From baseball to basketball through tennis, golf and soccer, every season brings new young stars, older stars in new packaging, new coaches and sometimes brand-new teams. And always, among the fans, there is the renewed hope that maybe that favorite team or athlete is ready to challenge anew for supremacy. Or, to repeat the sempiternal expression: Maybe this is the year.

Nowhere is this anticipation more evident than in pro football, which initiated the 2002 season this past weekend with its first exhibition games. Okay, they’re just exhibition games and don’t mean much. In fact, they don’t really mean anything. It’s just glorified practice, with veteran players getting the kinks out of bodies that are one year older and callow rookies doing their damnedest to make an impression on coaches who will decide whether they have what it takes to launch lucrative (and probably short-lived) careers.

Of course, in their never-ending pursuit of the big dollar, television networks promote exhibition games with almost as much energy as they expend once the players suit up for real. Fans know better. But few could resist tuning in to ESPN this past Saturday night, for the broadcast of what has become known as the American Bowl, the NFL’s inaugural exhibition game that takes place in Japan. The site this year was Osaka, which supposedly is a hotbed of Japanese football fandom. You’d never have known that, however, since the stadium appeared only half-full, and sometimes you could hear quarterbacks barking out signals as clearly in your living room as you might have if they’d had their hands on your butt, waiting to receive your snap.

I doubt that our brethren Japanese gridiron fans could sense the curious drama that was unfolding as the Washington Redskins, under the helm of new coach Steve Spurrier, unveiled new uniforms, newish quarterbacks and a couple of new veteran linebackers, all poised to launch the era of renewed Redskins success under the stewardship of (sort of) new team owner Daniel Snyder. For American sports fans, this is as radical a new beginning as it gets. “Would it work?” was the big question.

Of course, new doesn’t have to mean “young.” Spurrier is 56 years old. He’s spent almost 40 years of his life in college and pro football as a player and coach. He’s won a Heisman Trophy and a national collegiate championship. Now he’s trying to add new accolades to his résumé by attempting to try to work the same coaching magic for the Redskins that he worked as head coach of the SEC’s Florida Gators for 12 years.

Spurrier’s presence with a storied NFL franchise promises a season of fascination for fans and sports pundits alike. If the coach successfully installs the kind of high-powered offense that was his college trademark—using unlikely retread ex-Gator QBs Danny Wuerffel and/or Shane Matthews to get the job done—he’ll be hailed as a genius. (This being a new version of the same compelling story: John McEnroe taking over the Davis Cup team. Rick Pitino at the helm of the Celtics.) He’s also got new LBs Jessie Armstead and Jeremiah Trotter—from the intradivision rival Giants and Eagles, respectively—to help out the gifted young LaVar Arrington, all three of whom will be coached by highly respected defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, formerly of the 2000 season’s Super Bowl-winning Baltimore Ravens.

Yep, the Redskins could kick ass. Or at the very least be pretty exciting. In which case, those of us here in SEC, Vandy and Vol country may have to suck it up and watch Spurrier act out his arrogance from a new podium. What a bummer that could be.

But there’s another, more plausible scenario. Spurrier could come a-cropper big time trying to win with Wuerffel and Matthews and the few other ex-Gators he’s hired—Reidel Anthony, Jacquez Green, etc.—all of whom have yet to establish themselves as high-quality players. Which begs the question: Why all of a sudden would guys like Matthews and Wuerffel, each of whom appears to epitomize the term “cast-off,” be world-beaters and lead the Redskins to the Promised Land?

Spurrier may be a great college football coach, but is he an NFL Svengali as well? (Or is he more likely to be another Pitino? Another McEnroe?) Watching Spurrier lose would be eminently more entertaining than watching him win. Imagine it: If the ’Skins can’t hack it offensively, and the season starts to tank, and the coach starts throwing his clipboard all over the place, and the press bears down on him, and he starts making irritated flippant remarks.... Like I said: It could be really, really fun.

For what it’s worth, Spurrier had his charges psyched in Osaka Saturday. Throwing early and often, with the unlikely perennial benchwarmer Sage Rosenfels and the newly hopeful Wuerffel calling the signals, the ’Skins drubbed the San Francisco 49ers 38-7. With his fierce-looking air attack unleashed, Spurrier was himself looking calm and statesmanlike on the sidelines, seemingly in charge, being both teacher and leader. That may all be as meaningless as the game, though as window dressing it sure looked nice—the college legend growing humbly, gracefully into his new (Red)skin. For his part, 49ers coach Steve Mariucci was unmoved, noting that the Redskins first string was playing his third string much of the time. But stay tuned: The two teams square off for real in Week 3 of the regular season.

There were other notable new beginnings this past week, as ABC’s Monday Night Football unveiled its new broadcasting team at the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, an exhibition that takes place in Canton, Ohio, as part of the celebration surrounding the honoring of former NFL greats. While ex-stars Jim Kelly, Dan Hampton, John Stallworth and Dave Casper took bows, signed autographs and recalled their bygone (but not too far removed) exploits, the NFL’s newest team, the expansion Houston Texans, made their professional debut against the venerable New York Giants. ABC play-by-play man extraordinaire Al Michaels fairly beamed with pride as he took to the airwaves with his new color-commentating buddy, the equally venerable John Madden.

Initially, it sounded as if Michaels was awestruck to be with his new partner. He uncharacteristically flubbed a few words in the early going, and otherwise projected a somewhat nervous enthusiasm reminiscent of a high-schooler out on his first date. Madden was unfazed yet obviously grateful to be there, and after the usual platitudinous comments about the legacy of “MNF,” he settled nicely into his routine, as if he should have been in that high-profile broadcasting booth all along—and maybe many years before. And once he’d uttered his first “Boom!”...well, it was off to the races on another television football season, one with a new tradition of its own. Who was that funny guy in the booth with Fouts and Michaels last year?

The game was a good one for a while, too, until the Giants prevailed 34-17. The Texans are new in every way, most notably since this newly collected roster of vets and rookies and free agents features the NFL draft’s latest #1 pick, QB David Carr. No doubt, it’s going to be an up-and-down season for the league’s newest entry, but they have a chance to be one of the better expansion teams ever to come along. And while his game stats were mediocre, Carr looked great. He’s got a strong arm, apparent leadership skills, good size and, most importantly, seems poised and wise beyond his years.

And just a friendly reminder: Our own Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers, lest we forget) are in the new AFC South division with this new Houston franchise. We’ll see the Texans and wunderkind Carr at least twice this year, in a new rivalry that is fraught with irony and some built-in contentiousness. (And oh yeah, Spurrier and the Redskins come to town Sunday, Oct. 6, making their first ever appearance at the newly renamed Adelphia-less Coliseum.)

It’s all in place for what promises to be a great new NFL season.

But you know what? I have to face a new fact: I need a new television set. It’s time to go newly—and gratefully—into debt. (I’ll bet I could have it paid off by the Super Bowl.)