It’s finally over (and good riddance too). My NFL season is done. I don’t really talk about sports much on this page for whatever reason. I guess maybe it doesn’t seem that relevant to mental health (although it is mentally and emotionally draining for me a lot of the time). But I think I have to talk about it. If I don’t talk about it here, I feel like the results of this season will weigh heavily on my heart and mind. Best if I just get it off my chest then.

I admit, I don’t look like your typical sports fan. I’m a 5’9” Asian-American male who weighs one hundred and twenty-five pounds soaking wet. I’m thirty-two years old, but probably look closer to twenty-two. And based on appearance alone you’d probably think I’m somewhere between a hipster and a nerd. You wouldn’t be wrong in that assessment. I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum. Choosing not to conform, and not being afraid to stand out. I’ve always thought of myself as different, but the truth is I think I’ve just always had a hard time fitting in. I never really knew the full reason(s), and I still don’t. But I suspect my varied interests plays a role in it.

While I’m not generally one to start a conversation, I can talk at length about football or UFC, but I can also talk at length about Marvel or Star Wars, or metal and rock music, or politics and the environment. If there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that I can get quite obsessive about my interests. I need to know everything there is to know about a certain band or author or what have you. It’s always been in my nature to try to find out the answers to all of my questions. Not a bad trait to have, but it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. This incessant search for knowledge and information can at times prevent me from living in the moment. And it can end up using far too much of my time. And chances are once you get me talking about these things you can’t get me to stop talking about these things. What can I say? I’m passionate about the things I love.

But it often comes at a cost. Especially when it comes to sporting events. If there’s a UFC event on you can bet that I’ll be watching the whole thing, from the first prelim to the main event. Doesn’t matter if the fighters are people that I’ve never heard of, or athletes that I don’t like, I still have to watch every fight. Part of that is because I’ve always been a completionist at heart. If you give me an RPG I’m looking for and collecting every item, junk or treasure. And you’ll find me doing all the side quests before I even get started on the main one. Which again comes at a cost—more often than not I get tired of a game before I get a chance to finish it. The same goes with listening to music or pleasure reading. I listen to artists by discography in chronological order. Likewise, for authors with an extensive list of works (take Stephen King for example) I will read from oldest to newest. And during COVID I found a Marvel comics reading order online that includes over 15,000 issues, starting from it’s inception to present day (I’m currently in 2008, not that anyone asked), so I’ve been chipping away at it since then.

If this sounds tedious, it’s because it is! But it’s a part of me that I feel like can’t really be helped. I’ve tried to suppress certain interests of mine before in the past, but it’s never really worked out. As much as I pretended not to nerd out in public, I still ended up doing it on my own time. I am a complex individual that’s composed of many parts, not all of them are equal in size, but all play a role in shaping who I am. When it comes down to it, I’m a creature of habit, so once I get stuck in a routine it’s hard for me to break away from it. Even after all this time, I’m still trying to find a delicate balance. How can I do the things I love to do while still being flexible? How do I manage my time if all of my interests demand my attention? Unfortunately, it means that some of these things get neglected for a while. But eventually I always go back to them. Except one thing that I can’t return to, because I’ve never left it behind.

Football. Football consumes me. I follow it year round, not just in the fall when the season is played. Every day consists of reading articles from various news outlets. Once the Super Bowl ends, I look on at Free Agency and the draft. Once the draft ends I’m thinking about training camp. I live and breathe football, even though I didn’t get a chance to play it when I was younger. In fact, I didn’t even participate in sports when I was a kid, which I’m still bitter about, but that’s a story for a different time. Not being able to play did not, however, prevent me from watching a shit ton of sports. Which is something that my immigrant parents never really understood. 

I can’t really blame them. Growing up in China and Cambodia never afforded them the luxury of playing or watching sports. But I digress. My interest in watching sports began in fifth grade, mostly by accident. Our family never had cable consistently, so my TV options were rather limited. After school I would watch TNA Wrestling, and on the weekends I would watch whatever game was on, be it football, baseball, or hockey. It started out at first as just something to do, but I eventually developed an interest in football in particular. I would read about it and check stats in the newspaper, I started buying Madden and NCAA Football video games, and I would listen intently as I watched the broadcasts. Eventually it became part of my routine—turning on a football game once we got home from church. 

