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The NFL season kicks off again today with the Seattle Seahawks hosting the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl rematch. It got me thinking about the growing popularity of the sport in my country, the United Kingdom.
I got into the NFL at a time when my “soccer” team, Queens Park Rangers, were especially terrible. It was around 2022. The 16-hour round trips to away games in the less salubrious parts of the UK had begun to wear on me. After yet another 1-0 defeat on a cold rainy night in Stoke I realised I needed an escape. The balls-to-the-wall action of the NFL was exactly the thing my life was missing.
I decided to support the Seahawks. They were doing well at the time with Geno Smith at quarterback and a little background research uncovered this amazing story of a comeback kid. Geno had thrown 21 interceptions in his rookie season in 2013, had been involved in a nasty locker room altercation and torn his ACL. By 2022, he was 31 and had not begun a season as a first choice QB in eight years. Then Seattle gave him a chance. He quickly achieved a league-leading completion rate and managed 30 touchdowns in his first season as the full-time starter. In Geno’s words, “They wrote me off, I ain’t write back though.”
