4th And 26 Three things the Packers can learn from Kenny Chesney’s “The Boys Of Fall” video

Nobody panders to an audience quite like modern country music stars. Whether it’s tractors, whiskey, or good old-fashioned patriotism, today’s processed country artists will dutifully invoke just about anything to ensure that their ditties become the next redneck anthems. Back in July, tank top and shell-necklace aficionado Kenny Chesney released an especially awful, eager-to-please song called “The Boys Of Fall.” A tribute to high school football, the cloying number features plenty of lines about “fresh cut grass” and “helmets, cleats, and shoulder pads,” and finally gives our nation’s popular high school jocks the ego-boosting theme song they so desperately needed. The subsequent video, of course, is just as dire. Watch, if you dare:



But what about our nation’s popular, professional jocks? Don’t they need some gooey Kenny Chesney lovin’, too? Though they’re looking strong with a 2-0 record, our very own Green Bay Packers could still stand to have a little musical motivation on their side. (The days of inspirational parody songs like the “Packarena” are sadly long gone.) What follows are three quick lessons the green and gold can take away from the inspiring, insipid “Boys Of Fall” video.

Enjoy your careers now because, after football, your lives will be empty, meaningless voids
Chesney’s video kicks off with a typically overwrought locker-room pep talk, courtesy of New Orleans Saints’ head coach Sean Payton. Before an audience of suited-up, glassy-eyed Naperville Central High School teens, coach Payton channels his inner John Mellencamp and explains to his alma mater that life goes on long after the thrill of playing high school football is gone. “You get it,” he tells the team, “You just don’t get it every Friday night.” (He also waxes poetic on how, after 27 years, he “walked down to the locker room, and it still smells the same.” It might be time to call in Naperville Central’s custodial staff.) Take heed, Packers: The giddy thrill of game-day is elusive, and pulling post-retirement announcing duties with Fox Sports’ Joe Buck just isn’t the same.

Our lives depend on you, so don’t fuck it up
In Chesney’s fawning (“It’s knocking heads and talking trash / It’s slinging mud and dirt and grass”), not-at-all-homoerotic ballad (“I got your number, I got your back / when your back’s against the wall”), high school football is the only reason for living, especially in “little towns like mine.” Coach Payton even gets in on the action, reminding the Naperville team of the many people “who live vicariously through you.” It may be sad, but it’s true: Football is paramount in many peoples’ lives, and especially important in a state that lives or dies on the status of Aaron Rodgers’ facial hair alone. So don’t do it for yourselves, Packers; do it for us. After all, we would all be better off if Donald Driver could sport a spiffy new Super Bowl ring in his countless commercials for McDonald’s, Time Warner Cable, Goodwill, or (dear God) Kwik Trip.

Brett Favre just won’t go away and must be stopped at all costs
You can’t keep an aging gunslinger down. Amidst a busy off-season filled with skipping training camp and starring in his very own ridiculous commercials (those Wrangler Jeans spots don’t film themselves, folks), Brett Favre found time to make a cameo in Chesney’s video. At around 6:15 (yes, this thing runs for more than six minutes), No. 4 spouts his usual hokum about dreaming big and havin’ fun. Favre and the Vikings are off to a dismal 0-2 start, but that doesn’t mean the Pack can’t learn from their ex-QB. The teams face off October 24 in Green Bay, a perfect time for Favre to impart some hard-earned wisdom unto a certain Clay Matthews, a player we’re hoping he’ll be seeing over and over and over again.