The Football Fan's Manifesto Part 4

Pro: No less h.o.m.oerotic than a fantasy football draft in any other setting. No less h.o.m.oerotic than a fantasy football draft in any other setting.

Con: Wi-Fi connection may be compromised by steam. Wi-Fi connection may be compromised by steam.

STRIP CLUB.

Pro: A setting where you get expensively teased is appropriate for an activity in which you foolishly delude yourself into thinking you're an NFL general manager. A setting where you get expensively teased is appropriate for an activity in which you foolishly delude yourself into thinking you're an NFL general manager.

Con: A member of your league inevitably gets thrown out for hugging a dancer after somehow landing Thomas Jones in the third round. A member of your league inevitably gets thrown out for hugging a dancer after somehow landing Thomas Jones in the third round.

VI.4. A DRAFT TRASH-TALK TIPS.

Laugh rapturously anytime someone selects a defense prior to the last round, no matter how much sense it makes.

At least once per round, announce that a pick is a reach. If the person contests this claim, scream "rreeeeeeaaaaacccchhhhhh." And hit them.

When it gets to the point that someone drafts Jake Delhomme, make a point of getting out of your seat and declaring the draft to be over. An exaggerated gesture, like throwing your draft board over your shoulder, punctuates this statement.

If you're not stealing glances at others' draft boards, you're not trying.

Defaming someone's mom is the best way to deal with another draftee taking a player you were looking to take with your next pick. Even if you are related to this person.

If you draft Braylon Edwards, you might as well castrate yourself on the spot. Though you'll probably drop the knife.

VI.5 Fantasy Football Magazines Are the Most Useless Things You'll Reflexively Purchase Each Year Without question, the fantasy football magazine is one of the most disappointing consumer items on the market, right up there with rechargeable batteries and the Sham-Wow. Yet there remain approximately eight thousand different kinds available for purchase, and not a useful one among them. Thing is, most fans don't want to commit the time needed to properly prepare for a draft. That's an act bordering on studying. The one thing more antisocial than pouring your free time into managing your fantasy team is pouring copious free time into getting ready to compile your fantasy team. It's like reading an anatomy book before going to f.u.c.k Town. Sure, the detailed pictures are enticing, but it's so creepy that even Sean Salisbury would feel dirty doing it.

For the nine dollars you throw down for these prodigious wastes of ink, you're inundated with hundreds upon hundreds of bland player capsules and tedious team previews, none of which actually a.s.sist with fantasy drafting in the least. What's more, all of this information is easily accessible and, most importantly, free online. What it comes down to is that most of the buyers of these mags, lazy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds though they are, pick them up only to remove the cheat sheet that lists the top 150 players and the best twenty at each position. Again, this is a commodity that can either be printed out in full or culled together using little effort via free resources on the Internet. And the resources online didn't have to go to print three months before the preseason starts, making their advice as potentially outdated as a Peter King iTunes recommendation.

The promise of identifying sleepers (players who have surprisingly productive or breakout years, better known as the guys you end up pa.s.sing on in favor of Ronald Curry) is another hook that these publications use to bamboozle the ignorant and the research-averse. The conflict you run into here is that each magazine picks the same batch of players as their sleepers, be it a stud rookie running back, a third-year receiver primed to break out for a monster year, or a star looking to rebounding from a disappointing season. So by the time fantasy drafts roll around, everyone who did a modic.u.m of preparation takes these players long before they should. Then the sleepers seldom deliver the big year that was promised. And you end up hating the player when you should really hate yourself.

Fantasy football magazines also operate on the a.s.sumption that there is little to no volatility in player output from year to year, which is obviously ridiculous in a league where turnover is constant. According to them, whoever was hot the year before will remain hot, while whoever sucked will still be DeAngelo Williams. How did that guy get good so quickly? Some concessions must be made to the powers of random events. Certainly there's no way to foresee injuries to major players, unless you have a good arrangement with a clairvoyant.

The dirty secret is that everyone is just as clueless as everyone else. Convincing yourself that you're more informed than others is a pleasant fiction. Don't fall into that trap. Save yourself the money and the trouble. The NFL offers the fan ample opportunities to squander money.

The one exception is a recent version of Pro Football Prospectus Pro Football Prospectus. Sure, it completely botches a prediction every once in a while-its evaluation of Wes Welker before he had a breakout season with New England in 2007 comes to mind-but the book is chock-full of invaluable knowledge, even some so arcane that you might base your selections on the quality of a team's training staff, which, though grounded in reason, is going way, way overboard. Unless, again, it's a big money league. Then no amount of preparation is too much.

