Manuary Is Like Riding A Pony

Except the pony is 300 feet tall and covered in chainsaws.
Normally, I skate by. I'm plenty manly enough to take care of most of the requirements of manliness in any given month.
Manuary is all about taking this a step further. A manly step, if possible.
In every man's life, there are three important decisions which must be made.
Once the options have been settled, these decisions can never, ever be reversed.
The first question which must be answered is "white meat or dark meat", regarding chicken. Once you pick a side, you can never go back and reallocate preference.
The second and third questions generally come up a little later.
Every man must pick a favorite professional baseball and football team. Even if they don't follow sports. Even if they totally don't understand the rules. Even if they don't know what time these games are even played, especially.
Sadly, these decisions are often made too early in life for proper thought to go into them.
If you select dark meat before discovering buffalo wings you are forever forced to completely enjoy the wrong kind of chicken meat.
If you pick a baseball team solely because you think the fans are hysterical, you end up being a life-long Chicago Cubs fan.
Trust me. I know both of these things first hand.
Fortunately for me, I semi-randomly selected a football team which has provided me with some wiggle room.
Having been born in Houston, Texas, it was an easy choice for me to pick the Oilers as my favorite football team. The fact that they sucked was irrelevant, because they are no more.
I looked up the rules regarding the selection of a dead franchise as a favorite team and there are two possibilities. I can either transfer my loyalty to the Tennessee Titans (who would do that?) or I can pick again.
As an adult, I get a do-over on a decision most Southern men are required to have in place before starting the first grade -- under pain of wedgie.
The sad thing is I know almost as little about professional football now as I did when I was five.
I have no time for research. This is Manuary, damn it!
Football is the pointy ball! That's all the information I need!
A quick glance at the interwebz shows me that . . . Hmmm . . . Maybe the Oilers stopped sucking.
No! No way!
I could pick Carolina . . . Because that is where I am now and all.
Or am I? Which Carolina, exactly, are they talking about? Is it the decent and peace-loving South Carolina or the wicked and chicken-thieving North Carolina?
I could look it up, I guess, but this is Manuary! Decisions are to be based entirely on emotions we are not permitted to express or admit to having!
"TBD" seems a sure bet for the Super Bowl. Who is that? Tampa Bay?
And it looks like they are the only team playing at all.
Florida can't even manage two competitors in a national election, so that makes sense, I guess.
Still. Florida?
Those people are likely to have prawns at tailgate parties, so that's out.
I need to pull up the records for the whole season, I guess.
In doing so, I can easily see that the largest streak for the year goes to the Detroit Lions. They lead the St. Louis Rams by six and everyone else by much more.
Consistency. I respect and appreciate it.
There are few things more manly than being bad at something and continuing to do it anyway, even if huge sums of money are at stake.
Also, I'm comforted knowing that were I to be drafted to play for the Detroit Lions, I could probably be a starter.
So, there we have it.
In honor of Manuary, my official favorite NFL team is the Detroit Lions.