Down, Set, Grub: Surveying the Sunday morning football breakfast scene

With winter arriving this month, or maybe this week, but ski season still a few weeks away, you finally have an excuse not to do anything outside on your Sunday mornings. Rather, you have all the reason in the world to spend the day watching football. But we all know that football at home is about one-eighth as exciting as viewing games in the company of other fans, some of whom wear jerseys from far off locales and cheer loudly for teams like the Detroit Lions. Several bars and restaurants around town open up early on Sundays, offering you special menus and discounted drinks as they screen every NFL game on the schedule. Here's a sampling of some that are little off the beaten pigskin path where you can get flapjacks and bacon with your first downs.

JC's Bar & Grill

One of downtown's most reliable football spots and known for its daylong crowd on college football Saturdays, JC's is also an NFL hotspot come Sunday. Offering the NFL Ticket and showing all the early games, JC's serves up a collection of $6 breakfast menu items from 9 a.m. to noon, including biscuits and gravy, French toast, bacon and eggs, and a meat-and-veggie scramble. Also, before noon, bloody Marys are only $3 and you can snag any domestic draft beer for a mere two bucks all day on Sundays. If you're a big football fan, chances are you already hit up JC's on Saturday, so you might as well make a weekend out of it. 642 NW Franklin Ave, 541-383-3000.

D & D Club

Praise Be! Bend's greatest drinking establishment has added America's greatest game to its weekend line-up. As of just recently, the D&D Club is bringing you live action from around the gridiron on Sunday morning, afternoon and evening. The "D" now has nine TVs and the DirectTV football package, allowing fans to take in the action from around the NFL - no matter where your home team might be playing - all while slowly working off last night's hangover with a vodka-infused Bloody Mary and heapin' plate of hash browns. 927 NW Bond 541-382-4592

Mountain's Edge

Though some may still know this large lodge-style establishment as Timber's South, it's been more than a year since new management officially changed the name to Mountain's Edge. Since that time it's become the go-to place for MMA pay-per-view fights while hosting the occasional rock show. Come Sunday morning (and Saturday a.m. for college fans) though Mountain's Edge is all about the NFL. The bar has the DirectTV NFL ticket and TVs aplenty, which means you shouldn't have a problem dialing in the game of your choosing on any given Sunday. It's the food, though, that's likely to keep fans coming back. Mountain's Edge pumps out solid breakfast and lunch fare with consistently huge portions. Drinks are also reasonably priced with plenty of tap handles to satisfy even the most discriminating micro brew snob. Mountains Edge, 61303 S. Hwy 97, 541-388-8178

Brother Jon's
Public House

During football season only, Brother Jon's gets in on the football breakfast game from 9 a.m. to noon on weekends. And since this is Brother Jon's, home to some of the best sandwiches, soups and mac and cheese in town, their breakfasts have some tough competition. But Bro Jo's breakfasts step up to the plate (line of scrimmage?) with a dozen breakfast menu items, including an egg sandwich ($7.50), Southwestern burrito or biscuits and gravy (both $8.50). We usually can't say no to the asparagus benedict ($9.50), which rivals some of the other great benedicts in town with black forest ham, sautéed spinach, asparagus and hollandaise. All breakfasts are served with roasted potatoes or cottage cheese and fresh fruit.

Brother Jon's also has multiple TVs showing the NFL Sunday Ticket, so it's entirely possible to watch three or four games at once. It's a good idea to show up early - by that we mean before 10:30 a.m. - to get a good seat. We've also noticed that Bro Jo's is a popular choice for dads with kids, as it's a pretty kid-friendly place where parents can see all the games and get a microbrew or spicy Bloody Mary and their children aren't totally bored or stuck to the floor from dried beer from the night before.