VI.6 A Letter to Brian Westbrook Regarding His Questionable Playing Status for Sunday Dear Brian Westbrook,Even though I hate the Eagles and everything they stand for (being huge d.i.c.ks, I think, is a major credo), I've enjoyed immensely the production you've given my fantasy team this season. I don't think I'm being out of line when I say that you are among the better first-round picks I've had in some time. The 26 points you gave me in Week 7 against Seattle got me over the hump in a game I needed to win to stay in playoff contention.Because you are one of the league's premier receiving backs, so much of Philadelphia's offense flows through you. This makes a particularly appealing fantasy selection. Even if a stout defense is keying on the run against your team, there's still a good chance that you will rack up decent stats because of your ability to catch pa.s.ses coming out of the backfield.I have to say, however, that there is one habit of yours that has caused me some distress. I speak in reference to your tendency to sustain minor injuries, not practice all week, be listed as questionable for the following game, then downgraded to doubtful, then said to be a game-time decision (causing me enough concern that I put you on the bench thinking that, even if you play, it won't be much)-only for you to play the entire game, run for 150 yards, and score two touchdowns.LISTEN f.u.c.kTARD, EITHER MAKE IT CRYSTAL CLEAR THAT YOU INTEND TO PLAY OR I WILL SODOMIZE YOU WITH A KATANA. GOING THROUGH THIS s.h.i.+T EACH AND EVERY WEEK IS CAUSING ME TO DEVELOP A b.i.t.c.h OF AN ULCER. I WILL RAKE YOUR EYES WITH A RUSTY NAIL, YOU DECEPTIVE s.h.i.+T-EATING c.u.n.tWICH!That is to say, I find this habit to be most irksome.This week, again, I noticed you've sustained a calf injury that casts doubt on your status for Sunday. I understand that this is typically an injury that would create some difficulty for a running back. It is not a position in which it is easy to perform well at less than 100 percent. Officially, I see that you are listed as questionable, which means there is still a 50-50 chance that you could play. In keeping tabs on your status throughout the week, I see that head coach Andy Reid has said that you only went through limited practice on Friday and that your condition will be evaluated during warm-ups on Sunday.HOLY f.u.c.kING CRUSTY c.u.mBUCKET, BRIAN! DO YOU THINK I HAVE A SOURCE IN THE EAGLES' LOCKER ROOM? DO YOU THINK I WANT TO WAIT BY MY COMPUTER ALL DAY SUNDAY FOR THE REPORT ON WHETHER YOU'RE GOING OR NOT? DO YOU THINK EVERYONE WHO ISN'T AN NFL PLAYER HAS TIME FOR THESE THINGS, YOU SELFISH a.s.s?Due to injuries to my other running backs, my bench is pretty thin at the moment. This game will go a long way toward determining whether my team makes the playoffs in my league. I would appreciate having a chance to recoup the fifty-dollar entry fee I paid at the beginning of the season. My friend, a.s.shole that he is, has already acquired your backup, Correll Buckhalter, making him primed to collect what should be rightfully my points should you not be able to start on Sunday. If, in fact, you will not be playing, I need to know this ahead of time, so I can pull a quick trade for another back.DON'T THINK IT'S THAT HARD TO LOOK UP YOUR ADDRESS ON THE INTERNET! I BET I CAN GOOGLE THAT s.h.i.+T REAL EASY! JUST YOU WAIT! IF YOU COST ME THIS GAME, I'LL GARROTE YOU IN YOUR SLEEP WITH PIANO WIRE, BURY YOU IN DOGs.h.i.+T, AND LIGHT IT ON FIRE! DOGs.h.i.+T BURNS OKAY JUST SO LONG AS YOU POUR SOME GASOLINE ON IT! AND I HAVE PLENTY OF GASOLINE, BRIAN!I hope we can reach a speedy resolution as it pertains to these lingering issues. Our a.s.sociation, I think, has been a beneficial one, and I would like for it to continue as such. Also, I don't want to go to prison for killing you. I hear bad things.Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go write the same letter to Willie Parker. Then mail a letter bomb to Mike Shanahan for the whole runningback-by-committee thing.Yours in Christ, Every Brian Westbrook Fantasy Owner VI.7 Issue Threats to People Who Veto Your Fantasy Trades The world of fantasy football is one of cutthroat gamesmans.h.i.+p. Accordingly, you've got to cut some f.u.c.king throats to get ahead, especially if it causes one of those amazing arterial sprays. Because of the fierce compet.i.tion that marks fantasy, trades are a particularly sensitive maneuver. The implications they have on the standings mean any proposed transaction is scrutinized in a manner so stringent it would make Supreme Court nominees cringe.

The need for this process is manifest. When a fantasy owner who is impossibly out of contention offers up his best player to another owner who is in the thick of a t.i.tle run, it's time for the others in the league to rise up and bellyache until that trade gets invalidated. For such a transaction may put the beneficiary on the road to a league t.i.tle due to the collusion of the down-and-out owner who has nothing to play for.

