Are you ready for some footballlllll?
Just kidding. Of course you are. After a summer of no sports, we were all so starved for competition we were placing bets on Russian table tennis matches and deftly offering analysis on our favorite cornhole team. So we were more than ready to kickoff another round of touchdown dances and Tom Brady-to-Rob Gronkowski receptions when the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans led the charge into the 2020-2021 NFL season Sept. 10.
Plus Tampa Bay's newly minted quarterback gave us an extra little gift, riffing on the topic of game day sex during an appearance on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast that afternoon. Spoiler alert: "That wouldn't be my pre-game warm-up."
And if the simply existence of seeing QBs and tight ends and linemen take the field wasn't enough to celebrate, today marks the 50th anniversary of the first Monday Night Football game ever.
Back when Joe Namath's New York Jets faced off against the Cleveland Browns in 1970, ABC was trying to capture the more casual fans' interest, employing the use of three announcers (veteran play-by-play guy Keith Jackson, former Cowboys QB Don Meredith and controversial sportscaster Howard Cosell) and increased storytelling to make the game-watching experience more personable. (Composer Johnny Pearson's brass-heavy intro music, "Heavy Action," would come five years later.)
The Browns won 31-21, following Billy Andrews' interception, but it was the network that emerged as the true winner, the weekly broadcast quickly embedding itself into the fabric of our culture.
And we can think of no better way to mark the occasion—other than whipping up some wings and dips for tonight's match-up between the New Orleans Saints and the Las Vegas Raiders, of course—than by celebrating some of our favorite sporty duos. (Come on, this is E!—were you expecting a thorough dissection of Brady's opening day jitters?)
These enviable pairings prove that athletes have got game on and off the gridiron.