A lot of terrible things have happened recently, both to me personally (car broke down) and the country writ large (democracy broke down), and because of that, I’ve been angry. In looking for a healthy way to deal with that anger, I stumbled onto my outlet — it is without pride that I tell you I have become a dick on the internet.

Now, I’ve tried to be smart about sectioning off my dickishness. I’m not arguing with everyone I disagree with, just one specific type of person — the guys on the Minnesota Vikings subreddit who think the team will (or especially if they think the team should) trade away quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.

A little backstory here — my first year really following the NFL was 2013, which means the first draft I really followed was in 2014. Teddy Bridgewater was thought of as the number one overall pick that year, and as a Minnesota boy, I dreamed of him coming to the Vikings. It didn’t seem possible, of course — the Vikings ended up with the number eight pick that year, which was about seven shy of where they needed to be to grab Teddy. But I let myself think it, and as Teddy Bridgewater’s draft stock began to plummet because he had small hands or something, it became possible.

I remember having to go to an improv practice the night of the draft, after Minnesota had taken Linebacker Anthony Barr with their first round pick. Teddy was still on the board, but with so much uncertainty and the fact that they’d already passed on him once, I didn’t think my boy was going to be a Viking. At the end of improv practice, I turned my phone back on to a shower of beeps as the texts rolled in — they did it. The Vikings did it. They traded up and grabbed Teddy Bridgewater, quarterback, with the final pick of the first round.

Now. it’s exciting when your team drafts a player you like, but two things happened with Teddy Bridgewater that bonded he and I together forever. Number one: in training camp (and through much of his first season), he got the same notes in football that I get in improv — Relax. Get out of your head. You might be pretty okay at this if you’d stop thinking about it so much.

Number two: 2014 was the first year the NFL let draftees pick the songs they’d walk up to when they were picked. In what might have been an inappropriate choice in The Year of Our Lord 2014, Teddy Bridgewater chose R. Kelly’s “The World’s Greatest”, a so-saccharine-it-hurts inspirational ballad from the Will Smith movie Ali. Its chorus goes, ”I’m that star up in the sky/ I’m that mountain peak up high/ Hey I made it/ I’m the world’s greatest”. It’s the kind of song you can just let yourself enjoy despite its corniness, just as long as its singer was definitely not a sexual predator. (It was a fun ride, “The World’s Greatest”.)

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a pro wrestler. At a stocky 5′10, I was never gonna be the bodybuilder-type the WWE wants as its triumphant heroes, so I knew I’d have to be a sneaky, rotten, cheating bad guy. But if I not only won by kicking my opponent in the dick when the ref has his back turned and also came out talking about how I was the all-time best wrestler, telling the fans at home watching that with hard work and perseverance, they too could be as great as I (not the fans in attendance, though — sorry Cleveland, you’re a bunch of losers), the fans would boo the hell out of me. And what song would’ve better encapsulated that unearned bravado? R. Kelly’s “The World’s Greatest”.

I used to listen to that song, walking home from wrestling practice through the cold Minnesota snow, getting goosebumps as I imagined the fans hurling the popcorn and soda they spent good money on at my smiling face. That song would tell the crowd I was coming to the ring, and on that night in 2014, it told the world Teddy Bridgewater was coming to Minnesota.

In his first two years, Teddy Bridgewater played well for the Vikings, a solid QB with incredible accuracy who occasionally showed a flash of brilliance. But it was off the field that Teddy showed us who he was. Right after the Draft, he ran out to buy his mom, a breast cancer survivor, a pink Cadillac. He showed up to a six-year-old superfan’s birthday. (Dude missed mine but whatever I don’t care.) He did this dance:

Teddy Bridgewater is just a good guy. And beyond the dumb football reasons, I think that’s why it hurt so much when, on August 31st, 2016, in a preseason scrimmage, Teddy Bridgewater suffered a devastating knee injury. It was said to be so bad that, without the quick work of the Minnesota Vikings medical staff, he could have lost his leg. Like, come on man. Fuck.

Losing their quarterback lead Minnesota to trade for Sam Bradford, a former first overall pick whose injury history had kept him from living up to his potential. Bradford was great for the Vikings this year, especially considering the fact that his offensive line seemingly had less enthusiasm for their jobs than a pre-fame Adam Driver-looking kid manning the grill at Burger King.

And that’s where we’re at today — Minnesota just finished the season at 8-8, and Head Coach Mike Zimmer has said that Sam Bradford will be the starter next year. And since Teddy Bridgewater hasn’t given an interview since before the injury, his heath status is completely unknown. He could be ready to go at the start of next season, or he could never play again.

And some bullshit-spittin’ motherfuckers over on Reddit think he shouldn’t play again, at least not for the Vikings. These are the people I can laser focus my internet rage on, those who say that, even if Teddy Bridgewater makes it back to 100 percent, the team should go with Sam Bradford forever and ever. And I will not hear that shit.

The things I’ve said on Reddit to Bradford’s Boys (a cute lil’ nickname I gave to Sam Bradford’s defenders, whom I despise) range from silly to cruel. I usually open my replies with something like “Um, are you a dummy?” before calling them out in bad faith on something I know they didn’t mean to say — I told one guy who kinda a little bit mixed up General Managers and Offensive Coordinators that I had just had a conversation explaining the two positions’ basic functions with my four-year-old nephew, and that I would be willing to have a simliar conversation with him, if he’d like. I condescendingly linked him to the Wikipedia article for false-consensus bias. Later, I would tell him I was interested in how someone so functionally brain-dead survives day to day. And while I didn’t send it, my brain actually thought up and typed this message:

(Can y’all tell Manchester by the Sea is still affecting me?)

Am I proud of what I thought, wrote, and communicated to the people who, at the end of the day, like the same silly, stupid football team as me? Not really. But I’m so angry that Teddy Bridgewater got hurt. I’m so angry my car broke down. I’m so angry Donald Trump is going to be our president. All that anger is gonna fester and bubble over at a wildly inopportune time if I don’t find a good way to get it out. And Krav Maga lessons cost, like, a lot.

So I’m going to go be as cruel as I can be in a corner of the internet that is predominantly male and focused on the most aggressive aspect of our culture. That’s the best place I can think of to dump out all this anger. This doesn’t make me feel very good about myself, and I know that, no matter the justification, I’m doing something that hurts people.

But even though we both came out to “The World’s Greatest”, it was Teddy Bridgewater who became a good guy. I always knew I’d be the bad guy.