You have good reason to be jaded by the NFL this offseason, as the labor rift between the owners and players has created a climate of despair as the 2011 season rapidly approaches.

But keep the faith. When the NFL returns to fully operational — and it will be again soon — there are still plenty of reasons to love the league and its game.

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From the Cowboys cheerleaders to the new wave of rookie quarterbacks to the Red Zone Channel — there are at least 100 reasons to love the NFL. (AP Photo)

Slideshow: Check out some of the NFL's biggest personalities, gleaned from our 100 reasons

With 100 days before kickoff is set, here are our 100 reasons we still love the NFL during the lockout:

1. We love football. Let's now hope the owners' and players' love of the game wins out over the love of money.

2. We love that for all the consternation about the lockout, we still haven't missed any games.

3. We love Chad Ochocinco riding rodeo steers, playing MLS, racing horses, wrangling snakes, saying anything and everything. He's your hands-down offseason MVP.

4. We love Terrible Towels waving on the set of "Dancing With The Stars." Bravo, Hines Ward.

5. We love Troy Polamalu earning his history degree at USC and his sage advice: "I truly love football ... but it's certainly not a replacement for an education."

6. We love the Saints' commitment to community. The latest: a raffle to join player workouts. Imagine catching passes from a pumped-up Drew Brees: "Giving back to the people of New Orleans is something every single Saints player feels passionate about." — USA Today.

7. We love inspiring stories of players working to come back from season-ending injuries: DeMeco Ryans, Matthew Stafford, Ryan Grant and plenty others. Keep up the fight.

8. We love Bears rookie linebacker J.T. Thomas for staying true to himself. The former West Virginia star escorted a wheelchair-bound teenager to her middle school dance after the 14-year-old said all the boys she had asked had turned her down.

9. We love the Summer of Suh — Ndamukong that is. World-record tweetup, Nick Fairley, Euro road rally, Chrysler commercials. He’s already the face of Detroit sports.

10. We love following players on Twitter. Rashard Mendenhall and Reggie Bush got the most pub for their controversial Tweets, but there are so many other current and former stars who entertain us in 140 characters or fewer.

11. We love following Colts owner Jim Irsay on Twitter. How many NFL owners tweet freely about their star quarterback, favorite song lyrics and legit giveaways?

12. We love bold statements. Rex Ryan is once again confident the Jets will win the Super Bowl. Brian Urlacher is pumped up for the Bears to get where the rival Packers are. Even without organized football activities, the competitive juices are still flowing.

13. We love Urlacher standing by his man, Jay Cutler, months after the loss to the Packers in the NFC title game. "If Jay could have been in there, he would have been. That's all I know. He's not a little [expletive.] He's a tough dude. He played hurt, and anyone who watches our games knows how tough he is." — Chicago Sun-Times.

14. We love Bears vs. Packers. Three times again, please.

15. We love Jets vs. the Patriots. Three times again, please. Ryan vs. Belichick is the contemporary NFL version of Ali vs. Frazier. The Jets return to Foxborough on Oct. 9 at 4:15 p.m. What would Bart Scott say about this?

16. We love not hearing much about Brett Favre. Remember when the future Hall of Famer used to dominate offseason headlines: "will he or won't he?" or "did he or didn't he"? We're glad that seems like distant memory while we're hearing about CBAs and stays.

17. We love hearing about NFL players' spouses and girlfriends. From Gisele Bundchen to Candice Crawford — the ladies are just as fascinating as the men.

18. We love Gisele and Tom. Maybe Candice and Tony will be just as popular, and Khloe and Lamar just might get reality competition from the NFL soon.

19. We love rookies who entertain us through song. Isn't that right, short white lace prom dress new Panthers QB Cam Newton?

20. We love jersey squabbles. Newton wore No. 2 at Auburn and prefers to wear it in the NFL. Jimmy Clausen says he plans to keep it with Carolina. Go ahead and take No. 1, Cam. That's where you'll be on the depth chart.

21. We love the Redskins' annual offseason drama. It's not just at quarterback with Donovan McNabb, John Beck and Rex Grossman. It's Dan Snyder, Albert Haynesworth, sale wedding dresses london sale wedding dresses london Clinton Portis saying he wants to get back at Washington, allegations of partying too much and diva defensive backs. A truly fun bunch.

22. We love McNabb always taking the high road.

23. We love imagining what Michael Vick will do for the Eagles this season.

24. We love thinking about Peyton Manning making the quarterback position look easy again. Meanwhile, we'll hear a lot more about his neck and his contract.

