gridiron confessions part 2

So, now you know I am a football hooligan in a cunning disguise. Let's talk about teams now. I don't necessarily hold with the fact that you HAVE to like the team in the city where you live. That is just geography. I think you can cheer for whoever you want to cheer for, and it doesn't matter where you might live.

I live in the Chicago suburbs. Therefore, by rights, my team should be the Bears. And I've tried this. I have. I mentioned the '85 Bears in my last post. I watched the game. Since then, though, they have caused me nothing but heartache, so I've started scouting around for other teams (plus, you know, blue and orange? yuck.). I flirted with many teams, trying to find the right one. In my early days, I liked the Giants (I think that this is because my love of NYC began very early, and anything associated with it automatically became cool. This did not hold true of the Jets, though, for some reason. Giants = cool, Jets = thugs. That's the way it is.), the Raiders (cute logo! arrrghhh!), the Dolphins (pretty teal uniforms!) and a few others. My first major team crush though, was the Cowboys. I was in high school and I was bat shit crazy about the Dallas Cowboys. I don't know why. It was fun to watch Troy Aikman throw and Emmit Smith run. They were good. They were all-American. They were Cowboys.

Plus, it really annoyed this guy I went to school with, who was part of the group I hung with. So, after awhile, I just wore my Cowboys gear (oh yes, I had gear) on Mondays just to annoy him. He liked the 49ers who had a big rivalry with the Cowboys (at least, our rivalry was big). Whenever the 49ers would lose, I would say something to him about it like "24-17, huh? That sucks.". And if the 'Boys lost, he'd come and quote scores and records at me. And I'd say something awesome like "At least they aren't the 49ers." (I didn't have The Knowledge that I spoke of in the last post. That came later.)

But that phase ended. I broke up with the Cowboys and now I think they are obnoxious. I always got a lot of crap for liking them anyway (my dad called them "Cowpies" just to annoy me. Now I call them that too.). So it was back to the Bears for a while. But they are problematic. Like the ex-boyfriend you keep going back to. It's good for a while, and then they fall back into their same old asshole-ish habits. So I scouted for a new team. For a while it was the Colts (I mean, Peyton Manning, come on! Awesome!) but then they tanked. If I wanted to support a losing team, I'd just stick with the heartbreaking Bears, you know?

I know, I know, that's fairweather fan-ish. You have to take the good with the bad, and support them no matter what. But it's been too many times with the Bears, you know? What's a girl to do?

So I'm on the hunt for a new team. I like the Giants, obviously, and the Saints. I liked the Lions for a while, too, so I guess we'll see.