Does God still love you if your football team sucks?

"If there's a god, he's laughing at us 

and our football team." 

-from "Effington" by Ben Folds

When I was young, I used to get angry when a team in any sport I was rooting for lost. Like, really angry. I'd throw things and storm out of the house. I remember once I was so angry that as I was running out of the house, I needed something to throw, and the only thing I could think of was the watch I was wearing. I really loved that watch, which I'm sure was just a cheap digital one you could get anywhere, but back then, it was one of the things I had that I cared most about. I couldn't even wait to unstrap that watch to throw it, so I ripped it off my wrist, essentially destroying the band so I couldn't wear it anymore. 

Thinking back, even I have a hard time understanding what upset me so much, but I think part of it was the way I felt like my team losing was rejection of me, personally. By God, or the universe, or whatever was in charge. Fans irrationally take part in feelings of celebration when their team wins, so I guess it's natural that I irrationally felt a vicarious participation in the losses of the teams I was rooting for. 

There are some people where it feels like they just get more good stuff than one person should really get.

Because I grew up in Northeast Ohio, it was easy to think that I grew up among a cursed people. Even as I got older and less superstitious about such things, it was hard to shake at least some gut feeling that really good things only happened to other people. People who lived in some place you'd never heard of and would never be fortunate enough to go, places where people who had it all figured out lived. 

To some extent, America encourages linking the success of your sports team with the favor of God. We are admonished that true fans always believe, even when things seem bad. This is exactly the kind of faith we are told to have in God. The gospel of true fandom in America tells us that we should always be true to our team, that rooting for another team is like cheating on your spouse, or worshipping a false idol. When I lived in the DC region for two decades, which was full of at least as many people from other places as from around the area, you were as likely to see football jerseys from all over the country as you were to see a Ravens or a Commanders one. It was like wearing a wedding ring, showing the world that your football love was not subject to change, no matter where the universe had placed you for work.

When I first moved near Baltimore, I was determined I would never, ever root for the Ravens. They weren't just a different team from the Cleveland Browns, they literally used to be the Browns. When owner Art Model took the team (remembered in my part of Ohio the way some people remember Benedict Arnold selling out his country), he moved it to Baltimore. Then, the team had the audacity to be good, winning two Super Bowls, while Cleveland has still never been to one. 

After a while, though, I couldn't help but at least admire the Ravens. In the NFL, which actively tries to create parity and avoid dynasties, the Ravens seem to be good almost every year. Clearly, they do something with their franchise that teams like the Browns only wish they could do. Over time, that admiration turned to liking them and actively wanting them to win games. If the Browns aren't doing especially well, then in a Browns-Ravens game, I am definitely hoping the Ravens win. 

Officially, I've evolved as a fan to where I try very hard not to root for teams. I realize every team has plenty of players and coaches and fans with stories that, if you just knew about them, would make you want all their dreams to come true. I try to appreciate the game now and notice the best players doing their thing without pulling internally for one outcome or other. One way I try to help myself to watch in a detached way is to bet for the team I suspect I might find myself rooting against. If the Chiefs are playing the Eagles, and I want the Chiefs to lose, I'll bet for them to win. That way, there is at least something telling me it's okay if they win, some impulse to counteract the one in me that irrationally thinks it unfair if they keep winning. Even with this system in place, though, it's hard for me often to maintain my pledged neutrality. There's something in us that makes us pick sides. 

Years ago, when Tim Tebow had his short run in the NFL, he had a streak where his team won a bunch of games in a row. Although Tebow didn't play that well, his team had a good defense that would keep them in games, and then Tebow would pull off some scramble for a long gain near the end of the game that would win it for them. An evangelical friend of mine was sure God's hand was in those wins. I challenged him on it. Surely, Tebow wasn't the only evangelical on the field. At the ends of NFL games, players from both teams often come together for prayer. It's a violent game where any play can bring about the end of a career. It's understandable if players lean on divine help to cope with the stress. My friend thought, though, that because of Tebow's public persona as a Christian, that God was using him to spread the gospel, and Tebow's miraculous victories were part of that. I wonder how the lopsided loss of Tebow and his Broncos to Tom Brady's Patriots that eventually ended their season fit into God's plan.

