The Football Fan's Manifesto (22 page)

But it’s not always about the league exploiting your poor fiscal decisions. On occasion, you can make good on the poor economic straits of players themselves. On more than a few occasions, players from Super Bowl–winning teams of the distant past will auction off their championship rings on eBay. Last year, Larry Brown sold off one of his three rings he won with the Cowboys. A fan who leans toward the aristocratic could parade one of these around, not only affirming his fan cred, but the weaknesses of the player pension system. Double score!

The most contentious debate in apparel etiquette centers on the thorny issue of jersey wear. This rift, if left unresolved, threatens to tear all of fandom asunder. The majority of people attending games find the jersey a perfectly acceptable expression of fandom. However, a rogue band of contrarians insist that the notion of wearing jerseys, replica or authentic, is ridiculous on its face. “What, you think if the team is a man down they’re gonna call you down from the stands?” they chide. Hey, it could happen!

What these tight-assed prigs of the pigskin don’t understand is that jerseys are a vital, if, yes, somewhat silly way for fans to connect with the game they’ll never be a part of. Because football pants are otherworldly ugly and helmets obscure vision (though they’re helpful when bottles are being thrown at you by Jets fans), the jersey is the most sensible part of the uniform to wear in a casual setting. So scorn away, you aloof bunch of judgmental taintstabbers.
You’re the type of people who take all the fun out of life, like nosy cops and neighbors who can’t take a little celebratory gunfire after a win.

Customized name jerseys, however, are another matter entirely. People who wear personalized NFL jerseys with their own last name on the back are an affront to God and deserve to die in a landslide. Your own name only serves to remind other fans how tragically distant you are from the action. If you are going to customize the name on a jersey, at least have the decency to do it in a way that amuses other people. Unfortunately, the NFL does you no favors in this regard, as the league keeps an extensive list of banned words that can’t be put on a jersey ordered from NFL Shop. When it was revealed years back that former dogfight impresario and quarterback Michael Vick went by the pseudonym Ron Mexico when dealing with a woman who later alleged that he infected her with herpes, fans tried to order customized number 7 Falcons jerseys, but were immediately rejected. Because the league is full of humorless titblisters.

Another frequently spotted abomination is the fan who wears a jersey of a player who is no longer with the team. The only instances when this is acceptable are if said player is a retired star or the player is a longtime fan favorite (at least seven years of service!) with your team who has only left to play out his final few unproductive seasons on a non-contending team. Otherwise, you might as well be proclaiming yourself a fair-weather fan who
hasn’t shown interest in rooting for the team in years. You don’t want to be left out when fellow fans are passing out shots, after all.

IX.3: Dress Your Pet, Because They Can’t Tell You It’s Lame

If you had to identify which sports fan base is the most likely to have its followers dress up pets in ridiculous themed outfits, you’d probably guess NASCAR fans. But NFL fans wouldn’t be that far off. Yes, obsession over football is indeed a virulent pathology, one that carries over to everything within sight, animal or car bumper. And there’s nothing a pet-owning sports fan loves more than annoying and possibly terrifying their dearest animal companions by forcibly covering the poor beast in a hand-sewn Giants sweater.

The sad fact remains that thirty-one NFL teams prohibit the admission of any non-seeing-eye animal to their stadium. St. Louis’ policy, however, remains open to goats, though in recent years it has been limited to those with a documented living arrangement with a human. That means, mostly likely, your Vietnamese potbelly pig is staying at home during the big game. Which is a shame, because they’d probably totally get a kick out of an environment where the people are the ones acting like braying animals.

Clothing isn’t the be-all, end-all of pet humiliation, however. There’s still the matter of naming the poor bug
gers. Mainstream society, misguided though it may be, frowns on bestowing upon your human children sports-related names, ruling out the possibility of a Dolphin4Life or Patsfan 1 for them. You’ll just have to settle with giving them some boring mundane moniker like Joshua or a weird spelling of Jeremy (Jerheme Urban being the offspring of one such couple).

Pets, on the other hand: You can go batshit crazy with them. Hell, that’s the point. Call the thing Purrless Price, Biletnikoff the Dog, or Lil’ Rocky Bleier if you’re so inclined. Whatever charges your phone.

Not all pets are created equal. Each demands its own specifically discomfiting costume or theme forced upon it.

IX.4: The Mystery of Trash-Talking

Fandom, at least in the ideal, consists of more than simply showing up every week to the stadium, to the bar, or to the couch blanketed in team apparel and getting shitfaced. No, with great intoxication comes great belligerence. You’ve got to put that animosity to good use. But because swinging an awl to an opposing fan’s faceplate is an arrestable offense in most states, you’ve got to do your damage with your words. Nasty blunt instruments of locution that devastate an enemy fan’s will to live, or at least invokes his will to chuck a brick at you. Eliciting either response means you’ve gotten under his skin.

Trash-talk, like any martial art, must be executed with extreme discipline and well-honed precision. Solely
screaming, “FUCK YOU, COWGIRLS FAN, YOU’RE A FUCKIN’ LOOOOOOOSER! I HOPE TONY HOMO BREAKS HIS HURT PINKIE OFF IN YOUR BUTTHOLE!” accomplishes nothing but to reflect poorly on you. Except that Romo line. That one was all right. Effectively unnerving comments go past the generic and get at something personal. And because fans don’t care much for their own lives, that means you must mine the personal lives of the players for caustic remarks.

