The Challenge Has Been Accepted

In case you were wondering why FFF hasn't mentioned anything in the comments section, it's because she decided to post her entire thoughts on the matter here.

The funny thing is that FFF just doesn't understand what it means to be a REAL football fan. Example:

I mean personally, I would have killed myself after that Eagles-Cowboys game, if I were unlucky enough to be an Eagles fan…but that’s just me, maybe rules are different for people used to cheering for football teams with no Superbowl rings.

What FFF doesn't understand is that for most REAL football fans, where you were raised bears a huge influence on which team you call your own. Is it unlucky that I grew up in Lancaster County, PA? Well, the alternative was living in foster care in Korea until I was old enough to work - never having the opportunity to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a degree that I haven't put to use since . . . uh . . . February. So, yes, REAL football fans, FFF is mocking your hometowns, yet refuses to acknowledge a team from her own.

As further evidence of her faux fandom, this is what FFF did during the Sunday night game.

I started to feel physically ill by the end of the first half. HOW DOES CASSEL NOT GET A TOUCHDOWN FROM THE ONE YARD LINE? HOW? OH, he sucks. Right. And I switched over to my previously recorded episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

A REAL football fan knows that your team will rip out your heart from time to time. There have been times that I've been reduced to picking fights with asshole guys in the bar just to get out some of my frustration. There was the time that I told the Giants fans at Mercury Bar to go home to their bottles of Lubriderm and boxes of Kleenex. There was the time when I almost leaped over a table full of people to punch a guy in a Jets jersey who was sitting in an Eagles bar rooting for the Cowboys. Being a REAL football fan means sticking with your team through the good and the bad. And for most REAL football fans, the bad times often outnumber the good - less than 1/3 of the teams in the league make the playoffs, and only one can be crowned Super Bowl champion. There are only 16 games in the regular season, which gives each game a higher significance than those in the lengthy baseball, basketball and hockey seasons. REAL football fans know that each game means something.

But instead of watching the whole game, FFF decided to watch Grey's Anatomy - which she recorded. The tv show will be on your DVR when the game is over.

So fickle is FFF's love that she almost didn't become a fan of that team. Here's her reason:

Earlier that day, G-train was also mocking my Patriots fanhood by saying “You know Roosenpenis is a Patriots fan, right? (Referring to this tool that used to play poker with us back in the day.) I replied that I did know that and that fact delayed my official decision to become a Riots fan by like a week and half, but ultimately I decided that since I will never see that tool ever again and I obviously have nothing to do with him - he’s the only person so far that I won’t even add as a facebook friend, and you guys know how low my facebook friend adding standards are - that he’s just some Dbag that happened to be a Patriots fan.

That's just like trying to deny your relationship to that cousin of yours who has a few too many chromosomes. Something that I'm sure FFF would do. FFF just doesn't understand that being a fan is a full package deal.

The portion of the post that made me laugh the most is the following:

Now, first off, let me say that I don’t subscribe to her underlying thesis that the only way to be a real football fan is to be raised as a fan. Football fandom is a choice. Some make it early in life because evidently they didn’t have to spend four hours in a combination of Sunday school and Catholic church. Others of us, choose the best team in the NFL at the height of their awesomeness, when they are laid up all Winter recuperating from surgery.

First of all, I didn't say that you had to be raised as a fan to be a REAL football fan. But if you do adopt a team later in life, there has to be proof that you are serious about it. Take Recess Rampage's comment to my prior post as an example. He came into the sport later in life and picked a team that happened to be doing well at the time. But he has stuck with that team and has learned about that team's history. At least FFF acknowledged that she got in at "the height of their awesomeness" because we all know it's downhill this season for them.

Clearly, FFF doesn't have a clue as to what it means to be a REAL football fan.

I will submit that suffering through ten months of “nice Superbowl” from every Tom, Dick and Assface, getting NINE text messages within two hours of Brady’s season ending injury, having to share a team with Roosenpenis AND being the proud owner of an entire array of Patriots clothing is enough support and suffering to more than make me a Patriots fan.

Let me get this straight. Ten months of pain is enough? Try ten years - twenty even. A REAL football fan is so true in his / her dedication to the team that ten months of pain is nothing. It just means getting ready for another season with your team - another season where anything is possible until mathematically it's not. Owning team gear isn't enough. Pretending to watch the games isn't enough.

But a challenge is a challenge. And FFF has accepted it. As any half-decent lawyer would do, FFF has set forth her own parameters.

1. She wants a customized jersey with "Clareified" on the back. It's a shade over the US$100 offered in the original challenge, but I will purchase this item for her if she qualifies.

2. She wants me to drink a tequila shot for every question that she gets correct. I offer a counterproposal here. I will apply the Eagles Patron Shot Drinking Rules to the Patriots / Raiders game on Sunday, December 14. What does that mean? As many of you know already, N, S and I developed the Eagles Patron Shot Drinking Rules over many seasons of watching our beloved Birds together. Applied to a Patriots game, that would mean one shot for each of the following:

* Patriots turnover
* Patriots go up by more than three scores
* Patriots go down by more than three scores
* Patriots QB pukes on the field

3. She wants to name one member of the REAL Football Fan Committee. This is acceptable so long as such designee is in Las Vegas for the Winter gathering.

4. She wants a link to her blog. There were more than enough in this post.