I actually like Tebow as a person, by the way.

Ultimately, I doubt any divine force is guiding the outcome of football games. If there is any kind of supernatural power with the ability to intervene in history, I'm not sure we can even get its attention enough to avert genocides or famines, let alone get the Browns back to the playoffs. In the epigraph, Ben Folds imagines a God laughing at our football team, which is reminiscent of the old adage that if you want to make God laugh, you should tell him your plans. If there's some kind of power that created us and watches us, it has its own ideas about the way things should work out. 

But that doesn't keep us from agonizing as our teams are in close games, from praying if we're the praying sort or simply trying to project our will if we're not, so that our teams might prevail. We don't think about the fans of the other team doing the same thing. Or if we do, we imagine that they're bad people who deserve the agony of defeat. There are definitely people out there who have strong opinions on how Eagles fans or Cowboys fans are all terrible, and who take special joy in the losses of those teams because of the imagined gnashing of teeth in those cities. Sports may have some good effects on us as a society. They might have encouraged our sense of the importance of law and fair play. But they also almost certainly encourage a provincial mindset, one in which solidarity is difficult to achieve. People in a bar in Akron can't even watch a game without demonizing the fans 100 miles to the east in Pittsburgh. 

I don't believe God, or whatever hypothetical being who runs things, cares about the outcome of football games. The universe runs on its own laws, and when people with extraordinary talent vie with one another to achieve something under those laws, amazing results happen on their own. That doesn't mean that luck doesn't play a role, and often, luck can feel like divine intervention. 

Football is a microcosm every weekend of the whole human drama. Massive populations--the fans--have their hopes tied up in the decisions of small organizations, and ultimately in the performance of a very select group of athletes whom history has favored to be on the field at that moment. When our teams win, it is tempting to think God favored us, much as when our country wins a war, it is tempting to think the same. That is, to think that God wanted to enemy to lie shattered and broken and weeping for its dead. When our teams lose, especially in heart-breaking fashion, it is tempting to ask why, or to seek for the head of someone responsible. Generally, though, when we have lost, it's because the other team had better coaching and/or players. There's nothing more to it than that. Or, if we were evenly matched and the game was very close, there was some luck involved. If the teams had played a hundred times, our team might have won 55 of them, but they just didn't win that one game. 

God doesn't love you if your team sucks. But then, he doesn't love you if your team wins, either. Football is like life in that most of the time, it's going to end in sadness and defeat, either this week or next. You might get a few moments of real triumph in your life, if you're lucky. To me, football is an invitation not to the tribalism of banding together with others rooting for the same team, but a call to sympathize with everyone, everywhere who shares with me in miserable, mostly futile hopes.

Unless the Browns win a Super Bowl, in which case, y'all's teams suck. 

Why this Super Bowl stings a bit

I'm from northeast Ohio and grew up rooting for the Browns. When I moved to Maryland near Baltimore in 2004, I didn't really embrace the Ravens, because, as anyone who knows their football history is aware of, when the Browns closed up shop in Cleveland in 1995, they moved to Baltimore. Then, using the players and organization they took with them, they promptly won a Super Bowl in 2001, the same Super Bowl that had eluded the Browns and continues to elude them to this day. 

When I watch football now, I try very hard not to root for teams. I want to enjoy the game with perfect equanimity, appreciating greatness wherever it shows. To help me achieve this emotional detachment, if I find myself thinking I might root for one team during a game, I immediately place a bet for the other team to win. This usually enables me to find some level of calm.

During the AFC Championship game a few weeks ago, though, I was not able to keep calm. Even when I placed a bet on the Chiefs, I couldn't keep from rooting for the Ravens. No, it did not have to do with Taylor Swift hatred, although I do wonder why the universe thinks it necessary to heap so much good fortune on one person. It was because I was hoping a victory by the Ravens would put to rest a sneakily racist attitude still living among some fans.

