American pro football, just like soccer/Football in the UK, has already begun its "preseason," much earlier in the year now than in the past, when it was strictly an autumn phenomenon.

In the good old days, football began with the school year, early in September, and ended on or about Thanksgiving (end of November). The college game still sticks pretty much to that schedule, plus the "bowl games" -- formerly a half-dozen specially-scheduled contests during Christmas-New Year's week, now a much larger number of games througout December until the Monday night after New Year's.

The NFL (professional league) has extended the season at both ends, starting in August and continuing steadily well into January.

Sometime within the next month or so, I will inevitably get caught up in the general civic ednthusiasm over the lovable but usually hapless New Orleans Saints. However, at this absurdly early date, my annual practice is to resist the temptation to start investing my emotions in the team that was for many years our fair city's ONLY representative in any American "big league" sport. (We recently acquired a slightly-better-than-avereage NBA basketball team, the Hornets, which helps things a bit.) There'll be time enough for citywide heartbreak later in the year.