Playoff Football Breaks your Heart

So I wanted to take a brief moment to drop a quick blog. It's about my newest thought / analogy. I also wanted to blog before the Steelers lose this Sunday, because after that I'll probably enter a two week depression. It's one of those things that it's like a cartoon. Think a rain cloud falling me over my head and dumping on only me. That's what it's like when the Steelers season ends ... but there's 500,000 of those rain clouds following everyone in Pittsburgh. The only difference is mine is categorized as a microburst.

This leads me to the subject of my blog. Allow me to put a disclaimer before it. I have never dated anyone. I've never entered into a dating relationship or dated anyone for one day let alone one for seven months. The analogy I'm about to share though is very fitting, close, and accurate to some degree ... I think. When your team loses in the NFL Playoffs, it's like getting dumped by your girlfriend. Now quit rolling your eyes, quit laughing, and hear me out.

Let's take a typical Steelers season. They go to training camp at the beginning of the summer and you start hearing reports about the Steelers. The new rookie looks good. Their defense is looking really good this year. Kind of like murmurs you hear during the summer. New girl coming this fall. She moved to Treesdale this year and is absolutely smoking. So you get to August. The Steelers start playing preseason games and you're relationship is off and running. You asked the girl out (bought tickets) and she said yes. It's on. For the next six months, if your team makes the playoffs, maybe seven if you're lucky, you do everything you can to help your team or learn about your team. You watch games, you read box scores, you learn players names. It's worse than that though. You learn names, numbers, colleges they're from. When they're hurt you frantically search the internet to find what happened. You call into talk shows to talk about your team, ask for the opinions of others, and do stupid things for them.

This is just like having a girlfriend, I think. You start dating and you spend time together. The first few dates are awkward as you figure each other out. You get to know one another quickly. Just like the preseason. You have four weeks to learn your starters, new players, backups, and 3rd string. It's a crash course. Then after a few weeks you learn that you like each other. You like her after the first few dates and you're gonna keep going out. You commit to your team for 16 weeks, and if things are going well, it continues a little longer. You like that she's a good cook - you love the new wide receiver your team signed. You like how she treats your friends - your players are likeable and great at the press conference. She has that time of the month when she's tough to be with - so does your team when it has that three week road trip against the Colts, Chargers, and Bengals. It's up and down give and take. You pour yourself into stats and teams and things like that. You spend money on her - you buy jerseys of your favorite players. You sit there and think about your teams matchup all week - you think about your girlfriend.

All the while in both situations you're hoping you make it all the way. You hope you have a chance at the end to win it all, seal the deal, score. The word plays are endless. So it gets to the playoffs and you've invested countless hours in the aforementioned activities. You've talked to your best bud and Dad about the playoffs and your team, just like you ask your buds for advice about your girlfriend. I think I've made my point and I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting about. Generally you get excited about both. Then the playoffs come and it's down to crunch time - you're having an important discussion with your girlfriend. Maybe it works out, and you can advance the relationship - move to the next round - or maybe you guys split up. Let's say your team loses in the divisional game, better yet the championship game. You're one game away from the Super Bowl. Your team loses. It's over. You're done. You have nothing to follow, pour your time into, get excited about on Sunday's until June, July, or August. It's like you found out your girlfriend found another guy and she dumps you. You suddenly revert back to having NOTHING to do on the weekend. You suddenly are depressed during the week when you read about your team - see your girlfriend or hear someone talk about her. You think about all the good times you had watching your team, that sweet flea flicker they pulled off or that awesome time they shut out the Browns 41-0 -- just like you think about making out with your girlfriend or that awesome time you saw a movie where stuff blew up.

Those good times never happen for like three months. Then the NFL Draft comes in April and you hear rumors about your team maybe drafting this player or maybe they're signing a free agent. They're messing around without consulting you. It's like when you hear people at school say, "Did you hear Mehgan is messing around with John? Don't tell Keith he'll be so depressed." Then what happens ... they sign the players and they're back together as a team. They report to camp and you get your season tickets in the mail ... guess what ... your team wants you back - your girlfriend realizes that the other guy is poor, a bad kisser, and you had more cash anyway. So now she's coming back. She tells you this is the year we make it work. We'll spend more time talkin things out - practicing and working on fundamentals. We'll make better decisions - have better coaches. Get the job done better - have new players.

So you're dumb and you take her back. You think to what life was like in February, March, April. You remember how boring your weekends were and how you had nothing to do. You haven't had a girlfriend since, so you're not getting any action and you're a little frisky. This blinds you to the fact that six months ago or so you said you hated your team and you'd never fall head over heels for them like this again. But you do. Every year ... hoping ... that they'll win it all. It's a love hate relationship, but it's necessary.

That's why if the Steelers loseon Sunday to the Colts. I'll mope around for like two weeks with a generally sad disposition. I'll dream of happy times, the Superbowl, and wish they hadn't broken up with me. I'll have nothing to do on weekends, I'll let myself go, and I'll never have any excuse to do stupid things. You know when you're dating and you spend like I don't know, a gajillion dollars on something. That's what it's like when you don't wash your jersey since it's lucky or you sit only on the left side of the TV during games. So the team loses and I nap more, I'm sullen, and I just ... it's just ... it's horrible. Just like I think it would be when your girlfriend dumps you. I don't really know, but it seems like you would have a ton of free time and be really sad. So that's my story. Let's hope the Steelers pull one off this weekend or I might go into hibernation for a few months.

Let's Go Stillers ... don't dump me on Sunday! If they do, I'll probably start burning plastic and throwing away recycled unused paper.