25. We love the Ravens' defensive 1-2 punch. Ray Lewis is 36, and Ed Reed turns 33 in Week 1. Cherish every interception lateral and sack dance while you still can.

26. We love a once-in-a-generation defensive talent — like Ndamukong Suh.

27. We love the second-year QBs, too. We know Sam Bradford is a keeper, and just maybe Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy are too.

28. We love Peyton Hillis. Hillis upset Michael Vick for "Madden 12" cover honors. Who needs LeBron? This working man's hero just might be the new "King of Cleveland."

29. We love how Mike Holmgren is just as relevant and important a man in the NFL today as he was with the Packers in 1992.

30. We love the genius of Bill Belichick for continuing to sound like he's saying a lot, even when he's not. On the possibility of a scaled-back playbook: "Could definitely be subject to being trimmed back. Maybe drastically. I don't know, but it's possible, sure." — Boston Herald.

31. We love Jerry Jones for never holding back what's truly on his mind. "I didn't spend $1.2 billion to build a stadium and not have the Cowboys playing football in it this year." — Dallas Morning News.

32. We love the giant TV in the House That Jerry Built. Although, it's much better with football on the tube, not “Golden Girls” reruns.

33. We love seeing millionaires work out at the YMCA and at high schools.

34. We love Broncos safety David Bruton working as a substitute teacher during the lockout. We feel for NFL players who aren't even close to being millionaires.

35. We love a different kind of super sub. You never know who from a roster of 53 men will play a key role in a big game.

36. We love the NFL's street-to-starter stories. It's not shocking when a recently unemployed guy ends up starting by midseason.

37. We love watching kickers warm up before a game. We marvel at their power and accuracy. They get a lot of heat but are often the coolest in big games.

38. We love that every game is a big game. We cherish the big buildup to next Sunday.

39. We love pre-game introductions. There's nothing like jacked players running out of the tunnel.

40. We love Ray Lewis chanting and dancing before every home game. Running backs who visit Baltimore, beware.

41. We love when Drew Brees does the same thing for the Saints.

42. We love the rumble and excitement of the opening kickoff.

43. We love there's so much action on every NFL play. Anything can happen when 22 players are moving at once.

44. We love big plays. They are rare, but every game has a handful of them that determine the outcome.

45. We love trick plays. You never know when you'll see a flea flicker, an end around or the Wildcat formation.

46. We love watching our fantasy players score on big or trick plays.

47. We love highlights. Even with Sunday Ticket, you can't see every play of every game. We look forward to finally seeing that return by Devin Hester or that catch by Larry Fitzgerald.

48. We love NFL Films. The old-school highlights. Ed and Steve Sabol. The music. The old uniforms. The mud. The classic characters and games. Reliving the Ice Bowl for the umpteenth time.

49. We love we can still hear the voice of John Facenda in our heads.

50. We love hearing the sounds. John Williams sets the tone for Sunday nights. We love not working and banging the drum all day after the Packers score a touchdown. But nothing gets us fired up like "The Autumn Wind" is a Raider.

"63. We love free agency. Get on with it evening dress designs , Commish. Our team has a hole at cornerback and can't wait to make a pitch to Nnamdi Asomugha."

51. We love hearing big-game announcers. Are Joe and Troy in New York or Dallas this week? Can't wait to hear Colinsworth's take on that. Al Michaels is a true professional. Jon Gruden loves everyone.

52. We love the technology. The Red Zone Channel. NFL on HD. Sal Pal live from Philly. Adam Schefter's pre-game tweets. Fantasy alerts on our phones. Scoring updates on the bottom line. Facebook trash talk. How did we ever live without all of that?

53. We love legends coming back to the modern game. Let's wish John Elway more good fortune with the Broncos.

54. We love celebrating moments from the past. The Drive. The Catch. The Immaculate Reception.

55. We love two-minute drives. Peyton Manning squeezing every drop out of 90 seconds. Drew Brees threading the needle. Ben Roethlisberger turning potential sacks into big plays.

56. We love sibling rivalries. We've had Peyton vs. Eli. We've seen Tiki vs. Ronde. Now we get Jim vs. John in an all-Harbaugh Thanksgiving.

57. We love cold-weather games. The Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field, seeing each players’ breath coming out of helmets as linemen kneel at the line of scrimmage. That's football.

58. We love games in all sorts of elements, from single digits to hot-and-humid temperatures, in driving rain and in snow. Adam Vinatieri knows all about blizzard football.

59. We love the turnover battle, the great equalizer. "Any given Sunday" is never truer when the favored teams get into an interception or fumbling funk.

