Football Fans: The Pessimist
Part two in my series of fans!
There were two moments in my fandom that completely defined how I watch the Giants. Both within two weeks of each other. I’ve never been the same since.
They came in the 2000 super bowl season. This may sound like blasphemy now, but that season I was actually more of a Vikings fan. Now, let me explain. It was seventh grade. I wasn’t deep into football even though I liked it. My math teach that year, Mr. Romeo, had a statistics project that he assigned us at the start of the year. We had to follow a team, follow stats, predict wins, plot graphs based on the team’s performance, it was basically the coolest math project ever. We had to pick teams in random. Most of the class didn’t know the teams, and some girl picked the Giants before I got my turn. I remembered Randy Moss, and picked the Vikings. So I had to follow the Vikings all season long.
I got pretty into it. I credit that season as making me a bigger fan, because I had more reason to be invested. I bought a Vikings hat. I loved purple. That year they started 7-0 and looked phenomenal. Then we get to the championship game..against the Giants. The team my parents loved, and even I loved. If the Vikings won the Super Bowl, I won 10 free get out of homework cards and a free 100% on a test, so I went full bore into the Vikings and faced off against my parents. I talked some trash.
The Giants clobbered the Vikings 41-0. I turned the game off halfway through to play Majora’s Mask in the basement. I could hear my Dad cackling as the curb stomp happened upstairs.
I wasn’t bitter against the Giants though, just sad that I wouldn’t get my homework passes. Well now the Giants were in the Super Bowl against the hometown team, the Ravens. They had a “Ravens Day” at school. I wore my one Ravens shirt, but had secretly wore my Giants shirt underneath it. I flashed the shirt several times throughout the day. I trash talked some more. We all know how that game turned out. I was crushed, and for years afterward I was afraid to bring up football with my friends because their merciless teasing would follow. That trash talk and optimism bit me in the ass, hard.
Since then, I’ve gone into every game expecting to lose. I never trash talk before the outcome is 100% decided. I think it’s this way with most fans who have watched a good team dash their hopes. I’m terrible to watch Giants games with. I sit there, quiet. Stern watching of the TV. If I’m in a bar with people I wander off by myself when the game gets down to the wire and just stare at the TV. My girlfriend laughs at me because she thinks it’s hilarious how I’m so gloom and doom until the game ends. I love watching other games and have a great time, but when the Giants are on TV, I become a self deprecating stern depressive who expects the worst at all times. I’ve loosened up somewhat since the Giants have reached the promise land twice for me, but I’m still very pessimistic about each game and can’t relax until it is for sure over.
I think it’s because I still have a lot of personal attachment to my team, and if I go into each game expecting the worst, then I get two outcomes: Either I was right all along and the Giants suck which makes it easier to move on, or I am pleasantly surprised and get to be happy for at least a few days. One such example for me is the famous “miracle at New Meadowlands” with DJax running back the final punt. For a lot of Giants fans this was a moment of extreme pain and anguish. It honestly didn’t hurt me that much. When D-jax ran back that kick, I remember laughing and saying “Of COURSE that’s how this game would end” because by then I was already committed to thinking we’d lose anyway. People remember that play but forget we gave up a huge lead late and never should have been there to begin with. When the Eagles scored the tying TD, I gave up hope and was thankful the run back happened because it saved me the anguish of having to suffer through a bad overtime. We had no chance of winning that game by the end, stop blaming Matt Dodge. Blame our lazy defense who slept through the final 8 minutes and put us in that spot.
Anyway I know this style of football fandom is far from only me, I’ve met many pessimists in my time. I have a 49ers fan friend who walks out of the room whenever they kick a field goal because he doesn’t trust them to make it. Pessimist fans unite!
Also, as a side note, the Pessimist isn’t the Jaded Bitter Fan. Secretly, deep down, the pessimists always have hope. They just won’t admit it.
My brother doesn’t watch football much, but when he does, he’s a pessimist fan. How do you guys enjoy loving your team when you’re so afraid of every play?
It makes losses easy to swallow, makes it easier to not be a total homer and enjoy the other games.
It makes it really, really awesome when you get proven wrong too. Multiply that by a zillion when you get proven wrong at the highest level.
Also because again, we secretly all have hope
Spoken, Clarif, like a fan who’s never had Chad Henne to put up with for three seasons, never mind one game.
I tell you, the second Pennington was crocked and Henne came in for Miami in 2009, I could see a seasons-long cloud stretch before us. Not exactly helped by Jeff Ireland, who helped turn us into a fustercluck of the first order when after ’08 it had looked like we were finally on the up.
Maybe not Henne, but believe me when I say that my team has had more than our fair share of horrible quarterbacking!
