This is a fanpost by user Donuts! It is good

"Frank: What the hell you doing, Deandra? Dennis: Oh, this is very important, Frank. You’ve got to nail the board down to the bar, because at a certain point during the game, Mac can get very pissed off because he’s not doing very well. He’s going to try and flip the board over. Mac: He’s right. It’s for the best. I will forget, later, that it’s nailed down. Dennis: He will." -Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I used to throw chairs and hot dogs. That’s what it was like to watch a Seahawks game with me. I got in a bar fight with a Niners fan. I authored many a hole in apartment walls. I called in sick after the Seahawks lost the 2014 Super Bowl. My behavior become a joke amongst friends. "You’re going to want to nail down that plate of hot dogs." I said, "it's for the best" with a sheepish grin. I said I’m just a big fan. But inwardly I was deeply embarrassed. How come my friends, Seahawks fanatics themselves, were able to comport themselves in a manner befitting a well-adjusted adult? And why couldn’t I?

Sometimes you need to see yourself the way somebody else does. Chairs are for sitting, hot dogs are delicious, and jokes are rooted in truth. My old refrain of "I’m just a big fan" began to feel more like an excuse for bad behavior than a point of sheepish pride. So this year, when my friends contemplated affixing dinnerware to the countertop, I replied thusly:

I’m better now.

WHAT IS FOOTBALL FOR?

"We play football, and football is fun." -Pete Carroll

I moved to LA to make movies, and now I make commercials (don’t ask). I spend my days and nights working on advertisements for Audi, Samsung, Apple, Nike, Gatorade, Carolina Herrera, and virtually any other brand you’re likely to see advertised on Sundays. (But seriously, don’t ask. I’ve signed a thousand NDA’s). I’m a soldier of commerce. Truly, I am doing God’s work. When we’re bleary-eyed, over-caffeinated, sweating, bleeding, and crying through unpaid overtime for a product that none of us can muster the effort to give a shit about, I quip that our entire careers consist of producing films that people will literally pay to avoid watching. It always gets a laugh, because laughter soothes the soul, and we don’t have much of that left. But advertisement has its place. It’s a necessary part of commerce, which is a necessary part of democracy. And football? In the advertisement biz, the Super Bowl is our… Well, it’s our Super Bowl.

Yes, football is a game. But my soul-deficient brain also sees it as one more cog in the industrial machine. Football is big business. A quick and lazy Google search tells me that NFL revenues fall north of $13 billion annually. That much cash attracts the attention of some powerful persons. But then again, football belongs to the proletariat, where an entire submarket of fan analysis and commentary has taken on a life of its own (*ahem*). In actuality, sports franchises belong to their owners, which we are reminded of every time they rip one away on a financial whim. Nonetheless, it’s patriotic. A veritable pillar of American democracy! On the other hand, it’s anti-military. A platform for activism! But really, it’s advertisement. And it’s ravaging Papa John’s bottom line! But hey, it’s entertainment. It’s vaudeville with millionaires!

Look, I don’t know what football’s for and I’m running out of contrastive conjunctions. Maybe we need emotional catharsis in a postmodern world devoid of life and death situations. There’s a reason you "live and die" with each play. If you played football, then maybe it has a more personal significance for you. Perhaps you learned important lessons about teamwork, commitment, and failure. Or maybe you played at a high level and gained an education, or a career. If you were the very best and luckiest, you earned millions of dollars and fans. Or maybe Pete Carroll, with his bubble yum and rainbows, had it right all along and "football is fun."

For the rest of us, football is a distraction. An escape from the stress and doldrums of our apparently depressing lives. Isn’t that what people say? It’s true. And it’s the simplest way to understand it. But to me, that doesn’t resonate. It’s more than that. But it’s also exactly that.

Everybody has their ‘thing.’ Everybody has their adversities and shortcomings, and the wonderful complexities that arise from the combination of the two. That’s why I will never feel sorry for myself. All of us know people who have suffered crippling loss, who have fallen ill, who have been the victims of injustice. For me, I have battled mental illness most of my life. I fell into depression when I was ten and never "got better." Over the last five years I’ve experienced the onset of bipolar, neurological episodes, and various addiction. This wasn’t diagnosed, understood, or medicated (properly) until recently, so maybe you can imagine what a confusing, scary, and lonely downward spiral that was. But everybody has their thing, and I won’t pity you if you don’t pity me.

