So, maintaining this blog will take some work, you say?

Well, it's almost 1:00 am, and I'm finally getting to this blog. Yeah, that's pretty late, but I distinctly remember my wife (the boss) telling me that I've got to be prepared to update the blog every day. And so, here it goes.

I only started checking out public blogs on sports sites during this past NFL playoffs, and didn't start actually posting messages until after the SB. But in that relatively short period of time, I have discovered the psycho-fan.

Yep, these psycho fans are out there. I haven't seen a ton of them, but the few I have seen make up for lack of numbers with a frightening degree of loyalty to their team, right down to threats of physical violence towards those that disagree with them. You may have noticed that this blog does not disclose any of my personal information. Let's just say that this is not an accidental feature.

Back to the psycho fan. This offseason, psycho fans from three teams have been particularly vocal: the Baltimore Ravens, the Arizona Cardinals, and the Dallas Cowboys. This isn't really surprising, as the fans of these teams have the most to be upset about because of the Steelers' win.

Baltimore fans are presumably angry because the Steelers beat them three out of three times this season, the third in the AFC Championship game to get into SB43. I've heard it said (Don Banks from SI) that the most painful game to lose probably isn't the SB, it's either of the conference championship games. This rings true, as the SB loser can at least say they went to the big game and partook in all of the festivities and spectacle leading up to the game. The conference championship losers fall just short and miss out on all of that. Being division rivals only adds to the pain, I expect.

Arizona fans are presumably angry for an obvious reason, the SB loss. In that championship game, the Steelers took an early lead and at certain points seemed on the verge of turning the game into a blowout. It never happened, of course, the Cards fought back and made a real game out of it, even taking a slim lead with two and a half to go. Because of that, the Pittsburgh mini-comeback ("Don't call it a comeback!"), punctuated by the amazingly close TD catch by Holmes, must have been particularly painful.

But out of the three teams, the one with the most hateful and antagonistic fans is the Dallas Cowboys. Hands down. By a country mile. If you are only a casual sports observer (if you ever find yourself reading this blog then your are probably not just a casual sports fan), you might wonder, Why would Dallas fans be so affected by the Steelers' win? The answer is, because this last title was Pittsburgh's sixth SB championship, thereby breaking a three-way tie with Dallas and San Francisco, each of which has five titles. Dallas, in fact, had very high expectations for this last season but ultimately failed to make the playoffs (this is what I think fuels Dallas anger more than San Fran anger, as the 49ers have been struggling lately and might not have had terribly high hopes for this last season).

Let me be clear: I'm not painting all Dallas fans with the same brush. In fact, I'm rather impressed with the objectivity of most Cowboys' fans. I'm just talking about the few, the (overly) proud.

I'll get into specifics in a later post.