I used to watch football religiously. I was the biggest NY Giants fan from about 1986-1990. I worshipped LT – the original LT! I loved Carl Banks, Phil Simms, OJ Anderson, and Dave Meggett. Then something weird happened. They won the Superbowl in 1990 over the Buffalo Bills. (Remember ‘wide right’?)

I was done. Why would I watch football again? I followed a team and they won a Superbowl. The season for me ended as did my love affair with football. Was I going to stick around and follow them the next year? No. My job as a fan, as I see it, was done. My favorite players, besides Dave Meggett, were getting old and retiring. They were not going to be the same team the following year. Why would I stick around and waste my Sundays watching them, or any other team for that matter? To me, it’s like a sitcom spin-off. I loved the Sopranos but I wouldn’t stick around for the Pauly Walnuts Variety Hour.

The Giants winning the Superbowl that year only gave me one really good day of smack talk to all the Bills fans I went to school with. The fan payoff, as I see it, wasn’t really that good: Spend all my Sundays in front of the TV watching a stop-and-start sport loaded with commercials and hope that my favorite group of millionaires would score more points than the other? Where’s my payoff? I got one day of smack talk that following Monday. Where was my bonus check?

The funniest part of all of this is when people, mostly dudes, find out that I could care less about football, I get the same question thrown at me; “Are you not a man?” Is this their only qualification to being a “man”? They never took into account that I’m weak, I run away from conflict, and that I’m not handy around the house. And I always get this accusation from other fat dudes that are just as worthless as me. Just because you choose to spend your Sundays getting drunk all over again (because isn’t that what you did Saturday night?) watching football from the noon pregame show until whenever the Sunday night game ends does not make you a man. As a matter of fact, it only helps to grow your pot-tits to a bigger cup size. Kind of the opposite, wouldn’t you think? And that jersey you wear with pride doesn’t do an adequate job hiding them.