The seven-month search for meaning in the brain-numbing media wasteland that used to be called the NFL offseason ends tonight with something real, something relevant, something in which you can openly demonstrate some interest without absorbing those haughty get-a-life glances from the people with, you know, lives.

Hey this counts. That's what you tell 'em.

The New York Giants, defending Super Bowl champions, against the Washington Redskins, defending the right to go to the playoffs even though they were outscored by nearly 70 points last year, is tonight's official nationally televised appetizer of the annual kickoff weekend, the one that officially ends sometime Tuesday morning on the East Coast.

The Oakland Raiders entertain the Denver Broncos in the second game of the Monday night doubleheader, the verb used advisedly because the Raiders indeed have been a highly entertaining opponent for most of the past five years, losing 61 of 80 games since last appearing in the postseason.

The Giants and Redskins, who'll be back-to-back Steelers opponents come Weeks 8 and 9, are each much fresher in the memory but still take some getting used to. In New York, Michael Strahan retired after the Super Bowl victory against New England, then retired from unretirement speculation last month after teammate Osi Umenyiora was lost for the season with an injury. With the free agent defections of Kawika Mitchell to Buffalo and Reggie Torbor to Miami, players who accounted for nearly half (26) of New York's league-leading 53 sacks last year won't be a problem tonight for Jason Campbell.

Of course, the Redskins' quarterback will have other problems, including the fact that the head coach has no head coaching experience, nor even any coordinator's experience. It's a huge concern inside the Beltway, but at least no one's saying he ought to be vice president or anything.

Waiting about 217 days for Giants-Redskins is one thing, but the first NFL weekend also delivers the embarrassing reality that some of us have waited 220 days for Lions-Falcons as well. Atlanta will play host to the ever-toothless Lions with a quarterback playing his first NFL game, Matt Ryan out of Boston College and Exton, Pa., and a head coach head coaching his first NFL game, Mike Smith, one of the game's top defensive strategists. That should hold their interest in Georgia right up until about 0-6, especially when the University of Georgia is 6-0.

The best games of the weekend are likely the revivals of two ancient divisional rivalries, the Jets at Miami Sunday and the Vikings at Green Bay in the earlier game Monday night. In the first, Brett Favre, after a summer in which he brought to life his own personal cable network, ESPNFAVRE, pulls on the wrong shade of green for the Jets at Dolphins Stadium, where the home team can match its entire 2007 victory total in the season's first 60 minutes. The second finds the Favre-less Packers ready to withstand the team some national analysts have selected for the Super Bowl, not to mention the team that Favre wanted to play for, the team who would love to have had him, but certainly there was no tampering.

No one is picking the Browns to go to the Super Bowl, and few are picking them to win the AFC North after a hallucinogenic springtime of look-out-for-the-Browns prognostication that wilted in the hot reality of, umm, reality.

The Browns won 10 times last year, as often as the Steelers, and added a lot of defensive muscle. If they're better, it should be evident immediately, as they open at home against Dallas and then the Steelers one week from Sunday night. By then, you'll know just about everything you need to about Cleveland.

For pure intrigue, to put it politely, you should note that the San Francisco 49ers are going to be quarterbacked by someone named either J.T. O'Sullivan or J.T.O. Sullivan, a sixth-round pick out of UC Davis by the New Orleans Saints six years ago who has never started an NFL game. Offensive maestro Mike Martz brought the former Frankfurt Galaxy star with him from Detroit, and Sunday's matchup with Arizona puts him head to head with another Martz protege, Kurt Warner.

For impure intrigue, to put that politely, you should further be aware that this will be the first NFL season in which a defensive player will be permitted to receive radio signals from the sideline, and if you think for a minute someone hasn't already tried to figure out how to intercept those, then you just haven't been paying attention.

By the way, the Patriots can become the first team in NFL history to win 20 consecutive regular-season games Sunday against the Chiefs.

I'm just sayin'.