[Wallcrawler]

I was a sophomore in high school when Joe retired Buddy Ryan in the Astrodome, wearing those shitty all-white road uniforms.

In the time since then, Ive graduated, worked here and there, gotten married and now have three kids, ages twelve, two, and one.

I honestly dont know why I root for a team more concerned with its bottom line than the pursuit of a championship. That 93-94 season was actually the first year I ever watched football. My uncle got me into it, and was telling me that we now had one of the greatest QB's to ever play the game and that he was going to get us to the superbowl.

It was all going so well until that shitload of feck that was the AFC title game. Marty benching Derrick Thomas for the first quarter or first half for being late to a team meeting, the slow start, the would be TD pass to Kimble Anders at the end of the first half that turned into a deflection and INT in the endzone, and then culminating with Bryce Paup and Bruce Smith utterly destroying Joe Montana.

I still see his head bouncing off the turf and his hands coming up to cover his face.

Enter Dave Kreig. Pitiful performance, with shots of Joe on the sideline wondering what planet he's even on. 30-13 we lose.

I remember the demeanor around the house after that game. It was like the life was utterly sucked out of everyone and it lasted a long time.

That happened again right around the time he who shall not be named missed three gimme fgs against the Colts.

Its a sad thing when you develop a mental defense mechanism that causes you to expect your team to lose in the playoffs. If they win, awesome.

But it aint gonna happen.