Often, though, when you find yourself on the business end of these refusals, which are done either by a vote of the majority of clenched-r.e.c.t.u.m owners in your league or the sole ruling of an imperious power-mad commissioner, no one can blame you for being aggrieved at the spite of others who were not savvy enough to rip off a suffering fantasy owner whose hope is lost but whose willingness to f.u.c.k others over remains startlingly intact. If you can coax a dying man to fork over his best a.s.sets before he expires, it is your right, nay, your obligation to do so. And, once having acquired those a.s.sets, the act of turning them on others as an instrument of fantasy football doom is enough to give you a glorious hate erection (these are the only kind Bill Belichick gets) for weeks.

Examples of lopsided trades are not always clear-cut, mind you. Not every rejected trade is as obviously rigged as Jabar Gaffney for Clinton Portis and Drew Brees. In many instances, people will overrule your trades even when they are relatively evenhanded. In such cases, an iron fist is required to guide these deals through the approval period.

Forcing through your proposed trades is going to take all of your cunning and all of your diplomatic dexterity, as well as an unstinting capacity for malevolence. The other owners in your league need to learn to fear your wrath, lest they get in their minds that it's okay to veto your deals, just because your stand to gain Steve Slaton and Matt Forte in a keeper league for a kicker. Let them worry about their business.

Try mailing any of the following sample threats to fellow owners in your league once one of your trades has been submitted for their approval. Be sure to cut all the ill-fitting letters out of various magazines, not so much to conceal the source of the letters (everyone knows they're from you) but because it makes you look cinematically deranged. And everyone knows actual crazy people love to copy the tactics of crazy people from movies.

"Approve my f.u.c.king trade of Greg Camarillo for Brandon Marshall or I'll bayonet you in the nuts. My antique weapons collection has been itching for some use. If I forgot to get the rust off first, what's the difference?"

"You know that scene in s? Fargo Fargo where the dude gets fed into the wood chipper? Well, approve my trade or I'll kick the s.h.i.+t out of you and then go watch that movie and laugh about what I've done." where the dude gets fed into the wood chipper? Well, approve my trade or I'll kick the s.h.i.+t out of you and then go watch that movie and laugh about what I've done."

"Do you like pits of serpents? s.h.i.+t, you weren't supposed to say yes. Well, once I find out what animal you're deathly afraid of, I fill the pit with that. And in you'll go!"

"I'll chain you to a radiator and force-feed you Grady Jackson FUPA sweat."

"Tank Johnson lent me his weapons cache and I've only gone through a couple dozen grenades. That still leaves thousands more, f.u.c.kstick."

"Only interested in keeping things fair, you say? Well, I'm only interested in jamming a scalding fire poker in your eye."

"Five words: live wire in your urethra."

"Once I'm done with you, they'll never find the body. Unless investigators follow the lengthy list of obvious clues I leave in my wake."

"If you don't think I can transfer flesh-eating bacteria over an Internet chat, you aren't paying attention to your rapidly disappearing midsection."

"You know that Wu-Tang track where Method Man says he's gonna staple your a.s.shole shut and keep feeding you? Well, I'll do the same thing, except I'll be feeding you gasoline."

"Ever had your lower lip nailed to a railroad track? Well, it'll stay that way so long as you're smart enough to keep your trap shut about my acquisition of DeAngelo Williams for Drew Bennett."

"I think a daytrip to the mountains could help us clear our heads and settle our differences. Sucks for you that I'll be dragging you from the back of my truck on the way there."

"Ever had your head slammed in a car door? Well, I don't have a car, so you'll have to settle for a regular door."

A few of these and you'll have your trade clear with no fuss at all. Sure, you'll get booted out of the league for improper conduct, but if you were in a league that doesn't permit wanton threats of violence, you weren't doing the fantasy experience justice in the first place. Also, don't include threats over e-mail. The less evidence to present to the cops, the better. It's just common sense.

"I think a daytrip to the mountains could help us clear our heads and settle our differences. Sucks for you that I'll be dragging you from the back of my truck on the way there."

"Ever had your head slammed in a car door?

ARTICLE VII.

A Fan for All Seasons

VII.1 Seventeen Weeks of Sweet Delusion For most fans, the football season is an endless stream of gut-punches and curb-stompings, interspersed with the odd moment of deceptive euphoria. But in the heady days of early September before that first kickoff, all is still joy and wonder. Now is time for the airing of the unreasonably bold prognostications! 19-0! 19-0! After all, there is parity in the league. Sweet, sweet parity. Which means any team that builds chemistry, stays healthy, and gets a lucky bounce here and there can go from 6-10 one year to 13-3 the next, no sweat. Will this necessarily occur? Probably not. But what's important is that it has the potential to occur. And that's the sad hope you'll stubbornly cling to like Tony Sparrano does to the Wildcat Formation.

