Favorite team (1) Oct 9, 2007
As I've mentioned before, I'm a fair-weather fan.  Years of rooting for loosing teams have left me jaded and cynical.  At least I admit it.  I don't claim to be a Colts fan or a Patriots fan.  People who do this are below scum in my opinion.  Unless you can prove you liked either team before they got good, you're a fair-weather fan too.  You just haven't been around long enough to ditch them when they get bad (largely because they never get bad; Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are godlike).  It's easy to like teams that always win.  It's also shallow.  So there you have it:  Two insults in one paragraph. 

For this reason and a few others, I've decided to adopt a "no favorite team" policy.  I've been teetering on the edge for over a year now:  I claim to like the Eagles, but I show absolutely no loyalty to them.  They win some, they lose some.  I'm apathetic.  To be quite honest, it's extremely difficult to like a team that's not from your area (or if you live in a dual-team region) because their games are rarely televised.  It's a heck of lot easier to like the local team simply because it's a heck of lot easier to watch their games.  And go to their games.  And fraternize with their fans.  And buy their merchandise in stores. 

But again, I have no favorite team.  I'll watch the local team.  I'll also watch their division rivals.  I'll watch last year's Super Bowl champions.  I'll watch this year's likely Super Bowl champions (Pats).  I'll watch that old guy from Wisconsin.  I don't really care.  I like watching football (by the way, this post is entirely about football because I don't watch or care about other sports ... perhaps I should've mentioned that at the beginning ... oh well).  I like watching good football.  Watching Tom Brady systematically get first downs and score points is amazing.  The man doesn't make mistakes.  I enjoy watching stuff like that.  Watching my favorite team fumble the ball and stumble down the field is disheartening at best.  It would be easier if my favorite team was a good team, but it's not and has rarely ever been.  So yes, I'm essentially giving up. 

The advent of fantasy football has really helped my decision.  With a fantasy team, I manage players from all over the NFL.  Some are on good teams, some on bad.  The success of a specific team often has nothing to do with the success of an individual player in fantasy football land.  This makes it easier to watch games that would otherwise have no impact on me or my favorite team.  I have a wide receiver from the Jets and a kicker from the Cardinals (my kicker is oddly a reliable point-scorer).  Do I like the Jets or the Cardinals?  No, but I'll watch their games because I like some of their players. 

I have to admit the idea of not having a favorite team didn't occur to me until a few weeks ago.  When asked what his favorite team was, a guy I know said he was undecided.  He made it sound like he didn't know much about the sport and was still formulating an opinion.  I have a feeling he knew exactly how he felt and intentionally chose to not have a favorite team.  I liked the idea and latched onto it. 

So that's how it's gonna be.  I'm not basing my decision entirely on fantasy football, mainly because I just started about a month ago.  That interest may fade.  But my disinterest in a favorite team probably won't. #sports
Recent NFL observations Oct 9, 2007
1.  Pink towels:  I saw a towel draped over a player's shoulder pads, and it didn't look clean and white, but it also wasn't completely red.  I figured it might've been a fluke.  I saw another one and thought, This is an NFL team.  Don't they have enough money to get clean towels?  After I saw the same thing in several other games, at different times, and on different networks, it finally all came together:  It had something to do with breast cancer awareness. 

2.  Let's travel back in time to the last 5 or 6 games of the 2006-2007 season, where Jeff Garcia was the Eagles quarterback in place of an injured Donovan McNabb.  Garcia managed to take a below-.500 team to the playoffs, beating the division rival Giants, and losing in the 2nd round to the Saints.  When asked what he would do next season concerning McNabb, coach Andy Reid said he'd bench Garcia and put McNabb in as soon as he was healthy.  My immense knowledge of football and everything else said, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Jeff Garcia is a game-winner, McNabb isn't.  Andy Reid surprisingly wasn't able to read my mind and consequently didn't take my advice, and now look at the Eagles.  They're a joke of a team even with a healthy McNabb.  And they got rid of Garcia.  This is why I don't like the Eagles, even though I tell people they're my favorite team. 

3.  I think it's funny how teams that do well one year end up doing poorly the next year, and vice versa.  I can think of three teams off the top of my head:  the Saints, the Bears, and the Chargers.  All three teams had incredible records and made it to the playoffs last year.  They had Pro Bowl players and managed to consistently win and get better each week.  In all three cases, not much changed from last season to this season in terms of personnel, both players and coaches.  Yet all three teams are borderline atrocious so far this season.  Sure it's only week 5 and there's still a ton of time to turn things around, but the obvious question is:  What happened between last year and this year?  What changed?  If your players are generally the same, your coaches are generally the same, and the league is generally the same, what could possibly be different about this season to make you lose so many games so poorly?  Did you get lucky last year?  Were you overrated?  The "vice versa" is also true.  The example that comes to mind is Green Bay.  The team was so bad last year, it almost forced Brett Favre to retire.  But he decided to stay, as did most of his team and most of the coaches.  So what exactly changed from one year to the next to turn a terrible team into a pretty good team?  Who knows.  Maybe Brett Favre is like wine and gets better with age.  But what happened for the last several years when he wasn't good?  Maybe that was his valley and now he'll get exponentially better each year until he retires as the league's MVP at the ripe old age of 65. #sports