With that in mind, "distractions" like football become a meaningful part of our lives. Distractions become investments. Investments become passions. And before you know it, you’re all-in on something you have zero control over. But it still beats thinking your thoughts and feeling your feelings, am I right? On a lonely day, "Brock and Salk" might be my best friends. On a dark day, Field Gulls might be my brightest window. And on a hopeless Sunday, the Seahawks might be my best shot at feeling anything at all.

And for that, I love football. I love our team. They are there for us, and we are there for them. Right?

WHAT ARE FANS FOR?

"Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify. Because the players are always changing, the team could move to another city. You’re actually rooting for the clothes, when you get right down to it. You are standing, and cheering, and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city." -Jerry Seinfeld

Hardcore sports fans are a very peculiar bunch. Persnickety and irrational, and yet astonishingly well informed about things that really aren’t any of their business. When it comes to the multiplicity and hypocrisy of football, a selective mindset is crucial. Sure, "supporting your team" is probably an NFL-engineered euphemism for "give us your money," but… well, here’s my money. There is a sense of pride among old timers who stuck with a Seahawks club through decades of unwavering mediocrity before reaching the promised land (aka The Meadowlands). What there is to be proud of isn’t exactly clear. But when a so-called "twelve-since-’12" comes along, derisive words like "bandwagon" and "frontrunner" come to mind. If you didn’t suffer through the misery, do not partake in the victory. Get out of here with that shit.

Counterpoint:

One of the great joys of my life was introducing somebody to the game of football. In this case, my fiancé. Circa 2006, I became her Sherpa guide into the euphoric and agonous world of Seahawks fandom. At that time, she was a very specific person. She ran away from home, intending to settle as far away from Jersey as possible. We worked together at the Apple Store. I was her supervisor, and when she found out I was only five days older than her, she incited widespread mutiny amongst the sales staff who definitely thought I was older than nineteen. She also started sleeping with me, and with increasing frequency, until one day a letter addressed to her was delivered to my mailbox. I asked, "why didn’t they send this to your… where you live?" I realized at that moment that I didn’t know where she lived. She said, "This is where I live." I said, "You live here? But I live here." And that’s how we moved in together.

There’s a period of time in a courtship, after the beginning but before the middle, where the relationship is very fragile. You need a glue. You need common interests to discuss when you get tired of talking about yourselves. Maybe you work together, share a hobby, or you both like dogs. But you’ve got to have something else to say when all you can think about is how much you like each other.

She baked me a Seahawks cake for my birthday. It had blue and green frosting, end zones, hash marks and numbered yard lines: 10, 20, 30… I was moved and speechless. Nobody had ever done anything like that for me. I examined the cake, probably to avoid making eye contact. And then I saw it, and I couldn’t help myself. She looked at the cake, and then at me. "What is it!?" I couldn’t help laughing. After the 50 yard line, the numbers continued: 60, 70, 80…

She made the Seahawks part of her identity. A nineteen-year-old girl, lost and wandering the United States, bought a #51 jersey and dropped anchor in Seattle, WA. She stopped running and I don’t think it was just because she loved the Seahawks.

WHAT ARE SEASONS FOR?

"Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing." -Vince Lombardi

When you look up the definition of bittersweet, you’ll see a sketch of me on my couch, watching blue and green confetti swirl around Russell Wilson as he holds the Lombardi Trophy aloft. I sat quietly. I was on the verge of tears, and I wondered if she was, too.

Where were you for XLVIII? I don’t mean physically, and I don’t mean on the day. I mean where were you for that season of your life? Who were you with? What were you doing? How were you doing? I bet you can remember. Football marks the passage of time in our lives. Try it. When you refer to the past, don’t give the Gregorian year. Give the Super Bowl year.

As with football, our lives have seasons, and some are better than others. Back in January 2013 (aka the year XLVII), when Matt Bryant’s leg sent the ‘Hawks packing and the twelves drinking, I was having myself a pretty good season. I had just graduated from a storied film school, produced a web series, written a feature screenplay, acquired an honest-to-god adult job, and successfully engaged a woman I loved to marry me. On January 13, 2013 (XLVII), we were holed up in my Hollywood apartment to watch the Seahawks playoff bout versus the Atlanta Falcons. As Matt Bryant lined up, she left the room. She couldn’t watch. The kick… happened. And we spent the rest of the day sick to our stomachs. But we were sick together, and I never thought I would miss that feeling.

