The playoffs only become a hollow and cold place once your favorite team is knocked out (unless you root for the Buffalo Bills, then your entire existence is hollow and cold). There’s been an interesting discussion in New England over the last week about who Patriots fans will be pulling for in the AFC Championship Game – the Indianapolis Colts or the New York Jets. Some people argue that they’d rather see New York win just to keep the Colts out of the Super Bowl and give a little bit more edge to the idea of the Patriots as the team of the aughtys. Others want to see Rex Ryan & Co. crushed simply because they’re a division rival. Me, I hate three out of four teams in this thing – no matter how it turns out, I’m still not going to win this weekend.
Rooting for the Colts, despite the unnatural and unwanted respect I’ve developed for Peyton Manning, is such a foreign concept that it defies description – I can’t comprehend doing it. More than that, it’s tough to pull for Jim Caldwell, who is essentially this generation’s Barry Switzer combined with Art Shell’s tendency to stare blankly at the field no matter the situation like he’s working on a particularly hard algebra problem. Has he actually done anything this season? Is there any proof? He inherited this team from Tony Dungy and has been riding the wave all season, just like Switzer did when Jimmy Johnson got fired. The entire team is centered around Manning, who’s been playing in the same offense under the same coordinator since he came into the league. That’s an unbelievable advantage and probably makes him better qualified to coach the team than Caldwell – which to some degree, he probably is.
The Jets are a different story because I actually like their coach. In a league full of Belichick clones who pride themselves on not saying anything of consequence – ever – Rex Ryan is a refreshing change of pace. There’s a little Larry Bird in him (and no, I’m not implying that he somehow ate Larry Bird… although I suppose it could be a possibility if he wandered too close at mealtime…). People used to say Bird was the biggest trash talker in the NBA when he was playing, but nobody gave him a hard time for a simple reason: he could back up his trash. Claiming that your team should be favored to win the Super Bowl after you backed into the playoffs is bold. Following that up with handing out a playoff itinerary that includes everything up to the Super Bowl and the victory parade afterwards is hubris writ large. However, they beat the Bengals in the first round and then managed to somehow squeeze by the Chargers last week – they’re on house money and riding an unbelievable hot streak. However, rooting for The Sanchezception is too much for me. Perhaps he’ll redeem himself in the playoffs and perchance there’s a Drew Brees-like transformation somewhere in his future (remember, it took Brees until his fourth year to get going), but I can’t see it happening right now.
Then we have Brett Favre and the Vikings. That’s how I prefer to notate it rather than pretending he’s actually doing anything but riding this team for a shot at another trophy. For all his dramatics and the fact he’s screwing with his third fanbase in three years, I want to wish for the most heart-wrenching, soul-crushing loss imaginable for this guy. Something like a six interception, 4 sack stinkfest that will just plow him right into retirement so we can be done with the fawning of announcers and the constant questions about retirement. For that to truly happen, they’d need to get to the Super Bowl and have it happen on the biggest stage imaginable. However, I can’t wish that upon the fans of the Minnesota Vikings – after four Super Bowl losses, Gary Anderson, the Herschel Walker trade, and all the rest I’m prepared to say they’ve suffered enough. Just to be clear, I don’t blame the fans – I equate their situation with those people in Alive who had to eat their friends to survive in the mountains. A couple years of Tavaris Jackson and they were willing to plumb the depths of their sports souls and bring in this charlatan. I understand, really I do. So I’m hoping for Favre to crap the bed this weekend and spare them the pain of being the first franchise to lose five Super Bowls.
Which leaves the Saints, the lone ray of sunshine in my dark and dismal football world. I have no idea whether or not they can actually win either against Minnesota or whoever comes out of the AFC, but I can dream, can’t I? After all, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned is that this is the century of the perennial loser redeemed. The Patriots won after 40 years of failure and heartbreak. Tampa was a team with a history so rich with losing that they were almost synonymous with the word. The Seahawks and Cardinals both got into the game, which considering their history damn near accounts for a victory. Despite the history of The Manning Face, both Peyton and Eli won a ring. The Red Sox won a pair of World Series after an 86 year layoff. The White Sox got one with a manager who is absolutely insane. The Rays got to the Series… and then the Sports Gods said “Let’s not get too carried away with this thing…”
So there you have it, I’m rooting for the Saints and a temporal disturbance in the time-space continuum that will swallow both the Colts and Jets into an alternate dimension and spit them back out a week after the Super Bowl is scheduled. If anyone needs me this Sunday, I’ll be on my couch chewing my nails like thousands of Saints fans and trying to find Stephen Hawking’s private number. Wish me luck.