Week 1-The opening game of the NFL season is exponentially more important than that of any other professional sport. The sixteen-game schedule amplifies the significance of any regular season contest compared to an eighty-two or, G.o.d forbid, a 162-game season. In the NFL, careers can be made and undone in single weeks. A Week 1 win can be the springboard to the top of the heap. Or it can be a misleading precursor to a horrible joke of a season. Either way, everybody wants to start the year on a positive note.Week 2-Oh, no, your team lost on Kickoff Weekend! You're already in the hole after one game. The club is tied for last place in the division, for Pete Rozelle's sake! Breathe deep. Give your b.a.l.l.s a rea.s.suring pat. One loss isn't going to screw the season. In fact, sometimes teams need to lose to expose fixable flaws in the game plan and to keep players humble. There are good types of losses, or so you repeat to your bloodshot eyes in the mirror at 3 a.m.Week 3-a.n.a.lysts begin ticking off the short list of teams that have made the Super Bowl following an 0-2 start. The recitation of this fact scares you to the sphincter. A must-win game in September? Here goes...Week 4-"Oh, G.o.d, oh, s.h.i.+t, the team is 0-3. All is lost. All. Is. f.u.c.king. Lost. The plane has flown into the mountain! Someone direct me to the tallest building with a street-level awning unlikely to cus.h.i.+on my fall. But, wait, what? The 1998 Buffalo Bills made the playoffs after an 0-3 start? So...there's still hope? Yeah! You're right. I mean, sure they've lost all their games, but they were all closely contested. They can right this s.h.i.+p!"Week 5-Doom and gloom falls heavy on fans of the 0-4 team. By now, you've put up Craigslist ads shopping your tickets for the rest of the season and considered developing a second drinking problem. What's more, the team becomes the b.u.t.t of every gag on the pregame shows. Wearing your team's jersey in public is suddenly a more daunting prospect. As is listening to the haunting voices in your head.Week 6-Hey, your team got its first victory of the season. Happy day! You get to show your face in public again. Vegas still has your guys as a touchdown underdog next week at home, so you know it's a tough road ahead, but there's a sign of life. Might want to power down the suicide machine for a spell.Week 7-Back-to-back wins piques your delusional demons. For the time being, it's also sharply reduced the amount of the furniture you've ripped up around the house in fits of frustration. The thought, just maybe, that the team has turned it around creeps into your head.Week 8-Another win and now the team has reached the bye week. After enduring a painful start at the beginning of the year, you've become very guarded with your optimism. You don't know if you're ready to commit to that kind of fever pitch again so soon. You promise to sleep under your team comforter one night just to see how it goes. Nothing serious.Week 9-You're geared up for a second-half-of-the-season stretch run. This is the time of year that the great teams get it together and start owning s.h.i.+t. Meanwhile, your spirits are building, your ulcer has gone away, and the wife and kids are relieved enough by your calmer demeanor to move back into the house.Week 10-The team has scaled its way out of the hole and back to a .500 record. They're right in the hunt. This season could go either way. Which is doing wonders for your chemical imbalance.Week 11-ZOMFG! Five wins in row! The team has a winning record. Fire up the bandwagon. Start looking into making reservations at the Super Bowl host city. Flood online sports message board with trash-talk. Any small talk you enter into with strangers or store clerks should be about the team and its turn of good fortune. Let the karma G.o.ds know you appreciate their work.Week 12-And just like that, all that good energy goes to s.h.i.+t as the team snaps its five-game win streak, taking all the wind out of its sails and the record back to .500. They'll have to run the table at this point. Right about now, "poison the drinking water" doesn't sound like the worst idea your grief-stricken mind has fed you all day.Week 13-Yet another loss and the season is officially coming undone, as are the lingering threads of your sanity. The wife has gone back to sleeping at her sister's place. Meanwhile, you stare dead-eyed at the television while consuming bag after bag of bacon dust. Over the span of four days, you have three lengthy conversations about cosmology with your DVD remote.Week 14-The team ekes out a win just to toy with you. Feeling emotionally spent at this point, you're too numb to notice you haven't left the house in three weeks. To your credit, you have been showering, even if that has consisted of standing in an ice-cold shower stream while crying for an hour. Clean is clean.Week 15-What's this? Another win? For us? Huzzah! At 7-6, your team has put a decent enough season together to be on the outer reaches of the playoff hunt. And, if only they can win their final three games, and maybe get a little help, they'll squeeze into that last Wild Card spot! Maybe it's not too early to start lining up for the postSuper Bowl parade.Week 16-Well, d.a.m.n it all to f.u.c.king h.e.l.l. Faced with the gauntlet and the team couldn't even win the first game of the final stretch. Now, with two weeks remaining, the team has already been eliminated from playoff contention. At this point, the question becomes whether it's acceptable to root for your team to lose so that it improves the team's draft order. It's a th.o.r.n.y question. If, say, the pick in question is first pick of the draft and the team has only won one game all year, it's fine to root against them, if only for the added comedic effect of total inept.i.tude. However, if you're only talking about the difference between the fifteenth and twelfth pick, that's not worth a dive against a hated division rival that's fighting for its own playoff life. You've got to ruin their s.h.i.+t.Week 17-Few things are more depressing to the sports fan than the beginning of a postseason in which your team is not involved. It's a soul-flattening sensation of inconsequence. You get to watch all of these teams who, even if they lose, get to matter on the big stage. You'd much rather your team have a chance to go down fighting, or choking, as the case would be for Dallas.

