the green bay packers.

I was raised with green and gold blood. I have worn a cheesehead proudly. I watch games superstitiously, not watching when I think I'm bad luck, changing shirts and socks whenever I thought it might help the team. The time I've spent daydreaming about catching a pass by Brett Favre or pounding through the Bears defense on a reverse or running back a special teams play may amount to months of my life. The games I can watch I live and die on. The games I can't plague me until I know the score. A storied football team out of a small town in Wisconsin is one of the few things that can truly stress me out.

I am that guy who screams at the television to make me feel better.

My mom is from Milwaukee and my dad has always been a Green Bay fan (though he's from California) so the legacy was passed down to me with my interest in football. My brother Josh never really cared for sports (though now he admits that he doesn't like to hear that the Packers lost) and Chris seemed to always align himself with teams that gave Green Bay trouble (the Cowboys in the 90s, the Bears of late) but, as the picture of me when I was three wearing a Packers sweatsuit would indicate, I've always been true. Even through the 4-12 season before Holmgren (and after). Suffering through "Majik" Don Majikowski's twilight seasons and watching a young, brash quarterback take over in that fateful Bengals game. Yes, Green Bay.

So to watch them twist and gnash in agonizing defeat yesterday was heartbreaking, especially after such a stellar performance last week against the Seahawks. Ian told me before the game, and I hold with this now, that the New York Giants aren't really that good -- they just make you play the worst football of your season (he's a Bucs fan). Green Bay beat themselves with penalties and missed opportunities. And it hurts.

Katie has suffered the entire season by being forced to watch incessant NFL Network programming but now I can't even bear to turn the television on because there might be someone that says something negative, something about them being a fluke, about the possibility of Favre retiring, about the competition to be the team to make the Patriots 19-0 or, worse, that the better team won the NFC title.

I work on Sundays at the Store and I ran from there last night to catch the majority of the game (I got home near the end of the first quarter). But with the Super Bowl in a couple weeks, I know I can take my time getting home on February 3rd.

Next season is going to be their season though. I can feel it.