Football Widows

Does your husband, wife or significant other disappear on Sunday afternoons? Does he or she begin to speak in a bizarre language you don't understand, using terms like "clipping," "flags" and "conversion" in ways that make no sense? Do you long to understand where these people go, to perhaps even join them on their weekly trek into the opaque world of football? Then this deck might be for you.

Made by U.S. Games Systems, Football Widows is a handbook for understanding football. Starting from the very basics, it explains the rules of the game, the rules governing individual players, who is responsible for what on the field, and culminates with a series of plays, describing the actions that might take place and the strategies behind them. The purpose of the deck is to educate those people who want to join in this world with their spouses, to get them over the basic hurdle of understanding the game in the first place. It provides at least some insurance against asking those profoundly stupid questions which always seem to come during just that crucial moment of emotion in the game, eliciting a shriek or bellow, and some disproportionate scolding.

The deck tries to assume no familiarity with sports in general, and does a decent job of making an introduction to a moderately complex game approachable by the complete novice. I'm sure some imortant points are glossed over, but I suffer from a pre-existing knowledge of the intricacies of football, so I'm in a poor position to gauge what details might be missing. That this instruction set is also a deck of playing cards seems entirely unimportant. The cards are oversized, not quite twice the size of a bridge deck, and are really best used by reading straight theough them. I wouldn't want to hold a complete bridge hand of these cards, let alone try to play canasta.

All images © 1993, USGS, displayed here for commentary, analysis and appreciation only.