60. We love second-guessing even the best coaches. How could Andy Reid leave himself without any timeouts? How could Mike Shanahan bench Donovan McNabb?

61. We love the draft, the biggest non-game event in any sport. It gets previewed and analyzed for months, and now it has turned into three-day primetime gold.

62. We love seventh-round draft picks from Bethel College, especially 6-4, 400-pound Bills lineman Michael Jasper, who calls himself a "freak athlete."

63. We love free agency. Get on with it, Commish. Our team has a hole at cornerback and can't wait to make a pitch to Nnamdi Asomugha.

64. We love plotting out which team Plaxico Burress will play for next — even before he's released from prison.

65. We love diva wide receivers. Where will Randy Moss, T.O. and Ochocinco go?

66. We love the thought of Moss joining forces with Rex Ryan in New York. Big name, big market, big mouth. Pure gold.

67. We love we're still talking football. The NFL's open market is frozen but that hasn't kept its hot-stove league from sizzling.

68. We love we're still talking fantasy football. Who should you draft first: Adrian Peterson or Chris Johnson? Everyone should want Aaron Rodgers.

69. We love the Lambeau Leap. Right now most beautiful wedding dresses most beautiful wedding dresses, it's some guy from Racine doing it on the stadium tour. We can't wait until it happens after Rodgers-to-Greg Jennings again.

70. We love Titletown living up to its name again. The Packers are up to a league-high 13 championships.

71. We love the Packers going for a repeat. Green Bay is trying to become the first team to repeat as NFC champion since, well, the Packers won back-to-back NFC titles in 1996 and 1997.

72. We love the Packers' "cheerleaders" are cheesehead gals in the stands. Fans of the Steelers, Bears, Giants, Browns and Lions have also done just fine without those attractive distractions.

73. We love we're still OK with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders — and the rest of the NFL's pom squads. Radio City can have the Rockettes — cocktail dress stores we'll take the Raiderettes.

74. We love the Hogettes; men secure enough to wear dresses and pig noses.

75. We love the Redskins and Ravens having marching bands. Who said the NFL doesn’t have any college football-style pageantry?

76. We love fight songs. "Hail to the Redskins" and "Bear Down, Chicago Bears" are two of our favorite refrains.

77. We love battle cries. From "Who Dey" in Cincinnati to "Who Dat" in New Orleans, we get fired up just like the players do. J-E-T-S? Yes, Yes, Yes!

78. We love rocking home domes, from that Super one in the bayou to that one with a hole in its roof in Minnesota. That Vikings horn is still ringing in our ears.

79. We love the 12th Man in Seattle. Rock, chalk, Seahawk?

80. We love nicknames. Our new favorite is Chicago rookie offensive tackle Gabe Carimi, aka "The Bear Jew." Also, "Matty Ice" is pretty cool.

81. We love throwback uniforms. Well, at least some of them. The Chargers' powder blues. The Buccaneers' creamsicle jerseys. Some Broncos even look stylish in vertical line socks.

82. We love colorful helmets and logos. Think the Colts' horseshoe, the Cowboys' star, the Chargers' lightning bolt, the Chiefs' arrowhead.

83. We love Silver and Black. Could there be any better team colors for a team owned by the NFL's original maverick?

84. We love Al Davis. He's going strong at 81 and just maybe he will end up fixing the lockout with these three words: "Just play, baby!"

85. We love the idea of eventual summer chaos. When the lockout ends, there will be a mad rush of signings, trades, etc. We're more than ready to go all in.

86. We love going to summer cookouts, smelling the waft from the grill and seeing a mirage of NFL tailgates to come.

87. We love thinking about tailgating. Getting to the parking lot hours before the game, throwing the football, wearing our lucky jersey, confident our team is about to win.

88. We love a great excuse for playing NFL video games in the middle of the summer with friends.

89. We love talking trash to friends who root for teams we can't stand. Joe Raven should not have an office cubicle next to Bill Steeler.

90. We love arguing about just how good a player is. Will Josh Freeman be the next Joe Montana? Is Aaron Rodgers already the next Joe Montana?

91. We love the new wave of rookie quarterbacks. Everyone's looking for the next Rodgers, the ultimate combination of arm, accuracy and athleticism. Cam Newton, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, Andy Dalton and Colin Kaepernick all come with their share of exciting potential.

92. We love new stars emerging every season. Some of them improbable. Think Texans running back Arian Foster, an undrafted rookie turned NFL rushing leader.

93. We love that there are no "small markets." From Jamaal Charles in Kansas City to Maurice Jones-Drew in Jacksonville, stars can shine big wherever they are.