The year ends on a dispiriting note. On the plus side, your team's coach will soon be fired (if he hasn't been already) and the search for his successor will take most of the next few weeks, leaving the eventual replacement not enough time to install his system, dooming him for obvious failure. Good times!

But if your team did, in fact, make the playoffs, well then calloo callay for you, d.i.c.kface. Everything must be all smiles and cheeseburgers in the land of happy, you gloating sack of s.h.i.+t. Real fans are always fans! Even when the team indicates through years of inaction on the free-agent market that it isn't serious about winning but still wants a new stadium funded by public money, we'll be there for them. That's what fans do! And besides, we'll get to you front-runners soon enough.

VII.2 Strategies for a Losing Season: Blame All Parties Involved Jilted lovers, grieving families, dispossessed monsoon victims, quadruple amputees-tragic cases, all. But we can all agree these sob stories pale in comparison to the plight of the sports fan who cheers on a loser. Every day this wretched creature is buffeted by trash-talk from the fans of thriving teams and the expectation of another wrenching loss coming down the pike. The abject agony he must endure is tantamount to no other form of grief in the human condition. Save the blue b.a.l.l.s, maybe.

What relief has he, this depantsed and downtrodden fan of the fallen? Some console themselves with the far-off promise of the hardly guaranteed glory of high draft choices. Others turn to the bottle, the needle, the bong, the moons.h.i.+ne jug, or the contents of a broken-into CVS pharmacy.

At best, those are short-term fixes, and they are ultimately placebos when compared to the real cure, that being the identifying and demonizing of a scapegoat. Though most bad teams have deficiencies at several key positions, it is the fan's job to distill the blame and fire it with a laserlike precision and a neutron-bomb-level intensity at one culpable individual. Is it fair? Hardly. But I'll be d.a.m.ned if it isn't rea.s.suring to gang up on somebody.

The scapegoat can be any member of the team, though it usually falls on the shoulders of a high-profile individual, whether it be the starting quarterback, the head coach, the offensive or defensive coordinator, or the general manager. For another figure to get the glare of blame flashed on them, they must really, really turn on the suck. Adam Archuleta and Brian Russell are s.h.i.+ning beacons in that respect.

Once labeled a scapegoat, it's next to impossible for that impression to be overturned. Lions fans, expert losers that they are, for years laid the blame for their franchise's string of failures at the feet of general manager Matt Millen. Some observers would describe their animosity as misplaced. All Millen did was hire inept coaches, sign mediocre players, squander first-round picks drafting bust receiver after bust receiver, and generally infect every level of the organization with the distinct aroma of disgrace and festering llama s.h.i.+t. But c'mon, what do you want from the guy? Competence?

Though the scapegoat deserves hate, fueled with the energy of a thousand suns, stay away from the personal when las.h.i.+ng out. Such attacks do nothing but make you look petty and unhinged, when you only mean to be petty and vengeful. Take, for example, the years when Steelers fans, disgusted with the erratic play of Kordell Stewart, circulated rumors that the quarterback was gay. Which is silly, because all quarterbacks are at least a little gay.

Once the scapegoat is identified, the fan's job is to make his life a living h.e.l.l. The slightest misstep by the scapegoat is to be greeted with a heinous chorus of boos so vicious it could cripple the emotions of the most steeled individual. The scapegoat should be made to fear showing his face in public, more so than any other famous athlete already does. Call-in radio shows, blog entries, and comment sections on online newspaper articles should be flooded with invective against this cretin. Ignore pleas from the punditry for reason or temperance. Remind them that it is you, the fan, who pays this player's or coach's salary, and that this gives you the right to inflict undue misery.

To further the effect on the scapegoat, organize protests outside the stadium for his immediate benching or outright release. Be sure to alert the media and make costumes so wild and elaborate they put IMF protesters to shame. If your demands are still not heeded, coordinate ma.s.s walkouts during games. Sure, the owners.h.i.+p is still getting your money, but you're totally sticking it to them. Symbolism means more to billionaires slavishly monitoring the bottom line than you might think.

