After the summer of discontent, the NFL saved its season, and is primed for it to start, which happens tomorrow night (Thursday) when the New Orleans Saints play the Green Bay Packers. The first game of the season features the last two Super Bowl winning teams and it’s a fantastic way to bring actual professional football–none of this preseason stuff–back into our lives.
Naturally, many sites are gearing up for the official return of the NFL, including social media sites like Twitter. Over at the Twitter blog, the developers view their service as direct conduit to your favorite team, one that includes all access to the team you follow–as much as 140-character microblog post will allow, anyway.
Granted, this isn’t the same as using DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package on your mobile device, but in sports, knowledge is still power, and Twitter’s blog post is full of advice on how to stay up to date with the goings on concerning your favorite NFL team. Simply put, followyour team on Twitter. Sure, you can also follow some of the athletes that play for the team you support, but the real news comes from Twitter’s efforts in identifying the accounts that football fans should be following.
Twitter has compiled this information into a nifty little list, which, if you aren’t sure of who to follow, will clarify things a great deal. The post even has the teams categorized by conference and division:
NFC
East: The Washington Redskins [@RedskinsTweets], the Philadelphia Eagles [@EaglesTweets], the New York Giants [@GiantsTweets], the Dallas Cowboys [@CowboysTweets]North: The Green Bay Packers [@PackerTweets], the Minnesota Vikings [@VikingsTweets], the Chicago Bears [@CHIBearsTweets], the Detroit Lions [@LionsTweets]
South: The Atlanta Falcons [@FalconsTweets], the Carolina Panthers [@PanthersTweets], the New Orleans Saints [@SaintsTweets], the Tampa Bay Buccaneers [@BuccaneerTweets]
West: The San Francisco 49ers [@sf49erstweets], the Arizona Cardinals [@CardinalsTweets], the Seattle Seahawks [@SeahawksTweets], the St. Louis Rams [@STLRamsTweets]
AFC
East: The Buffalo Bills [@BUFBillsTweets], the Miami Dolphins [@Dolphins_Tweets], the New England Patriots [@NEPatriotTweets], the New York Jets [@NYJetsTweets]North: The Baltimore Ravens [@RavensTweets], the Cincinnati Bengals [@BengalsTweets], the Cleveland Browns [@BrownsTweets], the Pittsburgh Steelers [@Steeler_Tweets]
South: The Houston Texans [@TexansTweets], the Indianapolis Colts [@ColtsTweets], the Jacksonville Jaguars [@JaguarsTweets], the Tennessee Titans [@TitansTweets]
West: The Denver Broncos [@BroncosTweets], the Kansas City Chiefs [@ChiefsTweets], the Oakland Raiders [@RaiderTweets], the San Diego Chargers [@ChargersTweets]
There are also other sites Twitter suggests for your football-watching pleasure, and these include fantasy football sites, including ESPN, Yahoo!, and CBS Sports. Twitter even offers some tips on methods to use when following these entities:
- Follow the NFL for the latest information about games, schedules and news.
- Stay ahead of your friends and improve your fantasy football team’s chances. Check out ESPN Fantasy Sports, Yahoo! Sports and CBS Fantasy News for the latest insider updates to manage your roster.
- Turn on SMS notifications for your favorite football accounts, and make sure you never miss a touchdown. You can learn about it here.
- And, of course, you can search for teams and individual players to find related Tweets and accounts.
Naturally, text, especially when it comes to things like watching sports, will never be a sufficient substitute if you don’t have access to a broadcast of your team when they are playing. If anything, Twitter’s NFL advice is simply a way to accentuate the NFL experience instead of replacing or substituting for it.
With all of that in mind, is Twitter actually good for keeping up with your favorite team or is it something that just adds to the experience? Let us know what you think.