For a very long time, there were no Black quarterbacks. Open and undisguised racism was a big part of it. Coaches didn't think Black players were smart enough to be quarterbacks. They thought they were athletic enough to be running backs or wide receivers or linemen, but not quarterbacks. Last year's Super Bowl, when two Black quarterbacks faced off against each other, was a huge moment for the game. But there is still sneakily racist discourse about Black quarterbacks, especially ones who are also athletic. Among fans I speak to or read, I continue to see and hear what I take to be coded racist language, particularly when it comes to the Ravens' quarterback, Lamar Jackson. This language will sound something like this:

A: Mobile quarterbacks can win some games, but they'll never win a Super Bowl.

B: Wasn't John Elway pretty mobile? And Steve Young? 

A: Yeah, but they were different. They were pass-first and then they ran when they had to.

B: Young played a long time. Elway played a long time. They both had a lot of years when they didn't win a Super Bowl. Won't Jackson likely eventually get one, too?

A: No, because he's just not that good. 

B: Not good how? His teams put up tons of points.

A: But not in the playoffs.

B: Isn't it just hard to win playoff games against good teams?

A: But the greats do it, and he's not that great. He can run, but Super Bowl quarterbacks stand in the pocket and make throws in crunch time. 

When I hear this kind of bullshit from white fans, I feel like they're offering me a shibboleth, because they think that as a white person, I might want to join them in their coded horseshit. It makes me angry that anyone thinks I want to be a part of their shenanigans. 

Unlike Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, last year's winning Super Bowl quarterback, who is part white, Jackson does not give a great interview. He is not especially handsome or dynamic or magnetic. He's just a great football player. Vaguely racist fans, in their illogical worldview, don't see Mahomes as a violation of their rule that athletic, Black quarterbacks can't also be smart and efficient throwing the ball in the pocket. Jackson would have been.

Jackson has had some great years, but never much playoff success. This year was his best year, and it had a lot to do with having an offensive coordinator who understood how to use him as a weapon. I think that often, when athletic quarterbacks have struggled, it's been because so few coordinators understand how to use them. 

The Ravens had a great chance. They were the best team in the league all year, they had home-field advantage, and they were relatively healthy. They just picked a lousy time to play their worst game of the year. 

I'm not a football expert, but I think you can look at a few reasons why they lost. The Chiefs do have a very good defense, and their defensive coordinator came up with some clever tricks to keep the Ravens off-balance. The Ravens also probably didn't have a great game plan. A week after the Chiefs gave up a ton of running yard to the Bills, the Ravens, who were the best running team in the league, didn't really run the ball much. There was also some bad luck, like a fumble right at the goal line. 

The Ravens also probably suffered from the wrong mindset, playing not to lose rather than to win. That's the fault of everyone, not just Jackson. Jackson didn't play a great game. Brady, Manning, Mahomes, and the other greats have a lot of playoff wins to their name when they also didn't play great, but they played well enough to win. Jackson very nearly did that, gutting out a tough win under tough circumstances. Football is cruel. It's why I try not to root for teams. 

I did root in that game, just because I wanted a very stupid racist trope to get another kick in the pants. It'll have to wait until next year, though. I'm sure the NFL is thrilled to have a Taylor Swift extravaganza for its big night, and I'm sure ratings will be through the roof. The Ravens will be kicking themselves, although they shouldn't be. Football teams make adjustments throughout the year. They find weaknesses in other teams and shore up their own. The Chiefs benefitted from a bad spell in the middle of the season when other teams showed them where they were weak. They fixed the problem just in time to make a good run in the playoffs. The Ravens, unfortunately, didn't have anyone to show them where they were weak until that AFC Championship Game. 

I can't imagine how athletes pick themselves up emotionally from losses like that, where the job in front of them now is to go play another entire season well enough to get back where they were and redeem themselves. It must seem so daunting. But I hope they do it. Just, you know, not enough that I'm going to root for them.