When the scapegoat is finally cut loose, celebrate wildly as though an albatross has finally been removed from your shoulder and a wondrous new era is being ushered in. Watch as the team loses a few more games, then find another scapegoat and repeat as necessary until a champions.h.i.+p is won.

VII.3 Drink Deep of the Haterade, That Cool, Refres.h.i.+ng Drink When you find yourself in the throes of an abortive season, there is nothing that can console you quite like the sweet succor of pure, unvarnished hatred. Hatred for your rivals. Hatred for the teams that are true contenders. Hatred for the same pa.s.sel of commercials that have been running all season long. It is this hatred that will sustain you through times of extreme fanial strife. Antipathy is top-shelf booze for the psyche.

In the years when your team is getting taken to the woodshed on a weekly basis, by mid-September you will already have it in your head that once again this isn't your season. Try not to take it too hard. But do take it hard on those who have it good. This is the way most seasons will work themselves out. The sooner you adjust yourself to failure, the sooner you can start focusing on discrediting the accomplishments of others.

Hatred gets a bad rap from those sportsmans.h.i.+p hucksters, but it is really nothing to fear. Without this eminently vital emotion, we'd be inclined to respect and honor the deeds of those we heartily dislike. I'm not sure that's a world any of us want to live in. Football is not built on mutual respect. Honor is shared among thieves. Fans deal in contempt and spite.

Hatred is stoked by the consumption of haterade, a potent elixir that is equal parts bile and spleen. Lucky for you haterade is a naturally occurring part of alcoholic drinks, and can easily be consumed alongside your usual drinking regiment.

Supping from the font of haterade, you will learn that there is not a great performance that you cannot undermine. If a team you dislike happens to benefit from a critical penalty that springs it to victory, you're more than ent.i.tled to harp on how lucky that team was to be the beneficiary of that bit of officiating. If a freakish bounce goes their way, never let that team's fan base believe for a second that their team earned that victory. When they do reach a t.i.tle game, carp that the Super Bowl is boring and that no one wants to watch them, causing ratings to plummet. Even if the team wins decisively, there are useful outs for the hater. For instance, say the team you hate fails to cover a huge line they are given against an overmatched opponent. That only serves to show that they are hopelessly overrated. Even in victory you've got them feeling like s.h.i.+t.

Indeed, no claim is a closer friend to the hater than that of being overrated. Every fan presumes that his team is, at best, correctly appraised by the general population. The function of the hater is to show the flaws in that perception. The weapons are subtle, but many. For starters, if the hated team is a Wild Card making a run to a champions.h.i.+p, surely they lost to some embarra.s.sing squads in the regular season. Why, how good could the team be if they lost to the Bears in Week 16? It's important to point this out to their fans ad infinitum, even over their fans reasonable objection that the loss only came when they were resting their starters for the playoffs.

If all that fails, there's always the refuge of insulting the stereotypes of a team's fan base. Is it the Packers? Then they're fat, ugly cheesebilly Favr.e.t.a.r.ds. The Steelers? Unemployed mouthbreathing rag twirlers. The Patriots? Pfft. Boston's really a baseball town. A racist-a.s.s baseball town. And everybody has AIDS. And their AIDS stink. Don't forget the Cowboys. You'd have to take a pestle to my frontal lobe to make me as dumb as a Cowboys fan.

The levelheaded fan who doles out respect to a successful team doesn't exist. No team is un.o.bjectionable in the eyes of a fan of a losing squad. This is the trap that ensnares fans of successful teams. They a.s.sume that other teams' fans will embrace the positive qualities of their team as they make their run at history. Boston fans, in particular, are guilty of this. It's a fundamental fan fallacy. No one wants to give another team its due. That's simply the nature of fandom. Expecting any different of rival fans, no matter how sympathetic you may think your own team is, is the height of douchieness. Stow that s.h.i.+t and enjoy your t.i.tle run. Don't look for validation from other fan bases. You aren't gonna get it.

The key to hating is not to let the people know that you hate them. This takes a bit of loathsome finesse. Otherwise you come off looking like an irrational curmudgeon who is out to p.i.s.s on the parades of others. Even if that is exactly what you are doing, you can't let them know that, or else it lessens the effect of your slurs. Proper hating takes years of practice to master, but once you get it down, you can apply it to fields independent of sport. Coworkers, in-laws, strangers who make you feel bad about yourself. All of them can be the focus of your burning disgust. You'll find hatred's the best coping mechanism you can't get from a doctor. Unless you finagle a medical marijuana prescription. That can help you deal with anything.