This is me. Even as a Pats fan. It’s made worse for me by the fact that I’m a Red Sox fan, so I automatically go into every game expecting to lose it.
Aim low. That way, you won’t be disappointed or with a win, you’ll be happier than most others.
#WINdians swept Sox outta CLE I’m glad they didn’t disappoint you 🙂
Yep-just a “damn” and I got on happily with my life!
Welp, you just nailed exactly how I am as a Chiefs fan. Though to be fair, it’s been right pretty much all the time, so that’s nice, especially with how our year ended this past January. That fateful night, I was able to postpone going into work until the Chiefs/Colts game was over.
When we went up 38-10, my friend who is notorious for calling things over before it actually is, and causing miracles to happen for the other team did just that. I immediately got super pissed, because I knew exactly what was about to happen.
And boy did it ever. That night at work, though, I got to greet everyone with “Go Chiefs” and laugh about it, because that’s just the type of fan I am.
As a lifelong Saints fan, I can understand how you feel. Oddly, there’s something satisfying about it really. I mean, yeah the Saints are pretty good now. But years ago, I expected them to lose every game. Even before our Super Bowl win, it was almost expected to lose every playoff game. The last few years has been filled with thoughts about how the defense will blow this, or I can’t watch another Hartley fg attempt. It’s gratifying when they exceed expectations.
Welcome to the Chiefs. That playoff game? NEVER felt safe. And look what happened
This is how I watch the Cubs. When watching da Bears or the Blackhawks, I usually anticipate a win, even if it’s remote
This describes my dad exactly, including the part about being a giants fan
Hey, Dave. Long time reader, first time commenter [/campy]
I’ll just say this: As a Houston Texans fan, I relate all too well (at least recently). Actually, as a Texas A&M grad who went to school there during the Dennis Francione and Mike Sherman eras (aka “the decade of which we do not speak”)…yeah. Feel you, bro.
The Chargers are trash and will always be trash and I hate 2006 forever
As a Packers fan, having to watch our defense for the past 3 years turned me into this.
I guess I was lucky that I wasn’t really that super affected by the Giants losing the super bowl against the Ravens, or the Trey Junkin fiasco. It was like “We have Kerry Collins at QB, how the hell are we supposed to compete with the likes of Brett Favre, John Elway, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning?” Plus those Fassel-era teams felt like an anathema to being a Giants fan. Ever since LT, the Giants have prided themselves on strong defense, running game, and just pure grit to control a game. Those finesse-based teams didn’t really sit right with me.
Anyway, I became a pessimist in 2010 after that so-called Miracle II. Just like Dave talking about being taunted by Ravens fans, I never heard the end of it going to college in central Jersey (the main Giants/Eagles battlefield, albeit closer to the Meadowlands than Philly). I still hate the Eagles more than any other team to this day because of that game.
Nowadays, big leads worry me more than being behind by a touchdown with 5 minutes to go. I’d rather be behind by somewhere between 4 and 6 points with the game on the line, since that is when Eli seems to play at his best. 2011 sure didn’t disappoint in that. That was what inspired Dave to create Draw Play #27 after all. And it wasn’t just Eli either… that JPP field goal block in Dallas was nothing short of pure catharsis. I only wish that entire storybook ending had come against Philly to truly avenge Matt Dodge not even one year after it had happened.
I’m pretty sure this is just all Giants fans
That D-Jax return…was so painful. Those last minutes were like watching a cousin that your fond of get the crap beat out of him and at the last minute the guy grabs a knife and ends him before your eyes. All I remember was yelling no, no, no, with each step he went up-field untouched. That memory has scarred me forever.
That’s me as a Charger fan.
QUESTION: How did you feel after the two recent Giants Super Bowl victories? Obviously there’s no game that the Giants can get blown out the next week…
I’m an avowed pessimistic Giants fan. My breaking moment was the 1998 playoff game against SF. That ingrained pessimism made the myriad losses to the Eagles in subsequent years much easier to bear, and the victories over NE that much sweeter.
Its funny, I think that game plus 1998, 2009 and maybe 1975 for the older generation has turned every Vikings fan into a pessimist. All the optimistic Minnesota kids just end up rooting for the Packers.
Oh cool. Someone made a comic about me
I’m somewhat in between an optimist and a pessimist. I’m always positive about the Jets on the outside, but deep down, I know we suck and probably will for a while, as long as Geno Smith’s under center.
Wow, this one hits home big time. I would rather watch any team play but the local team. Part of it is the “aim low” attitude. Go into a game expecting to win and lose, and you feel deflated. Expect to lose and lose, they had that coming. Expect to lose and win? Well, that was a close one. Part of it is also that my local team is a generally-hated team (the Pats), and I want to see them take penalties and lose challenges and win anyway so the haters can’t whine about how the refs handed them another game. But the haters are going to do that anyway.
