Really, Ravens?

**WARNING: If you have no interest in football, this post will bore you.**

For those of you who don’t know, I am a HUGE Baltimore Ravens fan. I love them and I have since they moved to Baltimore 14 years ago from Cleveland. Growing up, I watched football, but I never had a favorite team. I had teams I liked, Dallas (I liked Troy Aikman) and Miami (my cousin, Lesley was a fan so therefore I was too) and teams I disliked, the Redskins (the whole Washington-Baltimore rivalry), Raiders (their fans scared me) and especially the Colts.

Why did I hate the Colts? Well, the Indianapolis Colts used to be the Baltimore Colts and in 1984 they packed up and moved to Indianapolis overnight. I was just under a year old. I don’t remember the Colts being in Baltimore, but I remember for years afterwards, my dad’s hatred for the Colts. Not only because they left the way they did, but also because Indianapolis took the Colts name. So growing up, I didn’t like the Colts either.

The Ravens came to Baltimore in the mid 90’s and once again we were happy to have a professional football team back in town. Yes, essentially the Cleveland Browns, left Cleveland to come to Baltimore, but the organization allowed Cleveland to keep the Browns name. I jumped on the Ravens bandwagon and wore my purple and black proud. Even through the not so great first few seasons. Finally in 2001, we won our first Super Bowl against the New York Giants and Baltimore began to some national recognition.

Ever since then the Ravens have played well, we have had many winning seasons and a few playoff appearances. In 2005 I began dating this wonderful guy named Daniel, he was perfect, until I found out his favorite football team, The Indianapolis Colts. Why would a guy from Delaware be a Colts fan? Sure Delaware doesn’t have a pro sports team that why you root for either the Ravens or Eagles (ew!), but Colts? I briefly considered breaking up with him (I am kidding), but then decided I can’t fault him in his taste of professional sports teams. My dad took the Colts news worse then I did..he was still bitter 21 years later, but he came to love Daniel as his son-in-law and my parents have even purchased Daniel a Colt’s jersey for Christmas the first year we were together.

I ended up marrying that Colts fan, and I even wore a Colts garter on my wedding day as my something blue. I didn’t wear it with pride, but I knew he would like it (the things I do for him). Our dog is even a Colts fan. We now have a daughter who wears Colts gear on occasion even if she hates every second of it.

Anyway, where I am getting with this is a few weeks ago, the Colts acquired Matt Stover, the last original Brown on the Ravens. He was our kicker and a damn good one at that. I have his jersey. Well, for some reason the Ravens didn’t resign Stover, they signed the horrible Steve Hauschka, who well sucked. He didn’t impress me and we lost more than one game, because of missed field goal attempts. Finally yesterday the Ravens got smart (or so I thought) and dropped Hauschka. Then today I found out they picked up Billy Cundiff who played for the Cleveland, Dallas and a few other NFL teams. From what I have heard Cundiff has not been the best kicker, he is 6 of 6 this season with field goal attempts, but his longest attempt was at 31 yards! Needless to say I am nervous about the remaining games in the Ravens season.

Oh how I miss you, Matt Stover!

To make matters worse guess who we play this Sunday? Yup, Daniel’s beloved Colts. It is not going to be a good day in my in-law’s house Sunday where we’ll watch the game. The Colts are currently undefeated, but yet the Ravens are currently favored to win by 1 point. How? I don’t know. I usually am very optimistic, but it will take a miracle for the Ravens to pull off a win against Peyton, Matt Stover and the Colts.

So please keep your fingers crossed that my guy, Joe Flacco and the rest of the Ravens team play their absolute best and kick some Colts bootie back to Indy so I once again can brag to my hubby and say that I am the fan of the better team!

I *heart* Joe Flacco