That much hasn’t changed in the twenty-two years since. If anything it’s gotten worse. Rather than just watching a game or two on Sundays, it’s gotten to the point where I watch five games at a minimum each week, regardless of if the matchups are good or not. If you wanted to hang out with me on a Sunday, Monday, or a Thursday during the football season you can forget about it! My time slots are booked up. I’ve tried to become more flexible, to be less stubborn, to be less obsessed. But whatever I’ve tried has not worked. That being said though, I know every rule there is to know about the game. I can tell you who plays what position and for what team. I can explain strategy or schemes to you. I don’t look like I know football, but I do. 

But this season was disappointing and tough to watch. Which unfortunately, is something I’m quite used to. Sports fandom itself is a hard thing to understand from the outside looking in. How does this affect us directly? Why do we care so much about the teams that we support? Isn’t it just a game? Yes, but no. Somehow we find camaraderie in a shared interest. These fellow fans become our brethren—brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. If you really think about it though, how is this different from any other fandom? Do people who read the same books not gravitate towards each other? Do friends who watch the same shows not talk about them together? The only difference is that it’s on a much larger scale and on a grander stage. Sports fandom reaches into the millions, bringing people together from all walks of life. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor. From the city or the suburbs. Local or out of towner. Male or female. It doesn’t discriminate by race or political views. It brings us together. 

And for a while, it allows us to forget about the worries we have in our regular lives. We might have high highs or low lows, but we’re in it together, as one. To a sports fan, we’re as much a part of the team as the players and the coaches. We rejoice with them when we win, and we commiserate with them when we lose. For the last few years, there have been many more wins than losses. But it wasn’t always like that for me growing up. Many seasons ended for us in heartbreak fashion but I can’t remember a season anywhere near as disappointing as this one.

I still remember the day I became a hardcore Philadelphia Eagles fan. Having moved to New England from Philadelphia when I was in second grade, the first few years that I watched sports I mostly rooted for Boston teams, although I did support both the Patriots and the Eagles. But all that changed in 2004 when my two hometown teams faced each other in the Super Bowl. I remember coming to a crossroads, not knowing which team to pick. But as I stated before, I’ve always been different and a bit of a contrarian. So I went against the grain, and sided with the Eagles. Since then we’ve played in three Super Bowls, winning one and losing two. While the Patriots have appeared in nine, and won six. However, I do not regret that decision and I never will.

Since that time, there’s been many a rough season that culminated with a coach getting fired. Or a season that started out with high hopes and promise but fizzled out. Or ones that have ended with disappointment and heartbreak. But each one of those years we learned to temper our expectations, because we had a feeling it would be the same ole Eagles letting us down once again. It had always been a team that fell flat in the biggest moments. One that never could get over the hump. But even through it all, they were still our team. We were still behind them through thick and thin. All that changed in 2017, when we finally won the big game. This was, “the new normal” for us. We expected deep playoff runs and more rings. Our expectations were high, and they remained that way.

Little did we know that it would soon fall apart. It wasn’t meant to be. Just a one off, rather than a dynasty. But even after the winners of that Super Bowl got sent off to different cities, hope was restored. We came so close to winning it again last year. Just a few plays away. So close. So we started out 2023, expecting to make it back. Expecting to be just as good a team as last year. And it started out that way! We were the best team in the league, on top of the world from September to November. But December came and we crashed and burned. Never in my years of watching the Eagles have I seen such an epic collapse. Never has there been so drastic a fall from grace in such a short period of time. One of the best teams in the league for the first three months, but one of the worst in the last seven weeks. So that’s it, we’re done. The season is over. Onto the next one. We’ll try again and start over. But however upsetting it was, however disappointing, the Eagles are still my team forever and always. I’ll always rep the green and white. I’m still sad that this is how it ended, but I’ll still be here cheering them on. Fly Eagles Fly.