Instead of suffering in silence, though, I start muttering about how Gostkowski’s going to miss another FG, or Brady being an INT machine, or how Amendola probably sprained his wrist on that catch, or how they got away with murder on the last play.
Needless to say, I’m generally not invited to group game gatherings as much anymore.
Oddly, I’m not that bad when I watch NASCAR races. Maybe because I have a couple drivers to root for, and one to root against. If my favorite driver is running poorly, I’m not completely guaranteed that my least-favorite driver is going to win.
I’m the most shit talking pessimist ever, because this past season the Seahawks won the super bowl. It’s hard to talk shit to people here, in Seattle, but I sometimes find Niner fans that i can destroy with the NFC championship. But i will never admit i nearly shit myself on that Sherman play. If any of you had seen that “12th man room of silence” video, i’m in that.
I’m a Cowboys fan.
Pessimism is a survival technique. If I allowed myself to feel the normal range of human emotions while watching Dallas football I’d have been committed to an asylum years ago.
I fully expected Orton to throw that pick (just later in the drive, once he had gotten us near field goal range). The fact that it came right after the two-minute warning was actually merciful on his behalf. He never allowed me to hope, and for that he will always hold a special place in my heart.
Being a Cowboys fan requires a special kind of pessimism. Yeah, the Browns suck but you’re never going to be reminded about your shortfall because no one gives a shit or everyone that does feels bad for you.
When the Cowboys fuck it up, every single sidebar on every single channel even tangentially related to sports is running the shit back and reveling in their demise. My friends are Giants fans and they get more excited for the 4th quarters of Cowboys games than they do for our fantasy football draft. Their faces light up like a kid bounding down the stairs at Christmas who knows he’s about to get something special. It just so happens that Tony Romo is Backbreaking Interception Santa.
I don’t think I’m ever satisfied ’til the clock strikes zero. I don’t trust the Giants most of the time. Now I can see that I’m totally not alone!
At least you guys got to get the big one a few times. I hope I’ll see a Super Bowl ring in my future
Signed,
a 26 year old Eagles fan
This is a very prevalent type in European style football (soccer). Since the whole system works differently, with promotions and relegations between divisions in a league pyramid, fans of teams doing badly don’t “only” have a season of losses and pain, but are also afraid that their team may go down and disappear into a less interesting league where there’s not much to play for (except for going up again). Plus also often an economic strain on the community with the sports site becoming a liability, kind of a white elephant, if you’re not playing high enough and the stadium is half empty.
So when you’re not an optimist and see your team as champions or at least contenders, or when reality sets in after a bad start, you tend to be afraid that push comes to shove.
On the other hand: my team (Hamburg, Germany) used to be great, European champions in 1983, runner-up, a couple more trophies. It has a great tradition, being the only German team in the top flight as it is organized now and even longer than that, but recently lingering in anonymity and becoming worse and worse. This year it was even down to a pair of promotion-relegation-playoff games, with the home game only drawn in the away game also being level we pulled ahead on a tiebreaker but the opponents were having loads of decent chances to win in the dying minutes and seconds. And – of course – everyone but us was rooting for the underdog, everybody wanted us to go down. (As I do when another “larger” club is threatened, so I’m not blaming anybody).
Our goalie made a couple of brilliant saves and we stayed in the top division.
Now I’ve seen us win it all and I’ve seen us just not lose everything. The latter felt better. Way better. It’s the difference between a great dessert after a great dinner – or some mashed up food after you walked through the forests without anything to eat for two days.
Still, I expect next season to be as big a struggle as this, if we’re not getting doomed early on. (But of course there’s also the optimists who are already talking about a return to our former glory.)
Understand this–I’m a lifelong Bengals fan (really? shock us more!). I have to be a pessimist out of survival. I, too, go into a game wondering, “How are they going to screw this up? What is going to happen to help them snatch defeat from the hands of victory now?” Mostly, it’s mundane stuff (bad offensive calls, sloppy execution, etc.), but I’ve been pleased by some cosmic, hand-of-God crap, too (Carson Palmer getting his ankle rolled on against the Steelers in the playoffs leading to Super Bowl 40).
I’ve also rooted for the Seahawks since 2003. Out of habit, I approached this year’s Super Bowl the same way. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and for ManningTron 5000 to come online and school the Hawks, even with 8 minutes left in the 4th quarter. It’s a hard living, I tell ya.
Oh god this is exactly what it’s like to be a Seahawks fan all the time.
I enjoy being a pessimist. That way you get more happier when you win
So this is absolutely how most of us Browns fans are. For example, that MNF Ravens game. As soon as the kick was blocked I knew it would be six. That’s just how we lose games. (At least we’re rarely boring lol)