Opening Sunday on a phone is a trailer for a game you already own

The league spent a decade teaching people that a play is a file. Opening Sunday is when that lesson floods every app at once. A touchdown becomes a square. A hit becomes a sound. The drive that made the play possible does not travel. That is not an accident. Duration does not advertise well.

A highlight package is a receipt. It proves something happened. It is a poor way to watch a sport built on downs, weather, and boredom that suddenly breaks. If the clip is how the afternoon is consumed, the afternoon was not consumed. It was sampled.

Useful if you are stuck. Poisonous if you are on the couch with the actual game.