To me and Vince Lombardi, you play to win the game. Seasons are for winning. Anything short of winning the Super Bowl is morosely devastating. Anything short of perfection is vexingly imperfect. That probably isn’t the healthiest way to go through a season of football. Or a season of life.

Sometime between XLVII and XLVIII, everything went wrong. I had fumbled the marriage, committed a few penalties at work, and my mental health was about to land me on the injured reserve in a big way. I was having a bad season. But a year later, there I was watching the Seahawks defeat the Broncos to win the Super Bowl. Final score: 43-8. My friend insisted we celebrate at this sports bar in Westwood. When we arrived, the walls were covered in Denver Broncos flags and jerseys. The house lights were on. The chairs were on tables. The owner was giving me a dirty look. A mistake had been made. I stood there, gob smacked, wearing my Seahawks jersey and hat.

In one year, the Seahawks had won everything and I had lost everything. It was surreal.

IS IT OK TO QUIT ON YOUR TEAM?

"Trying is the first step toward failure." -Homer Simpson

When I worked in retail, I condescended to the lifers. I marveled at the middle-aged man; content to wear a bright colored t-shirt and ask customers if they "want AppleCare with that?" Day after day. Year after year. Didn’t he want more? Didn’t he want better? As a bright young part-timer in college, I knew I was destined to do big things. The purity and intensity of my ambition meant that I could look down on him.

But something nagged at me. He was so damn cheerful. He was demonstrably happier than I was. He was at peace. And that has always stuck with me. Because I was not. Since then, I’ve been around a lot of very successful people in Hollywood and I haven’t noted any particular correlation between success and happiness during my unempirical time here.

For those of us — and I can hardly count myself among the old timers — who have stuck with the team through thick and thin, we have a purity of fandom that means we can look down upon the casual fan. If you are going to bail when it’s hard, then don’t come back when it’s easy. Get out of here with that shit. We are the ones who have spent countless dollars on tickets, merchandise, and television packages. We are the ones who have sunk untold weekends into losing football. And let’s not even get started on fantasy football.

But what if we are the ones being bamboozled? Sure, the casual fan is not as invested as I am. But at least they know the difference between barbecue and projectile. After putting so much effort and resource into being a fan, what is our return on investment? A 4-12 season? A Super Bowl win? A Super Bowl loss? I keep coming back to that moment on the couch. The Seahawks won the Super Bowl 43-8. As close to perfection as you will ever see in the Super Bowl. But If football is about winning, then why did I feel hollow? There’s got to be more to it.

What was I missing?

If I'm honest with myself, I enjoy my job. One of the things I realized very quickly was that I don't really care what we're making. Sometimes it's cool to see big special effects or stunts or actors or whatever. But really, it's the people I work with that determine whether I love or hate each gig. When it gets hard, you look around and know you're in it together.

That’s togetherness.

It’s not all about watching the game. It’s also about who you watch it with. I didn’t get to go to the Super Bowl parade. But I was in attendance when the Seahawks dominated the Panthers in 2006 (XL). The Seahawks were going to the Super Bowl. It was the biggest win in the history of the franchise. I don’t remember much about the actual football game. I do remember the once-in-a-lifetime togetherness throughout the city. Whether we were in the stadium, on the streets, or in the metro… Hug anybody! Chant on the bus! Drinks for everyone! For one night, there were no strangers in Seattle.

So why would you ever quit on your team? And is it ok?

Football is your distraction. But what happens when your distraction sucks? What happens when you really need your team to get their shit together and have a good season because yours isn’t going so well? I’ll tell you what happens. Russell Wilson throws a pick at the 99 yard line and you throw a chair through the wall.

Football is for the fans. Fans are not for the football. You don’t owe anybody anything. When football stops working for you, step away. Get your shit together. Work on your season. Go find out what football means for you. You'll find out what it was when it's gone. Football is interwoven into the fabric of our lives. It brings us together, and helps us remember. And just because you leave it, doesn’t mean it will leave you.

When you’re ready to come back, I’ll hold the door open for you. Here, take a seat. Have a hot dog.

I hope you’re better now.