94. We love parity. Every season, we see surprise teams. The Chiefs winning the AFC West last season. The Saints winning the Super Bowl two seasons ago. The Cardinals winning the NFC three seasons ago. Who will be next? We can't wait to find out.

95. We love you won't win big merely by buying the biggest superstar.

96. We love the championship is decided on the field, not with a computerized poll.

97. We love warming up to the playoffs and Super Bowl. Baby, it's cold outside but we're just fine inside in January and February.

98. We love there are no seven-game series. Just three grueling hours with the highest of playoff stakes.

99. We love not hearing about labor disputes. Because once a new collective bargaining agreement is finally in place wholesale bridal gown wholesale bridal gown, we will hear a lot more about DeMarcus Ware, and a lot less about DeMaurice Smith.

100. We love the games always must go on, regardless of the conditions. We shall overcome the lockout.

———

Contributing: Vinnie Iyer, Scott Ridge, Alisha Hord, Carl Moritz, Clifton Brown, Dennis Dillon, Mike DeCourcy, Barry Reeves, silk prom dresses Chris Bahr, Bill Bender, Benson Taylor and George Winkler.

Slideshow: Check out some of the NFL's biggest personalities, gleaned from our 100 reasons

In the last years of his life the great American designer Geoffrey Beene, who died in 2004, spoke increasingly of the midcentury master Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972). Beene met Balenciaga just once. It was in Paris in the 1960s, and during the meeting Balenciaga threw a copy of Paris Match across the room, outraged that a Pierre Cardin baby-doll dress was on the cover. This flare-up from the man who can be thought of as fashion's Eternal Flame was a moment that the young Beene never forgot: A dress was worthy of passion, analysis and anger.

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Tom Kublin

A dress from Balenciaga's winter 1955/56 collection made in a fabric called Oréo produced by the firm of Abraham Ltd.

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Why did Balenciaga object to the baby-doll? No doubt he didn't like seeing vulnerable thighs exposed by high hemlines. Writing of the 1930s, the decade in which Balenciaga began to make his mark upon the world, Vogue's Bettina Ballard noted in her memoir, "In My Fashion" (1960), that it was a period when young women had no "standing in the smart world. A woman was not considered important in Paris until she was well in her thirties and had her children behind her so she could concentrate on a fashionable life." Taut young things in first flower didn't wear couture. Female bodies with some experience—and perhaps a bit "more" in the tummy, bust and arms—did. ("Monsieur Balenciaga likes a little stomach," his fitters would say.)

Gravity, dignity, spirituality. These tonalities were alive in Balenciaga's design and were important to his cultured clientele: women of means, women of a certain age, women who understood that he was first among equals. (Coco Chanel and Christian Dior both bowed to his endless originality.) Balenciaga designed for the magisterial likes of Gloria Guinness, Pauline de Rothschild and Bunny Mellon, not for the Twiggies wedding dresses wedding gowns wedding dresses wedding gowns, groupies and hippies of the 1960s youthquake—those skinny girls wearing the brave new minis of Cardin and André Courrèges. Yet no matter how brave and new the work of young designers, none of it was free of Balenciaga's elemental influence. After a pilgrimage to Getaria, Spain, the coastal village where Balenciaga was born and buried, Pauline de Rothschild wrote of how the Catholic church there loomed "too big for the town." The same could be said of Balenciaga's place in fashion history.

Indeed, within the world of fashion any journey into the artistry of Balenciaga is a call to the cathedral. The exhibition titled "Balenciaga and Spain"—on view at the de Young Museum in San Francisco (it runs through July 4, and a smaller version was shown at the Queen Sofia Institute in New York last fall)—is a good example. It is the work of Hamish Bowles, who for many years has been Vogue's European editor at large, and the accompanying catalog, "Balenciaga and Spain," is particularly successful in placing the designer and his native influences clearly before the reader. Large and lavishly illustrated, it makes palpable the kind of visual echoes and deep retinal memories from which inspiration comes.

Mr. Bowles is not a writer given to academic leaps or lyrical flights, but his text brims with fascinating anecdotes, quotes and wisdom. I didn't know, for instance, that Balenciaga's first design, at age 6, was a coat he made for his cat (a frustration because the cat kept moving, but also a lesson learned: clothing should move). Or that he told Hubert de Givenchy, "A ruffle must be intelligent" (which takes some doing). Or that he didn't like "his staff to smile so that their teeth showed. He thought it vulgar." Or that "in each of the 93 collections of Balenciaga's career, there was always one black dress that was entirely cut and made by him"—a detail redolent of discipline and dedication, and the need to keep a hand in.

