FanPost

Patriots or Ravens, Who are You Rooting Against the Most?

Obviously, none of us can root FOR either team in the upcoming AFC Championship Game, but which team do you root against more strongly? It's a tough question, to which there's probably no clear cut right answer. I'm hoping for a 2-0 victory for the Patriots. Here are my reasons, and you can give your views in the comments if you like.


1. The ideal scenario is obviously that both the Patriots and the Ravens end the year feeling like failures. That can still happen if the Patriots win the AFC. The Patriots will feel like they've failed with anything less than a SB victory, whereas merely getting to the SB will cause the Ratbirds to boast insufferably for years to come. That can't be allowed to happen.

2. Ray Lewis. He continued his legacy of spotlight-seeking by announcing his retirement early, and the media has already begun its fawning over him in even greater disproportion than ever before. The longer the Ravens are playing, the longer the postseason will be about Ray Lewis rather than team play. The Ravens need to go home, so Ray-Ray can begin the career he was made for in the WWF.

3. The Patriots deserve a legitimate SB win. Think about it. The media will rave over "Brady's 4 Superbowl wins," but as far as I'm concerned the Patriots have no meaningful hardware to show for the fact that they honestly have been an excellent team for a full decade. It will be galling to hear the accolades heaped on Brady (who will not selflessly deflect them to his more deserving teammates and coaches as Ben does), but it would be galling to hear even a modicum of praise for Lewis, Harbaugh, and Flacco, and at least there would be a scant measure of justice in the Patriots' recognition.

4. I'll be honest there's a strong argument against the Patriots in that they deserve the punishment of the football gods to make up for that which Goodell failed to mete out following spygate. However, they have suffered to an extent already (although still insufficiently), and there's probably some football gods punishment that should be applied to the Ravens for Ray Lewis not being in jail, not to mention for their very existence as the unholy offspring of Art Modell and his own greed. I certainly have no love for the Browns, but if you have any sense of history you know that team belonged in Cleveland, and moving them was just wrong. The Ravens aren't just the real Browns team, they're the Browns team that deserted their fans. Oh, yeah, guess who the Real Browns' first round draft pick was their first year in Baltimore? I'll give you a hint, his initials are RAY LEWIS.

Like I said, there's really no right answer here. You're filled with self-loathing, the compulsive desire to shower many times, and the horrid retching sensation of having just swallowed a mouthful of rancid cottage cheese regardless of who you hope will lose. We can only take those putrid, moldy, maggot infested lemons and make the world's worst, most disgusting lemonade. At least the Broncos got their just desserts for their fluke win against us in the playoff last season. How are you making the best of the situation?

The opinions shared here are not those of the editorial staff of Behind the Steel Curtain or SB Nation. These posts are not approved in any way by the editorial staff of this web site.