Who needs writers when there's football?

A so-called "street" free agent four years removed from Division III Coe College (not exactly what you'd call a football factory) starts at running back for the Buffalo Bills. In his debut as an NFL starter, he goes off for 151 yards and leads his team to a comeback victory over the Washington Redskins.

You can't make this stuff up.

His name is Fred Jackson and I'm damn proud to know him. He sent me a text message Thursday saying he was going to make the Coe family proud. On Sunday he went out and did it. Now he's the toast of the town in Buffalo and Cedar Rapids, not to mention a hot property in fantasy football circles.

Stories like this are the reason I love sports of all sorts, but football in particular. It's not "the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat" (as the sports world of my youth asserted), it's the imperfection, the randomness, the any-given-Sunday nature of it.

I don't care how much the Patriots were favored by last night, I like that the Ravens damn near beat them. I'm sorry that the Bills' first round pick and his backup got hurt, but I'm thrilled Fred got to show his stuff in a real game. I'll concede the NFL MVP award to Tom Brady, but Sports Illustrated couldn't have made a better choice for its "Sportsman of the Year" than Brett Lorenzo Favre.

And at the moment, I don't particularly mind that the writers are on strike. I'm on their side, of course, but I don't miss them yet. So far, I've been able to get my fixes of "Friday Night Lights," "The Amazing Race" and "Survivor." I miss "The Office" most of all, but so long as Kenny Mayne is on ESPN, I can live without Dwight Schrute.

And so long as it's football season, I can live without the striking writers. Now after the Super Bowl, and the halftime show by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, when the NBA takes the spotlight, we're gonna have a problem.