Calling Plaxico Burress “Plexiglas” inflicts little damage when compared to riffing on the reports of numerous police calls to his home regarding domestic abuse. Perhaps a better substitute is “Smacksaho Her-ass?” Preferably said while aiming gun-fingers at your thigh. Everyone who’s seen an Eagles game knows Andy Reid is a free-floating planetary mass that draws McRibs into his gravitational field. But he’s also a horribly inept parent. Be sure to identify any Eagles fans being arrested on game-day as either Garrett or Britt. Santonio Holmes got busted for marijuana possession, but he also exhibited his penis on the Internet. Commence cheers for the Santonio Dong Rodeo whenever you see a Steelers fan sporting his jersey. Marshawn Lynch boasts of his Beast Mode persona when in front of a microphone, but behind the wheel of a car he is a hit-and-run-machine. Therefore, running down Bills fans doubles as social commentary.

Because so much of trash-talking is based on how teams are faring at the point of their contest, their head-to-head
histories, the rap sheets of their players, and how bumpkin-like their fan bases are, it’s impossible to predict how any one team should approach verbally tearing down another. The best way to zero in on what riles the enemy is to listen to them, observe their fan message boards to find out what they dislike about their own team. Then hammer on them like Larry Fitzgerald on the mother of his children.

Before proceeding with reckless invective, there are several incontrovertible laws of the smack of which to be aware.

IX.4. A THE LAWS OF TRASH-TALKING

• 1. To every perceived slight to a team there is an equal, or more likely excessive, countervailing blow.
  Essentially, this falls squarely under the “don’t start no shit won’t be no shit” principle. Let not a foul word about another’s team escape your lips lest you be prepared for things to get out of hand. Beer bottles, for instance. They get out of people’s hands in a hurry.
  
• 2. A fan who pleas for civility or tries to rat out a trash-talker to security is to be counted among the snitches.
  And, as the saying goes, they are to receive stitches. Anyone who attends an NFL game expecting a polite, deferential atmosphere is, at best, mistaken, and, at worst, developmentally disabled. Have a thick skin or stay home. And don’t try to hide behind your kids, saying you expected it was an atmo
  sphere friendly to their virgin ears. Horseshit. Don’t try to impose your rigid morals on football fans. I’m sure there’s something great on ABC Family right now if you can’t take it.
  
• 3. When in doubt, always resort to the number of championships your team has won.
  (Unless your team has won fewer titles than your enemy’s, in which case resort to childish name-calling.)
  
• 4. When your team is impossibly ahead, the world of trash-talking is your oyster.
  Here’s where the playbook really opens up. The morally righteous will tell you there are such things as bad winners. And they’re right. That’s the winner who doesn’t bathe in his opponent’s misery like a pig in shit. Rub your nipples whilst taunting the losers. Let them know you’re really getting into it.
  
• 5. When your team is ahead, but the outcome is still in doubt, be ever mindful of the forces of karma. The mood is good, no doubt, if still a little uneasy.
  The last thing you want to do is start shooting your mouth off so much that you jinx the team. Then you’ll not only have gloating enemy fans to listen to but the scornful eyes of friendly forces. Remind the opposition of the scoreboard, but don’t act like it’s a done deal. Someone might make a clever GIF image of you pointing smugly to the camera like Jeremy Shockey, just before failure descends.
  
• 6. Should the game be tied, allow your concentrated hate to be the difference-maker.
  Anxiety runs highest when things are tightly contested. This is when the team needs you most in the verbal war that doesn’t affect the action on the field. Scream rivulets of obscenities that would make the hair of the worst Tourette’s case stand on end. For reference, check out Chris Berman cutting room floor footage on YouTube.
  
• 7. Your team is trailing, but there is still hope. Okay, there isn’t. But that’s no excuse to show fear.
  Panic is setting in, which means hurling insults out of reflex as a survival technique. The barbs may be a bit scattered by the sense of worry, and more than a few may be directed at the refs, but you must keep your wits about you and not let the opponent see your fear. Even if you want to piss yourself.
  
• 8. Your team is getting the skin kicked off the kernels of corn in their shit. Time to hide your face.
  Welp, you be fucked. Now’s when you have to sit and stew in your juices. While getting mocked, lick your wounds and direct all of your white-hot rage at the coaches and players of your own team. Whatever you do, don’t get blubbery and emotional. You’ll never live it down.
  
• 9. Respect those who have met unintentionally tragic ends.
  Otherwise known as the Heath Ledger rule. That means no jokes about Sean Taylor’s death, lest you find yourself getting clotheslined and dragged from the back of a pickup truck in the FedEx Field parking lot. On the
  other hand, jokes about Ben Roethlisberger’s near-fatal motorcycle accident are fair game, because it was danger he brought upon himself by being dumb enough to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Also, and this is critical, he survived. Not to mention that he’s been spotted palling around with Carson Daly. That’s more than a venial sin.
  
• 10. Steer clear of extremely derogatory epithets.
  If you aren’t brave enough to say it when surrounded by a group of said folks, don’t say it at all.
  
• 11. Never speak ill of Joey Porter. THAT’S DISRESPECT!
  He has ways of knowing, even if you do it in private. And he never forgets. And he will visit any affront to his person tenfold upon your head. With his dogs. He might bite you himself. Scratch that, he will. Fix that mouth good. And then you’ll need a rabies shot. They hurt too.