Today, after watching the New York Giants fall face-flat against the Washington Redskins, I had a few revelations. First, Eli Manning will (unfairly) get the blame for the Giants’ general inconsistency across the country. Secondly, the NFL is much more dependent on anonymous linemen and assistant coaches than any other major sport. Third, I’m still amazed that this sport only has 16 games a season not including playoffs … and it still generates this much interest.

Fourth, I’m glad we don’t structure the day-to-day operations of the classroom like the NFL.

Previously, I’ve made analogies about the classroom to professional sports, making a connection between the treatment of teachers to Major League Baseball. I could have mentioned the prevalence of performance enhancers (cheating), debates on its effects on children, and the prevailing arguments on who should get paid more. But at least I have a harder time making that analogy with the National Football League, because I couldn’t stand it if education worked anything like the NFL.

If someone told me I only had 16 days to prove my worth as a teacher and team player in the classroom, I would freak. I’d pull out all the stops. Not that I don’t already grade papers and lesson plan in my free time, constantly read up on my practice, attend professional development (and every so often, run them too), go to different classrooms to see what my other colleagues are doing, participate in discussions surrounding pedagogy, develop professional learning networks wherever I can, and write about all these pieces in a few different arenas. I’d … I’d …

Wait, so maybe there is a lot more in common about what professional educators do and professional coaches. Maybe society, according to free market rules, does value the NFL more than education. Maybe I do like the revenue sharing system of the NFL that allows every team to feel some sort of success as a whole, and generally makes the whole spectacle more fair than the other sports do. Actually, the best NFL team at this point happens to be the only publicly owned team in the major professional sports in America (Green Bay Packers).

Then I think about the classroom process and how I absolutely cannot wait a week to find out whether my students actually reflected on their math work. I bite my nails already while checking to see if they did well on my exams. I can scream on the sidelines, bang on my clipboard, and run around yelling at the players. None of that matters if something just doesn’t click.

Mr. Vilson, who is officially on Baby Alejandro Alert …