Super Bowl Pick: The Joy of Rooting for Other Teams

What would it be like to not be a Skins fan? Supporting the Skins has brought us fans years of pain and anger, and this season, above all, was so bad that the final game brought me a sense of relief rather than frustration that Skins came up short again. So when the playoffs started, I needed to find another team to support to keep myself fully engaged.

Usually gambling does the trick, but my Skins anger boiled-over to the point that I had a strong rooting interest against almost all of the teams in the postseason; let's call these teams "Snyderratos". These teams include the Cowgirls, Iggles, Cardinals (Russ Grimm coulda/shoulda/woulda been our coach), Jets (Sanchez needs to have a bad career to prove Snyderrato wrong), Ravens (geographically close), San Diego (Norv Turner), and Minnesota (I can't stand Favre-mania). Add that up and you get 7 of the 12 playoff teams! With so many Snyderratos in the playoffs, along with the general bad karma for Skins fans, these playoffs were poised to be a continuation of the suckfest that was this season.

After wild-card weekend, things only got worse, as there were 8 teams left in the playoffs, and only 2 of them would not severely anger me by winning a Super Bowl; I prepared a pot of boiling water, vinegar, and exacto-knives accordingly. But then, a funny/amazing thing happened......the Snyderratos were all crushed. Check out the game-by-game results; every game went exactly as a Skin fan could have hoped. The Cards, Cowboys, and Ravens were all annihilated, Norv Turner lost a close playoff game to an underdog, and then Saints and Colts took care of Favre-hysteria and the extreme remorse I'd have that the Skins should have hired the Wisenhunt-Grimm combo. I had no idea how amazing it is to root for anybody who isn't the Skins. All these other teams don't crush my hopes and even exceed expectations. This leaves me with mixed feelings, as I enjoyed the ride of all of our enemies losing, but now realize, more than ever, just how pathetic it is being a Skins fan.

So who does a Skins fan root for on Sunday? I have no problems with the Colts, as they have no Redskin ties, but I have wavered on the Saints. Should I feel nauseous or proud that we almost beat the potential best team in the league? Should I hate any success of Gregg Williams, or support him because he was screwed by Snyderrato? Do I hate Mark Brunell for his 2 year suckfest in DC, or should I support him for his honorable service and the 1 year he led us to the playoffs? I don't really care about Brunell, he's just a holder, but Grilliams, aka Man Boobs, I have to support. I'd be upset if Man Boobs was having success as a head coach, but as a D Coordinator? He got jobbed by not succeeding Gibbs, and now lives separately from his family, who still live in VA. How can you not root for him? He's one of us! So I think Skins fans have to ride the Saints bandwagon on Sunday...........until Brunell enters the game.

The standings (with pushes excluded and differences in total games picked a result of us using slightly different spreads.):
Sports Guy: 1-1 last week 137-122 overall (52.9%)
FO: 1-1 last week, 132-126 overall (51.2%)
DCLS: 1-1 last week, 117-127 overall (48.0%)

New Orleans +6 over Indianapolis - That spread is huge, but get this, the metrics like the Saints straight-up! Not barely, but at 56%, which is significant. FO has the Saints as the better overall team, by 2 spots in their rankings. All that said, FO 'only' has this as a reasonable pick, despite the better team getting almost a touchdown.

So sit back and enjoy the fact that regardless of which team wins, Redskin frustration is over..................at least for 2 months until we draft a QB..................

(Image courtesy of coltsgab.com)