The Football Fan's Manifesto

by Michael Tunison

  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 shit. 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 gods know you appreciate their work.

  Week 12—And just like that, all that good energy goes to shit 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 post–Super Bowl parade.

  Week 16—Well, damn it all to fucking hell. 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 thorny 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 ineptitude. 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 shit.

  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, dickface. Everything must be all smiles and cheeseburgers in the land of happy, you gloating sack of shit. 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 balls, 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 moonshine 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 damned if it isn’t reassuring 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 shining 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 shit. 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 lashing 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 hell. 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 mass walkouts during games. Sure, the ownership 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 championship is won.

  VII.3 Drink Deep of the Haterade, That Cool, Refreshing 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 passel 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 sportsmanship 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 entitled 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 title 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 shit.

  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 championship, surely they lost to some embarrassing 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 Favretards. The Steelers? Unemployed mouthbreathing rag twirlers. The Patriots? Pfft. Boston’s really a baseball town. A racist-ass 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 unobjectionable in the eyes of a fan of a losing squad. This is the trap that ensnares fans of successful teams. They assume 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 shit and enjoy your title 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 piss 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 Damned

  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. Nobody said fandom was fair.

  The New Orleans Saints, the Detroit Lions, and the Cleveland Browns. If ever there was a three-headed hell-hound of fail, it is they. Fans of the Lions and Browns gripe that their teams won championships prior to the Super Bowl era, but that’s like saying you’re rich because you have fifteen million drachmas. Championships 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 title. 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 Bowl–winning 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 restitution 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.

  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 shitty 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 embarrassing team in all sports only by the illogical devotion of their fans.

  Relevant Fail-toids