Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xv

Article I The Supremacy of Football 1

Section 1 Other Major Sports Are Inherently Inferior to Pro Football and Therefore Unworthy of Our Time 1

Section 2 A People's History of Football Fanaticism 7

Section 3 The Football Fan Is the Next Evolution of Man 11

Article II The Fundamentals of Fandom 17

Section 1 Pick a Team, Any Team. Just Pick One and Only One 17

Section 2 Who You Root for Defines Who You Are 19

Section 3 The Memory of Your Team's Epic Playoff Loss Will Set the Tone for All Your Future Personal Failures 29

Clause A The Most Epic Chokes 30

Section 4 Choose a Player to Idolize Based on His Carefully Crafted Public Persona 34

Section 5 Know Thine Enemies, So You Can Identify Them After Crushing Their Skulls into Powder 40

Section 6 Bandwagon Fans: Can't Live with Them, Can't Line Them Up and Melt Their Insides with a Flamethrower 46

Clause A How to Identify a Bandwagon Fan 47

Section 7 Choose Your Friends Based on Football Allegiances-and Maybe Their Parent's Beach House 50

Section 8 Learn to Deal With People Who Actively Dislike Sports While Somehow Resisting the Urge to Strangle Them 53

Article III The Formative Years Of Fandom 57

Section 1 Matriculate into College (So You Can Learn That Word Doesn't Mean Advancing a Football) 57

Section 2 The Liberal Arts Agenda Against Fandom 59

Section 3 Attend a Game a Week and a Class Per Semester: A Fan's Guide to Higher Education 61

Section 4 Befriend NFL Prospects Now, While They'll Still Let You Do Their Homework for Them 62

Clause A The Duties for the Aspiring Hanger-on 63

Section 5 Watch Football While Tripping Balls: Drugs and Gameday 65

Section 6 CountriesMost Likely to Cease Being Useless and Catch Football Fever 68

Section 7 Land a Football-Related Job 74

Section 8 Root for Your Team from Afar 78

Article IV The Two-Minute Driven Life 83

Section 1 You Can't Have a Tailgate of One 83

Section 2 Make the Game Part of Your Game: Picking Up Women 85

Section 3 Convenient Conditioning for the Football Fatty 87

Section 4 The Diner Quiz For a Post-Post-Diner Generation 90

Clause A The Football Manifesto Mate-Matching Metric 91

Section 5 The Obligatory Guidelines for Female Fans 94

Clause A Ground Rules for Female Fans 96

Section 6 Vow to Have a Football-Themed Wedding 97

Section 7 Raise Your Kids to Root for Your Team Through Coercion 102

Section 8 Acceptable Levels of Involvement in Your Kid's Pop Warner League 104

Section 9 Scenes from a Broken Fan Marriage 106

Section 10 Lord Your Personal Success Over Baseball Fans Because You Don't Spend All Your Time Watching Baseball 109

Article V Gameday Operating Procedure: The Gop That Wants You to Have Fun 113

Section 1 Flout the Fan Conduct Policy 113

Section 2 Personal Seat Licenses Are a Bigger Rip-off than Buying a Home 116

Section 3 Your New Pair of Underwear Is to Blame for a Ten-Loss Season 119

Section 4 Tailgating Is the Pregame Alcohol-Based Ritual of Kings 123

Clause A Avoid Tailgating Scenesters 125

Clause B Tailgating Grub: Meat, Meat, More Meat, Wash Down with Beer, Repeat with Meat 127

Section 5 Get Pumped for Victory in the Game You're Not Playing 128

Section 6 The High Five Is an Intricate Art Not to Be Toyed With 131

Section 7 Like All Extreme Sports, Running onto the Playing Field Is Dumb and Wrong-and Irresistible 135

Section 8 The Challenge of the Superfans 138

Section 9 Gamble, Because of Course You're Smarter than Vegas 145

Section 10 Probably Should've Known Before You Bought Those Season Tickets: Watching a Game at Home Is Far Better than the Stadium Experience 147