"Balenciaga and Spain" begins with an introduction that places the designer and his oeuvre in a historical context and then individually covers six facets of Spanish culture that made up Balenciaga's archive of inspiration: Spanish art, the royal court, religious life, dance, Prom Dresses the bullfight and regional dress. Through the wide variety of historical photographs, paintings and statuary included, we see correspondences of silhouette, construction, color and embellishment that teach us how to "read" a design—the way, for instance, the ornate embroidery of a matador's bolero brings drama to an evening gown evening gown bridal gowns vera wang , or how voluminous gathers of fabric, thrillingly elegant in a sleeve or skirt, are actually a translation from the festive dress of Spanish laborers. The designer's color palette is much remarked on: his use of turquoise and yellow, bullring red, a shade of cinnamon called "Balenciaga Brown" and a black so black, according to Harper's Bazaar in 1938, "it hits you like a blow."

The chapter on religious life comes at the center of the book, and it is the quick of Balenciaga's sensibility. He was the son of a fisherman, raised in the church and devout until death. His workrooms were silent and severe; the interiors black and white, like his ethics. "When he was thinking deeply," Mr. Bowles writes, "he would play unconsciously with a scrap of fabric in the same contemplative way that one caresses the beads of a rosary." Certainly no designer has draped silk with the ecclesiastical bravura of Balenciaga, who found la mode in the glinting folds of an archangel's satin, the glacial fall of a nun's veil, the flowing robes of a saint.

One of the master's endless searches was for fabrics that had inner life and light— wedding gowns designer ;paper taffeta, silk faille, organza—as well as a firm enough "hand" to hold volumetric shapes made with fewer seams. (He was working toward his own monumental Modernism.) In partnership with the eminent Swiss textile company Abraham Ltd., Balenciaga developed in the last years of his life a fabric called gazar—a crisp, open-mesh silk that seemed to be woven with air. Gazar billows like a full sail and creates shapes that float (Beene liked to use gazar in his later years). In the 1960s, while everyone else did the Twist lace wedding gowns lace wedding gowns, Balenciaga was walking on water.

Because the fashion world is one of quixotic confluences, it's not such a surprise that in the same year that "Balenciaga and Spain" is on view a two-volume work about the house of Abraham has been published, "Soie Pirate" ("pirate silk"). Silk, of course, is a global commodity—a very expensive one right now as it's been a bad year for silkworms and prices are high even in the discount districts—and this book offers a window into the highest echelon of silk purveying. From the 1950s to the 1990s, the materials produced by Abraham Ltd. guided the design zeitgeist of the haute couture.

Founded in 1863, in Krefeld, Germany, the business moved in 1878 to Zurich, which was becoming a center of silk production. "Soie Pirate" is centered on the years when Gustav Zumsteg dominated the company. He started as an apprentice in 1931, and his rise was concurrent with Balenciaga's in the wider world of fashion. Zumsteg began Abraham's collaboration with the great couturiers—not just with Balenciaga but also Dior, Givenchy, Chanel, Emanuel Ungaro and Yves Saint Laurent, the company's client of greatest duration. He became director in 1968, the year Balenciaga closed his house.

In the realm of silk production, Zumsteg, too, was first among equals, wedding dresses ball gown and there's a book to be written about his brilliant 34-year leadership of Abraham Ltd., as well as on the global end-of-an-era changes (cheaper silk prints from Korea and China; the rising mass market) that led to its inevitable closing in 2002. This book, however, is not that book. The essays gathered here are either flat-footed or tediously abstract (too many references to Roland Barthes). The text bounces your eyes off the page.

What holds them is the archival and scrapbook imagery. The fabrics in numerous color schemes—brocades, jacquards and prints that were considered the best of their year—are absorbing. For those who care about the way a textile design of strapless bridal gown strapless bridal gown, say, blown roses can seal itself upon the soul so that decades later the sight of it opens a cascade of memory and desire, these volumes have resonance. In the taffetas of the 1950s, the geometric trellises of the '60s, the teardrop paisleys of the '70s, dresses for brides dresses for brides the leopard and snakeskin prints of the '80s—gathered together and accompanied by fashion photographs of the clothes into which they were made—one begins to see the story, as John Milton put it, "of man's first disobedience." These silks are a transcendent expression of the fig leaf, a reach back into paradise. Perhaps this is the reason we see innocence when we look at the clothes we once wore. The art of the weaver goes as deep as the hook of the fisherman.