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Surviving a football loss

Guest Irv

By Guest Irv,
in Carolina Panthers

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Guest Irv

Guest Irv

Posted
Posted

This was E-mailed to me by a Detroit fan that had to deal with it a couple years back.

The sky is falling.

It's the end of the world.

You feel like you might vomit.

In some cases, there are tears

Yes, these are just but a few symptoms one feels as they come to grips with the fact that your football team is about to come down in the loss column. Unless, I mean, you are a fan of teams that lose on a consistent basis.

You begin to question all things in your life. Was it the shirt you were wearing, of course not, we've never lost when I've worn this shirt before. Perhaps you weren't sitting in the right spot on your couch or maybe you decided to watch this game at a bar instead of your home

All rationalization is obliterated by the ridiculous importance placed on football.

You could be scheduled to accept the Nobel Prize Saturday evening. A great night, a monumental lifetime achievement, but if you are a die hard football fan (remember, this is hypothetical), the proper response would be, "SCREW THE NOBEL PRIZE, MY TEAM LOST TODAY!"

All the websites, blogs, forums, newspapers, radio shows that you read or tune into to examine how your team got dismantled now taunt you. You close off all media and just want it to go away.

Maybe you find yourself quietly muttering nonsense, curled in the fetal position in an empty bath tub, saying things like, "why did we miss the field goal, maybe I had the wrong underwear on, It's a conspiracy by the man or my wife never watches the game and she did this time, it's her fault."

The Sunday evening you had lined up to watch the night game is washed away. You're no longer interested because you know that every so many seconds the ticker is going to flash the score. The announcers will reference it. Half-time shows will center around it.

Perhaps your desperation causes drastic measures, like, say, loading Madden 12 into the gaming system of your choice and replaying the game. Perhaps it's even sadder and you do that, but then lower your opponents skill level to the lowest possible one enabling you to light up the scoreboard. Oh yes, sweet satisfaction through pix-elation.

No. You must suck it up.

These are the times when your team needs your support the most. It's easy to flaunt your gear when your team is winning, but hard when your team falls. Wear that shirt proudly, fly that car flag, keep up that Facebook profile pic!

Prepare yourself for the onslaught by friends, neighbors, co-workers, or anyone who takes pleasure in your team's demise. In fact, look up stats, numbers, whatever you can to throw it back in their face, yes, that's it! Empower yourself with insulting rebuttals of glories past or let them know it's a long season, etc, etc. There's no room for the high road here!

Before you know it, the middle of the week will be here. The focus will change to the next game (or in our case a bye week) and finally after a long few days of insanity, despair, shameful acts, and immaturity, you can get ready to throw salt in the wounds of other fans.

When you really stop to think about it, it's just silly. In fact, the odds are so stacked against you as a fan. Odds are slim that your team will make the playoffs in any given year, so losing is going to have to be something you deal with. Ultimately, you have to wonder why we invest so much in something that truly has very little effect on our realities.

I've never benefited from my team winning the division. I mean, I didn't get an extra day off work, a bonus, or anything. In fact, all I did was spend even more money on alcohol.

Despite all these things we keep coming back for more. We keep investing so much of ourselves in a game played by 23-40 year olds. Why? I don't know? What I do know is that the euphoria of beating your rival or winning the superbowl is worth it.

Isn't being a fan fun? heres to better days.

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Panthers128 Newbie

Panthers128

Posted
Posted

In other words... we have a QB putting up winning #'s, now the rest of the team needs to play up to his level.

He's playing well but his QB rating is 13th in the NFL (do 13 teams make the playoffs?) and his two fumbles and inconsistency in the second half definitely contributed to our loss to the Vikings. Not as much as our stray kicker missing a gimme.

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Camdemonium Newbie

Camdemonium

Posted
Posted

You win that one.

I'd consider those the exception and here's some explanation:

Chargers have beat Minn, KC, Mia, Den, a combined 7-21 record. If that trend of 1:1 or worse continues, I expect them to have more losses.

Raiders win when McFadden rushes for a bunch and lose when they have to throw the ball.

Bucs are a bit trickier. They are hot and cold. Freeman has had two bad games where he went for a combined 2 TD 6 Int and they lost those two. Other than that he's been just good enought to beat some bad teams (Vikes, Falcons, Colts) and the Saints.

I guess we can always hope to be the exception...

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