and white; and Adam Vinatieri blue and white.
 
 Fortunately, Roethlisberger no longer is black and blue from the single worst collision he, or most anyone else, has ever absorbed. But he is beaten up from an internal sucker punch that neither he, nor anybody else, saw coming.
 
 An emergency appendectomy has sacked Roethlisberger. As it turns, he will miss the Steelers' regular-season opener, though not for the reasons anyone thought he would.
 
 But this is an instructive lesson for what's ahead in football. The offseason brings plenty of surprises, and the regular season is an even larger continuation of them.......... Feed could be on  15W.............