A Crisis of Faith (aka Seeing the Con)

And with this proclamation, on this 24th day of September in the year of 2012, I, Raven Mack, hereby announce my discontinued interest in the National Football League. I have flirted with the notion of switching team allegiances, but that would be like me saying I am now who I am. I was born a Redskins fan, and will be tied to that team for the rest of my life regardless of whether I watch another game ever again.

Yesterday, I knew what was going to happen, knew it in my soul. So I got up, gathered the family, and we drove up into the mountains, did some hiking, checked out some back roads. I did not watch the Redskins at all. I briefly cut it on the AM radio to check the status and it was early 4th quarter and they were losing. Then the Bengals got another TD, in like two minutes, and I was straight. There was no need to listen. I knew what was going on.
The Redskins are a broken team. I’ve come to think of NFL teams as Kingdoms, and Dan Snyder is the second King I’ve known in my life as a Redskins fan. He’s a terrible King. But to be fair, these Redskins have mostly had only terrible Kings, pretty much a racist King, a mentally unstable King, Jack Kent Cooke, and then our current meddling King. That part cannot be changed, no matter how much I root.
The coaching staff there is one of the worst in the NFL. I did not never like Mike Shanahan, but when I was married to him emotionally, I figured, “Fuck it, I’ll give him a chance.” But he’s not that smart a man. And he’s terribly stubborn. A terribly stubborn non-smart man is not a good thing to have involved in anything, much less in an upper management capacity.
Sadly, RG3 is one of the best rookie QBs I’ve ever seen. I can’t bear to watch his career wasted here, and most likely shortened. He seems like such a good kid that I mostly just feel bad he got saddled with the Redskins.
But most of all, NFL football itself has moved away from the Old Gods of football, and is now a corporate whore. The refs this season have been horrible, but the NFL believes itself duly protected by its eminent team sport status, and will always refuse to bend over to any collective bargained subordinate group. They feel the league is the product, and no labor part of that is stronger. The rules have been engineered to allow for more non-old Football Gods approved playing styles, and it’s honestly about four years from being as irrelevant and seemingly fixed as the NBA.
I did not watch the Redskins game yesterday, nor have I mired myself in the post-game prognosis. And I feel much better today for that. I feel clear and re-charged, not drained and pissed. And though there are those who would say, “Why quit now? Struggle with this team and you will be rewarded at some point when it’s all realized.” First off, there is no guarantee anything will ever be realized. Secondly, why continue to poison myself in the hopes that one day the poison will be replaced with wine? This makes no sense.
I have had fun writing Redskins nonsense over the years, and I will make a half-assed attempt to continue with the NFLuminati Index, but honestly I enjoyed the English Premier League game on Fox yesterday afternoon about a thousand times more than the NFL football. I know a thousand men who think their America blood is pure and noble will accuse me of being soft or misguided, but I tell you this – I will kick every one of your pussy fucking asses. I am not of this new school mentality to feebly root for something. I am of the old Football Gods, and I am violent and hold grudges for generations. Do not put your weak man judgments upon me, because I won’t sit there and suffer the fool as you choose to. I am fucking Raven Mack – free born man of the wildlands of North America – not to be fucking toyed with, and not to be made a weekly fool every fall by a corporate trickery long con trying to make me feel that by suffering idly by I am somehow a part of the eventual law of averages success. Fuck you NFL, and fuck you Washington Redskins.

Sincerely,
Raven Mack