7.4 When "Wait 'Til Next Year" Is an Annual Mantra, or the Fan Bases of the d.a.m.ned Either through the unfortunate vagaries of inheritance or through the grievous impulsiveness of youth, you may find yourself linked to an ineffably, monstrously inept team. How this happens is one of the confounding mysteries that fate likes to stir in the stew of life with its unwashed pinky finger.

Sure, on some level you can enjoy the league as a whole, as a beleaguered student of the game, but you are condemned to view the NFL from the bottom up. You are but fools, doomed forever to the caste of losers. A wretched band of untouchables bound to serve the good teams the wins they desire. Their seasons begin with inflated hopes, flying in the face of reason, and terminate well before the actual season is over with crushed dreams and crying jags.

While there are many teams that are marked by pitiful performance on the field, there exists a fetid threesome that tests the mettle of their fans in ways only war refugees can understand. Despite fielding a team throughout the entirety of the modern era, they have yet to reward their faithful with so much as an appearance on the grandest of stages, the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the Panthers and the Ravens made it to the big dance in their first decade of operation. n.o.body said fandom was fair.

The New Orleans Saints, the Detroit Lions, and the Cleveland Browns. If ever there was a three-headed h.e.l.l-hound of fail, it is they. Fans of the Lions and Browns gripe that their teams won champions.h.i.+ps prior to the Super Bowl era, but that's like saying you're rich because you have fifteen million drachmas. Champions.h.i.+ps won before the advent of the Super Bowl are a trivial footnote of history.

On a side note, the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans also belong on the list of teams that have failed to reach the Super Bowl; however, considering that these franchises are respectively fourteen and seven years old, it's a bit unfair to hold them to the same standards as these three perennial tonguers of cornhole. Additionally, they have it rough enough living in Jacksonville and Houston without more ribbing.

One could also include Chargers fans, even though the team has made one Super Bowl appearance, seeing as how no pro team from San Diego has ever won a major sports t.i.tle. But then again, the weather is too nice for anyone to really be miserable there. Nuts to those lucky, well-tanned jerkwheats.

If there's any glimmer of deceptive hope for these teams, it is that a longtime member of their circle of futility, the Arizona Cardinals, has recently be expunged from their ranks with an appearance in Super Bowl XLIII. Naturally, the sudden success of a fellow eternal NFL punch line should give them cause to believe in their own chances, but no, it's only a bitter reminder that even the Arizona Cardinals can win and they can't.

Here is a breakdown of their collective woes. Don't skip past. It's not too sad. They're still slightly less depressing than the latest Holocaust drama you got from Netflix.

New Orleans Saints Despite having the Superdome famously ravaged by a hurricane, the NFL continued to force this team to play what were considered home games on neutral fields after the stadium was fixed. So it's not only fate that hates them. Meanwhile, owner Tom Benson would just prefer all their games be played in Los Angeles. And of course, they had the privilege to root for Papa Manning rather than his Super Bowlwinning brood. Punch yourself in the nuts again, Saints fans, before the universe has another chance to.

Relevant Fail-toids The team was in operation for thirty-three years before winning its first playoff game following the 2000 season. They then won their second following the 2006 season, so you could say things are looking up.

Has had two quarterbacks named Billy Joe (Billy Joe Hobert and Billy Joe Tolliver) start games for them. One is one too many.

Had grating "Who Dey" chant stolen by the lowly Cincinnati Bengals. Still seeking rest.i.tution or government aid.

Suggested additional self-torture (because once you get a taste for it, you can never have enough) for Saints fans: Change your name to Billy Joe. Wait for next hurricane. Stay put. Change your name to Billy Joe. Wait for next hurricane. Stay put.

Detroit Lions Not only do the Lions administer unspeakable pain to their own fans, but they do harm to the rest of America with their s.h.i.+tty play by being one of two teams, along with the Dallas Cowboys, that tradition demands always have a game on Thanksgiving. They are spared from being the most embarra.s.sing team in all sports only by the illogical devotion of their fans.

Relevant Fail-toids Where to start? There's always the matter of them losing all sixteen of their games last season. That's a good jumping off point.

In twenty-one attempts, the team has never won a game at Was.h.i.+ngton. Their last victory on the road against the Redskins came in 1935, when the franchise was the Boston Redskins.

Went three consecutive seasons (20012003) without a victory on the road, a first in NFL history.

Barry Sanders, the greatest player in the history of this or perhaps any team, opted to retire at the age of thirty-when he could have played several more years and only needed about 1,500 yards to surpa.s.s Walter Payton's career rus.h.i.+ng record-rather than play any longer for such an utterly impotent organization.

Suggested additional self-torture for Lions fans: Wear a throwback Matt Millen Raiders jersey to Ford Field. Wear a throwback Matt Millen Raiders jersey to Ford Field.

Cleveland Browns Like Detroit, enjoys a base of m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tically loyal supporters. Possessed an inopportune dynasty with Jim Brown, likely the greatest player ever, prior to the modern era. Better way too early than never, eh, Cleveland?

