The FedEx Orange Bowl played earlier this week, and it was a laugher. USC, possibly still bitter about their exclusion from last season’s title game, came out firing and put on a good old fashioned mollywhomping on the Sooners of Oklahoma. I didn’t really care either way, so long as it was exciting. It wasn’t. But the second best thing to a good game is an impressive blowout, and in that category USC delivered.
Still, even a good blowout wasn’t enough to keep my attention, and my friends and I left the bar after the first half. Despite a marquee matchup like Southern Cal-Oklahoma, I had little interest in the game, which sucks, since college football was once fantastic and should not have its focus shifted off the field every year. Yet that’s what happens more and more, with USC getting whored out of a title spot last season and Auburn complaining about the same thing here in ’04/’05. The true impact of this game is that college football is over, which means that my collegiate focus can shift strictly over to hoops. But more on that later…
…because right now, it’s NFL playoff time. Yesterday’s kickoff to Wild Card Weekend featured matchups between the Chargers and Jets, another between St. Louis and Seattle. Today was Indy and Denver, and an NFC North-nightcap of Green Bay hosting the Vikings. Even with the Bears out, I still enjoy NFL football, and this weekend provided some quality games. Chargers-Jets went long, and featured a missed field goal by San Diego’s kicker in overtime that allowed the Jets to come back to win. The Rams and Seahawks had a good battle, former Bear Bobby Engram dropping the would-be game tying touchdown pass Jackie Smith-style for Seattle. Peyton Manning and the Colts offense put on a show against the Broncos, dominating from the opening kick, while Brett Favre fell apart at home with four picks. What made these games interesting was where they put me as a Chicago sports fan.
When watching a game that does not involve a team to whom you are emotionally attached, other factors come into play in determining your rooting interest. One huge, often overriding factor is money, but as I said earlier about fantasy, gambling does not make the fan. You’re not rooting for a team, you’re rooting for an outcome. On the surface, it’s the same, but your mentality is much different. Gambling was not an issue for me this weekend, so now you have to consider other factors, and those are simple: how do I feel about the teams playing, and how do I feel about the players on those teams?
I was pretty much up in the air for the first three games played. I like the Jets and Chargers, dislike St. Louis and Seattle, and while I find Manning and the Colts to be annoying, I really love watching their offense at work. As for Pack-Vikes, I would never root for Favre and Green Bay, but I knew that I would rather watch Favre play another round of football than the Vikings. So this weekend was kind of a wash. A better example of how to root came during last season’s playoffs, when the Tennessee Titans hooked up with the Baltimore Ravens for a Wild Card game.
First, the Titans. I don’t have much against them, except for the fact that a young, stupid friend of mine roots for them in an incredibly annoying fashion, most notably in his insistence to rip up the Bears every chance he gets despite being from a suburb of Chicago. His reason for liking Tennessee is that he got into them when he was young and impressionable, and I suppose that’s true, as only a young sports “fan” could root for a team simply because “they have cool jerseys.” So the very fact that this guy found time to shove it in every Bears fan’s face that the Titans were winning while the Bears were home was reason enough for me to root against them. On the other hand, I really like Steve McNair and Eddie George. Those guys play hard every game, they play hurt, they play tough—they are Foot-Ball Players. You could see them suiting up for the Bears in the ’60 s and grinding out the tough yards in the slush of Wrigley Field.
Now the Ravens. I don’t have anything against these players; Ray Lewis happens to be one of my favorite non-Bears. However, this is one team that I really don’t like, the reason being that I don’t like their owner, Art Modell, who took the Cleveland Browns away from Cleveland and moved them to Baltimore over stadium arguments. This is something that cannot be tolerated,[3] because moving a team against the city’s will hurts the fans in a way that we never think possible.
As you grow up, you discover death. Someone close to you dies, and you come to grips with the reality that you will never see that person again, a person who has become a meaningful part of your life. You also realize that one day, you will die, and that nothing lasts forever. And yet, sports teams do. I grew up watching the Cubs, as did my parents, and their parents, and with that comes the knowledge that my kids will have an opportunity to watch the Cubs, as will my grandkids, as will their grandkids. Yes, it’s entirely probable that the day will come in which baseball is no longer played, but until that day people will be connected and brought together throughout the generations by one common thread: their interest in a baseball team. Something so simple yet so powerful, and most importantly, something that was here before I was born and will be here after I die. For an owner to take that away…I can’t even imagine how that would feel.
Which is why I find it interesting that the fans in Baltimore took so quickly to the Ravens in 1996. Did these people forget that just thirteen years earlier, it was their beloved football team that was snatched away in the middle of the night by a greedy owner and moved to another city far, far away? I would think that the people of Baltimore would have more sympathy for the pain of the people of Cleveland rather than just gleefully accepting their new football team. And yet, maybe this reveals something very telling about sports fans: that along with fandom being a true love, it’s also part addiction, and we will do whatever we can to get our fix.
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