Last Monday, as I watched the Baltimore Ravens lose their sixth game in seven weeks, I experienced probably the closest thing I have ever had to an existential crisis.
“Why do I keep putting myself through this torture?” I asked myself. “Why do I keep watching entire football games, if every week just leads to heartbreak?”
A slew of devastating injuries, trades, and retirements has left the Ravens in a bit of a slump this year, to say the least. This is something that Ravens fans are definitely not used to; we have reached the playoffs every but one year since 2008, the year beginning what I like to call our “Renaissance”, marked by the simultaneous arrival of head coach John Harbaugh, quarterback Joe Flacco, and running back Ray Rice.
Though they are in the middle of a losing season, and perhaps the glory of this Renaissance is ending, I try to watch as many Ravens games as I can. And because as many as five games can occur at the same time in different parts of the country, I’m lucky if I am even able to watch a Ravens game in Ohio, where I have to compete with huge Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns fan bases. But why is football so important to me that I feel it absolutely necessary to spend four hours a week of my life watching my team lose?
When I am watching the Ravens, I feel like I’m back home in Baltimore. I’m not one to get extremely homesick when I’m at school, but Ravens games remind me of the camaraderie I have with everybody from my city. Their most recent Super Bowl win occurred during my senior year of high school, and I mark that date as one of the most exciting of my life. The following days, everybody I saw was full of this indescribable energy, like we were walking on air. For however slight a moment in time, we believed that we were the most important city in America. It took months for the city to get off that high.
Football is what brings my family together. We bond over superstitions that may seem weird to an onlooker, but are completely normal to us. When I’m home and watching a game with my family, my mother and I have to sit on separate couches. It’s just a rule. If the Ravens are doing well, we are not allowed to shift our positions even the slightest amount, because obviously those exact positions are what is making them win in the first place. And my dad often finds it good luck to listen to the game on the radio while watching the game on the television with the volume turned down. There may be a lag in the sound compared with the television broadcast, but whatever works, works.
It may seem cliché, but football is my escape. While living in a constant state of stress in college, watching a football game allows me to forget about my own problems (even if my team is experiencing its own set of problems). There is something to be said about a sport that gets me so absorbed in every single down, every single play, and even every single time out. Yes, some football dissenters may bring up the statistic that the ball is only in play for eleven minutes of an average game. But if you break down the sport, there is so much strategy and precision involved; sometimes discussions about time outs, penalties, and challenges are even more interesting than the actual play time.
So even though I have spent many of my Sunday afternoons this semester watching my team lose, I will never stop watching. To me, the Ravens represent more than just football. They represent love for my hometown and for my family, and that is more powerful than any win to loss ratio. Besides, this year’s losing season will lead to an excellent draft pick for next season.
Image sources: mymindonsports.com