Relevant Fail-toids A key contributor to the forty-five-year Cleveland sports t.i.tle drought. Admittedly, the squalid town doesn't bear the fertile soil needed for a champions.h.i.+p yield.

"Red Right 88" and "The Fumble." While other teams give names to their successes ("The Catch"), the Browns memorialize their bitter failures.

Lost the franchise to Baltimore in 1996. The Baltimore Ravens proceeded to win a Super Bowl four years later. Browns fans still picture Modell laughing at them when trying to have s.e.x. Hopefully this prevents breeding.

Suggested additional self-torture for Browns fans: Jump in the Cuyahoga River, light it on fire. Jump in the Cuyahoga River, light it on fire.

VII.5 The Week Between the Conference Champions.h.i.+ps and the Super Bowl Is the Tool of the Devil (as Well as the Networks, Which Are Run by the Devil) Among the more odious phenomena that blight the football landscape-besides the ever-present scourge of bandwagon fans and the fact that there are timeouts after scores and kick returns-is the two-week break between the conference champions.h.i.+ps and the Super Bowl. What purpose does this serve other than to dull the excitement that's been building to a fever pitch throughout the playoffs? To hype the Super Bowl? Because surely the hundreds of millions of people who tune in to this cultural inst.i.tution wouldn't bother unless they had two full weeks of soft-focus player profiles and puff pieces crammed down their gullets. Nope. Not a one of them.

Not only does the two-week break impose a needless calm in the middle of the frenzied postseason, it destroys any momentum a team may have built up through January, bores fans to tears, and hurts the quality of the Super Bowl itself. Only seven times in its forty-three-year history has the Super Bowl been held the week after the conference t.i.tle games, with the margin of victory being noticeably smaller during the one-week games than the standard two-week ones.

Of those seven Super Bowls, three of them were decided on the final play: Scott Norwood's kick-starting four years of Bills Super Sunday suffering in January 1991; Kevin Dyson getting tackled a yard shy of the goal line in the Rams' 2316 victory in Super Bowl x.x.xIV; and Adam Vinatieri's winning kick to complete the Patriots upset of those same Rams in Super Bowl x.x.xVI.

The one-week games also give a fighting chance to the underdog, who, coming in with a full head of steam, has a legitimate shot against a daunting opponent. The Redskins' 2717 comeback win over the Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII, and Kansas City's 237 upset victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IV were examples of this. In fact, only two of the one-week games have been blowouts: Dallas's 3013 bludgeoning of Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVII (though the Bills led at halftime), and the last Super Bowl played with the one-week interim, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 4821 victory over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl x.x.xVII (though the Raiders were four-point favorites entering the game).

After holding three of the four Super Bowls between the 1999 and 2002 seasons with the one-week break, the league reestablished the two-week layover beginning with the 2003 season. There are plenty of rational arguments as to why the two-week break is detrimental to the big game, but none more so than that it's excruciating torture for fans, an echo chamber of unsubstantial hype that political conventions could only ever dream to be.

Moving the Pro Bowl to fill this gap, which will begin starting next year, does exactly nothing to alleviate the dull that settles in the lull. It just means even more players will opt to take the game off. And that the Pro Bowl, as devoid of meaning as it already is, will somehow become even more pointless.

A two week buildup is an agonizing dog-and-pony show that's nigh on unwatchable. For the first week, neither team has even arrived in the host city, forcing bloviating pundits to fill the vacuum with the sickliest sc.r.a.ps of rumor and warmed-over a.n.a.lysis to ratchet up the hype to obscene heights. Is a starting linebacker being limited in practice one day? Best sound the doomsday siren! Has a reserve player said in an interview that he's confident in his team's chances? Ooooooeeeee, that's bulletin board material right there! Sounds like somebody's guaranteeing a win! Will he be the next Namath? It's enough to make you watch hockey.

Eventually the second week rolls around and the teams make their arrival, an event which, in keeping with the s.h.i.+tshow nature of the two-week break, is breathlessly covered by the media. Footage of people walking on an airport tarmac has never been so captivating. Yet no network will refuse to show it like it's ma.s.sive breaking news, as though the prospect of air travel suddenly became doubly perilous with the coming of the Super Bowl.

At some point the mayors of the partic.i.p.ating cities (or, in the case of Jacksonville, spa.r.s.ely civilized midden heaps) will wager items that are symbolic of their home-towns. If it's Philadelphia, it's probably a cheesesteak. If it's Baltimore, it's spent casings found at a crime scene. What's most galling is that everyone looks the other way during this brazen disregarding of gambling laws. I should be able to wager foodstuff if I so choose. And if I instead subst.i.tute the money used to buy food in my bets, so be it. Innocent fun!