Pretty much everyone and their brother will have the NFL on their TV this Sunday at 1pm. And normally so would I. But this Sunday at 1pm I’ll be watching the USA vs. Ireland in the Rugby World Cup. And you should too.

First off, I should say that the Giants game isn’t until 4pm. If it was at 1, I’d probably tape the rugby. So disregard what I’m about to say if your favorite NFL team plays at 1pm. But if your plan is to watch some random early game that you don’t actually care about, do yourself a favor and watch the rugby game instead. Here’s why.

1) Anyone who loves the NFL will love rugby. In fact, once you set aside the crazy emotional attachments we all have to NFL teams, rugby’s probably an objectively more exciting sport to watch. It’s a physical sport like football, but the game flows like soccer or hockey. Consequently, the action never stops, there are huge hits all the time, and both teams are constant threats to score. There’s also a lot more strategy and decision-making, in-game. Don’t get me wrong, football has a ton of strategy. But it’s mostly installed between plays. And a lot of the time, a successful football play hinges 100% on brute force: did the line hold it’s blocks or not? Rugby requires the players to make complicated strategic decisions during play. And while brute force plays a huge role in the game, so does finesse. Which means you get a lot more moments of pure brilliance. Finally, there’s a never-ending quality to the brutality of rugby. When you’re on defense and the ball gets down near the try zone, you can’t just stop a team on 3rd down and start celebrating. Instead,  it’s basically like defending 1st and goal over and over again, with no stoppage of play between attempts at them getting in, until you either make a great play or force them to make an error. All in all, it’s just a great game to watch.

2) The trappings of the game lend themselves to a better fan experience. The players are not hidden behind helmets, so the personalities — and the anguish — come through. All of the players are in great shape, since they all have to play offense and defense, but the utter exhaustion of the game is clearly visible. And the clock doesn’t stop, so not only do you know how long the game is going to be, but there are also no fucking commercials. None (although I see that NBC has arranged 3 hours for the tape-delayed game Sunday, meaning they are probably stuffing in a really long pre-game show, halftime show, and post-game show. Ugh. Still, no commercials during play.).  And then throw in the European announcers that just call it like they see it — unlike the afriad-to-criticize BS you get on an American football telecast — and you’ve got a fundamentally better product presentation than the NFL.

3) It’s not as hard as you think to understand the rules. Just watch this ridiculous 5 minute video, and you’ll be able to understand the game enough to start thinking about strategy when you watch a live game.

4) International competition is really awesome. People who like soccer already know this. The element of nationalism takes things to a completely different level. The crowds are crazier, the teams’ desire to win increases, and things like outright hatred get translated into on-field intensity. And seriously, on 9/11 you don’t think it would be a nice idea to watch the U.S. in international competition?

5) The U.S. can plausibly win this game. The U.S. national rugby team is something like the U.S. soccer team 15 or 20 years ago — good enough to be in the World Cup, but not much better than that (current world ranking: 18). Luckily,  Ireland is not one of the stronger European teams (current world rank: 9). It could be a good game. And while the U.S. doesn’t absolutely need this game to advance through their pool, their chances go way up if they win it: they have almost no chance of beating Australia (rank: 2), but Italy and Russia (ranks 11 and 19) are possible wins. Top 2 in the pool advance after pool play ends.

6) Your kids might be playing this sport. Rugby is growing by leaps and bounds in the United States. Back when I was playing in college for the Hamilton Exiles, it was still kinda the wild west. No coaches, a ton of beer, and not a whole lot of good rugby being played. But times are changing. American college rugby is getting much more serious; lots of youth leagues have formed; and the 7’s version of the sport is going to be back in the Olympics next year. This is all happening just as more and more people are becoming skeptical of how intense football has become, as the head/spine injuries continue to mount. Rugby will probably never overtake football at the high school level in the states, but there may come a day in the near future when far more people are playing college rugby than are playing college football.

So here’s the choice — you can watch some meaningless NFL game with two teams you don’t care about on Sunday at 1pm, or you can watch the U.S. play in the most important rugby tournament in the world, which only takes place every four years. Even if you still think that’s a dumb trade, look at it this way: a rugby match takes about 95 minutes — you can watch the whole thing and probably catch most of the second half of the NFL game.