SB

Those of you who really know me, likely read that post title and said to yourselves, “Caleb has a favorite football team?” Well, my friends, less than 24 hours ago, you would’ve been completely  on point. While most men pick their favorite teams at a far younger age based either on geography or family ties, I honestly have never cared about football at all. Sure, I watch the Super Bowl every year, but what true American doesn’t? (Only the pretend Americans; that’s who) When it came to trying to follow a team, I never brought myself to keep up. But now, as of about 8:10 on January 16, 2010, I am a hardcore Baltimore Ravens fan.

(My instincts tell me that the “B” stands for “Best”)

I’m sure all three of you reading this are a little perplexed as to how I reached this decision, so let me explain (like you have a choice). Yesterday, Laura, my awesome girlfriend, and I were house-sitting in Smithfield, NC for seven hours. Aside from feeding her parents’ horses and making sure our dogs didn’t run away, we didn’t have much to do. I had taken both Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X so we could finish up the Friday the 13th series once and for all, but when it turned out that Jason Goes to Hell might be the worst movie ever made (even worse than Twilight!) I wasn’t exactly in the mood for seconds. We decided to finish up our night with a game of Scrabble while watching the NFL play-off match between the New Orleans Saints and the Arizona Cardinals.

I have a large family base in Louisiana that I’m pretty sure matches the entire population of Arizona, so we were jointly rooting for the Saints when the topic of what team could be “our” team came up.  When I was in college, one of my best friends was a die-hard Colts fan that followed the NFL like his life depended on it, and the thought of having a team that could be “mine” always intrigued me just because it seemed like football’s Sunday/Monday only schedule would make it far easier to follow than any other sports. After three minutes of talking, Laura and I decided we did, indeed, need to have a team to call “ours”.

Laura grew up in Boston and has always been super into the New England Patriots. While generally apathetic, I’ve always cared enough to at least root for whoever my friends were rooting for, and with a best friend that loved the Colts and another best friend that really liked the Giants, I had a pretty rough history of rooting against the Patriots just by default. Because I have morals, I couldn’t bring myself to suddenly root for a team I’ve been against in the past, so to Laura’s sadness the Patriots were out of consideration. As a Patriots fan, she quickly informed me that both the Colts and Giants were also out of contention, and in the name of equality we also ruled out the Saints because it wouldn’t be fair for us to follow my family’s favorite team when her family’s favorite team had already been given the boot.

A long series of elimination left us with a handful of possibilities. It had to be somewhere neutral and someone that didn’t completely suck, but wasn’t completely awesome either. A team that would be fun to root for because they stood just as good of a chance for winning as they did losing. On the way home, it was decided we would root for the Baltimore Ravens and here are our top three reasons why:

1. Location

Baltimore is six hours away from Wilmington, NC where we live. Baltimore is also six hours away from Boston should we eventually find ourselves living up north. It’s not in South, but it’s not exactly the Northeast either. It’s perfectly in the middle.

2. Edgar Allen Poe

Geekiest reason ever? Maybe so. I love writing and reading, and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” is a favorite short story of mine. During our post-decision research, we actually discovered the team was named after this short story since Poe lived and is buried in Baltimore. Awesome.

3. Neutrality

You know how many Ravens fans I know? Zero. Not that they don’t exist, but they’re hardly a legendary franchise either. They haven’t won a Super Bowl in ten years, and as of last night they got knocked out of this year’s playoffs by those damn Colts (I can say that now because I’m a Ravens fan). They aren’t a complete crap team, so it’s not like we’re pulling for the permanent underdog (the Bengals and the Browns were among the first teams eliminated), and they seem to have a decent shot of making it to the playoffs just about every year.

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And there you have it. It is official. Laura and I are die-hard Ravens fans and we’re pretty sure next year is the year we’re finally gonna go all the way. After about four hours of research getting caught up on franchise history, coaches names, current stars, and the old stars we need to know about, it’s obvious they’re long overdue for a Super Bowl and we’re going to cheer them to victory next season. February book of the month is going to be Football for Dummies, and we have until August to memorize the roster and learn which players and teams to hate based on selfish trades for more money. I really hope we get a good placing in the draft (whatever that means). It’s gonna be a good time.

Go Ravens! We’ll get those damn Colts back next year.