Chicks and football. These terms don’t seem synonymous.

But ladies, it is time to wake up and embrace football season.

There are 17 glorious weeks of football – 20 if you are lucky and your team makes it to the greatest night in sports.

Yes, football is more than a 3-hour excuse for lazy middle-aged men to take over the TV, guzzle beer and yell at the screen.

And the Super Bowl is more than a collection of commercials with some lame musical interludes and a little bit of guys smashing into each other in between.

Ladies, we are taking over the worlds of higher education, business and law. Now it is time to take over the sport of football.

Why should the boys have all the fun?

Forty-three percent of the NFL’s fans are women. And, according to an ESPN poll, 58 percent of them “follow” football.

Still, that leaves 42 percent of women who are missing out on the greatest and most exciting sport ever.

My informal study indicates that most girls who don’t like football claim to “not understand it.”

Come on ladies! We’ve proven our intellect in every other facet of life.

Football is easy. One set of guys is trying to get the ball to one end of the field, and the other set of guys is trying to stop them by smashing into them.

Now, don’t be intimidated by terms like “three-four defense”, “screen pass” and “off sides.” These unfamiliar words will soon be rolling off your tongue.

A pocket will no longer be a place for your cell phone, but the place where the quarterback hangs out while he figures out whom to throw the ball to down-field.

You don’t have to know all the details to enjoy the game and get caught up in watching your team try to get that football in the end zone.

Plus, you can hang out with some football fans and you will catch on faster.

Besides, we have an advantage when we watch the game with guys.

See, physically, the girls out there will probably never be able to actually play football, unless scientists perfect a clone for Shera or China.

This makes it all the better. We don’t even have to back up our smack.

Any guy can talk a load of smack, until inevitably it goes too far and his friends call him on it, saying that he couldn’t even dream of getting smashed by a 350-pound lineman while retaing his grasp onto the ball.

As a woman, they can never say that to you. You just stare, raise an eyebrow and sweetly reply, “Would you talk to me if I could?”

Football is the ultimate cure to the overabundance of over-groomed and overdressed metrosexual girly men that ladies have to put up with today. A manly tackle goes a long way.

Once you are sucked into the adrenaline of football, you can always take the next step from fan to fanatic.

If you join a fantasy football league, then you have an excuse to watch every game every week. We are talking Monday night, your occasional Thursday and almost 12 uninterrupted hours every Sunday afternoon.

“Fourth down and inches” will soon be enough to get your heart pounding as much as a buy one get one free shoe sale.

Plus, once you realize how passionately you feel about the game and your team, you’ll realize that the male bonding thing guys do over sports works for the girls, too.

And right now, there’s just two weeks of football down, and 15 glorious weeks to go.

The female contingent involved with football doesn’t have to just be the blonde Miller Light babes and the blonder Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders anymore.

Yes, brunettes and all women can embrace America’s new favorite pastime.

Just don’t pick your new favorite team based on their uniform colors. You may find yourself in the doldrums rooting for the pathetic Vikings just because you like purple (don’t worry – a lot of delusional Minnesotans thought they would be decent this year, too).

Just trust me – black and gold are the “it colors” for this year.

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Send comments to Amanda at [email protected]

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