It felt so wrong. Like I was about to commit an act of treason.

I tried to rationalize it. It was the first week of the fantasy football playoffs. The football pick’em league I’m in with a few friends and family was coming down to the stretch run. My New York Jets were blowing out the Tennessee Titans 20-0.

So I did it. I turned off the Jets game in the 2nd quarter and turned on the NFL RedZone channel without looking back. I’m just a man.

RedZone is like the first weekend of March Madness, except with football, and it is on every Sunday for seventeen straight weeks. If crack cocaine was a TV show, this is what it would look like. Your previous relationships start to fall by the wayside, just to get some more of that RedZone.

It is no mystery how I got to this point. It started so innocently. I would flip to RedZone during commercial breaks, but would always be hyper-vigilant about getting back to the Jets game. It was never enough though. I started not minding if I missed a few plays here and there. Then all of a sudden I was missing entire drives! I no longer recognized the fan I had become.

I can’t deny it any longer. I am addicted to NFL RedZone. So please forgive me if I’m not chanting, “J E T S JETS! JETS! JETS!” next week after a big Jets touchdown, but am instead searching for the remote, muttering, “Redzone, Redzone, Redzone,” under my breath.

By Michael Halpern