Article VI The Fantasy Football Chapter (Now With Tear-Out Cheat Sheet!) 153

Section 1 Fantasy Baseball Is for Geeks but Fantasy Football Is for Men 153

Section 2 Know Your Fantasy League or Know Draft Defeat 156

Section 3 Naming Your Fantasy Team, or Which Anchorman Reference Shall You Go With? 161

Section 4 The Fantasy Draft Is the Only Time Being an Unrepentant Homer Doesn't Help 163

Clause A Draft Trash-Talk Tips 165

Section 5 Fantasy Football Magazines Are the Most Useless Thing You'll Reflexively Purchase Each Year 166

Section 6 A Letter to Brian Westbrook Regarding His Questionable Playing Status for Sunday 169

Section 7 Issue Threats to People Who Veto Your Fantasy Trades 172

Article VII A Fan For All Seasons 179

Section 1 Seventeen Weeks of Sweet Delusion 179

Section 2 Strategies for a Losing Season: Blame All Parties Involved 185

Section 3 Drink Deep of the Haterade, That Cool, Refreshing Drink 187

Section 4 When "Wait 'Til Next Year" Is an Annual Mantra, or the Fan Bases of the Damned 191

Section 5 The Week Between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl Is the Tool of the Devil (as Well as the Networks, Which Are Run by the Devil) 196

Section 6 If You Need Don Cheadle to Motivate You for the Playoffs, You Aren't a Fan 200

Section 7 Super Bowl Parties Are for Amateurs but Still Worth It 203

Section 8 Celebrate a Title, Bitches! 206

Article VIII Surviving the Endless Off-Season 213

Section 1 Your End of the Year Denial Is So Strong You'll Actually Watch a Part of the Pro Bowl 213

Section 2 Feign an Interest in Other Sports and Other People 217

Section 3 Oh, No! Your Favorite Player Left in Free Agency! Disown Him at Once! 220

Clause A The Five Stages of Free Agent Dejection 222

Section 4 The Draft is Excruciating, but in April You'll Take Anything You Can Get 224

Clause A The NFL Draft Drinking Game 225

Section 5 The Arena League and the CFL Are a Sickening Farce and Not Even the Good Kind of Sickening Farce 228

Section 6 Beware the Post-NBA Finals Misery Vortex 232

Section 7 Training Camp Is Miserable for the Athlete, Only Kind of Boring for You 234

Section 8 Observe Madden Day Like the National Holiday It Should Be 236

Section 9 Dupe Yourself into Thinking the Preseason Matters 240

Article IX Take Fandom to Unhealthy Levels-Then a Little Further 247

Section 1 Fandom on the Intarwebz!!11! 247

Section 2 Heed the Officially Licensed Section on NFL Apparel and Merchandise 253

Section 3 Dress Your Pet, Because They Can't Tell You It's Lame 259

Section 4 The Mystery of Trash-Talking 262

Clause A The Laws of Trash-Talking 264

Section 5 "Can You Please Sign My Newborn?": Autograph Hunting 267

Section 6 Pester God to Intercede on Your Team's Behalf 269

Section 7 Fortify Your Conversations with the Power of Football Clichés 271

Section 8 Get Tat Up from the Mat Up 279

Article X Death: Because Only Al Davis Can Live Forever 287

Section 1 Retirement or "Which Team Do I Like, Again?" 287

Section 2 Your Team Relocated to Another City! Your Entire Life Was All for Naught! 289

Section 3 Buying a Team Means Buying the Affections of Millions, Even as You Screw Them 293

Section 4 Remain Die-hard Even When You're About to Die 299

Section 5 To a Bears Fan Dying Young 301

Section 6 Hector Your Favorite Players into the Hall of Fame 304

Section 7 On Death and Deep-frying 307

Section 8 The Afterlife, or As It's Known in Football-Speak, the Post-Life 310

Epilogue: This Book Gets Summ-ed Up! Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap! 313