Me time

NFL training camps opened around the country this week, and you know what that means.

No, not the beginning of your annual agony over whether you should draft C.J. Spillers for your fantasy team, because you just know he's got one last great year in him, and this could be it.

On the contrary, C.J. can wait. This week it's all about what Woody Allen allegedly once said, and how it seems to be more true than ever.

Remember? Eighty percent of life is just showing up?

Come with us, then, to northern California, where the Raiders shiny new acquisition, wide receiver Antonio Brown, arrived for his first training camp with the silver-and-black. Of course, he didn't just arrive. He Arrived.

As in, he took a tour at dawn of California wine country in a hot air balloon, before literally materializing out of thin air (or at least, thinner air) at camp.

It was the ultimate Me moment  by a guy who plays the NFL's ultimate Me position, and it's nothing new these days. Arriving at training camp has become performance art for some of the Shield's more, shall we say, expansive egos -- a troubling trend for back-in-the-day grumplesteins who remember when players used to just drive into camp, haul their bags inside and flip a coin to see who got the bottom bunk.

It wasn't a production, back then. It wasn't a whole Look At Me thing. You just showed up and got to work running gassers until you threw up and jumping when Coach said jump, and generally being a good teammate because, after all, there's no "I" in "team."

There is, however, in "arrival."

And so here came Antonio Brown, descending from the clouds to save the Raiders. And on the other coast, here came Jaguars defensive back Jalen Ramsey, arriving at camp in an armored car full of cash. And so it goes.

One wonders what wondrous arrival will happen next ...

FOXBOROUGH, Mass., 2032 -- Tom Brady parachuted into training camp today with a basketful of TB12 energy supplements, which he distributed to the assembled media. "They're fortified with air!" Brady said, explaining that his new dietary regimen consisted of not eating anything because "you can obtain all the nutrients you need for a healthy lifestyle simply by breathing good air!"

Or:

NEW YORK, 2032 -- Eli Manning arrived at training camp today in a tricked-out lift van, emerging with a titanium walker he said was a spoof of all the media types who've said he's too old to be effective anymore. Then he theatrically flung the walker aside and marched inside under his own power, using only a cane.

Or:

TAMPA BAY -- Jameis Winston sailed an authentic 18th-century pirate ship into the Buccaneers training camp today, waving a cutlass and a bottle of rum and wearing Jack Sparrow eye shadow. He said he got the idea from LeVeon Bell, who flew an F-16 into the Jets training camp and landed it at midfield, leaping from it dressed in a flight suit and Tom Cruise's Maverick helmet from "Top Gun."

Yeesh.