Feeling a tad stressed about Turkey Day with the extended family? Football is here to help.
By that we mean real football. Played by you. In your yard. With Grandpa Felix, Cousin Bucephelus and that uncle nobody trusts lined up head to head -- with a year's worth of bragging rights on the line.
The Wall Street Journal -- cutting away from a steady stream of crumbling-world-market featurettes -- has released its official guide to playing the perfect family football game.
The newspaper provided no less than 32 hard-and-fast rules to help you pull off a clash just as picturesque as any of the well-to-do Kennedy clan jaunts of old (minus, perhaps, whiskey-fueled hot toddies and some hired-gun marching band for halftime laughs).
A few of our favorites:
» The following things are prohibited from Thanksgiving touch football: spikes, eye black, sticky gloves, Jets jerseys, running with a martini glass and a lit cigar, Norv Turner.
» It's two-hand touch. One-hand touch is for lazy people who buy turkey sandwiches out of vending machines.
» No show-off football lingo. No screaming "trips left" or "zone blitz." Uncle Dale doesn't want to play the "nickel package." He wants to get this stupid game over with, have a vodka and stand in the kitchen eating stuffing with his hands.
» If you find yourself surrounded by middle-aged men in blue jeans and a quarterback who keeps getting picked off, you're not with your family. You've accidentally walked into a Brett Favre Wrangler spot.
» It's okay to play with kids but don't baby them. Just because your 7-year-old niece is playing quarterback doesn't mean you can't intercept her screen pass and run it back for a touchdown. She's got to learn sometime not to throw into triple coverage.
So by Monday, our nation will be flooded with young girls vying for Mark Sanchez's job.
