The Football Fan's Manifesto by Michael Tunison

cornerback. You try as best as you can to keep up with receivers, anticipating their moves, pressing them off the line and back into the bar, all the while making sure not to make contact before the time is right. Strike too soon and you’ll draw a flag, which in all likelihood manifests itself as a kick to the balls.
    Many times you will be called upon to be a wingman yourself. You are part of the team after all, and any carry you get is countered with time spent on special teams. Be prepared to give up your whole body for the cause. You’re springing your man for a score. All you had to do was get pancaked by a three-hundred-pound defensive lineman, or, more literally, the three-hundred-pound friend of the targeted girl.
    It can seem so intimidating, this sordid little routine. Luckily, Internet dating can be an attractive alternative to this danse macabre . Best of all, Internet dating is quickly losing its stigma as a refuge for the awkward and the ugly.That means one thing for you: searching diligently for women wearing your favorite team’s jersey in their profile picture. A tattoo of the team logo is also acceptable. Like information on a team’s roster, facts can be embellished in your profile. If elfish receiver Antwaan Randle El can be listed at five foot ten, there’s no reason you can’t list your income as “over $250,000.”
    Should you succeed in sealing the deal, celebrate in a manner not unlike you do after a team score, replete with “good game” ass pats and spilling beer on her. Then give a wide berth to the girl you hooked up with at the bar for the remainder of the season. Good as fandom lays can be, relationships can seldom take bloom in that setting. Before long you find the intensity rarely matches the energy that first drove you together. Or the drunkenness.
    4.3 Convenient Conditioning for the Football Fatty
    It’s no secret that the sedentary, gorging lifestyle of the average football fan isn’t the healthiest to which you could subject yourself. Minus a concerted effort at proper personal care, the constant ingestion of greasy food and the endless supply of alcohol—all done while sitting on your ass—could turn a healthy, svelte individual into Jared Lorenzen in the span of only a few months.
    Caring about one’s appearance has commonly been derided in fan circles as the mark of the effete, but it’s important to have self-respect. Especially for trash-talking purposes. A fan base full of lardasses opens itself upto easy mocking from the supporters of other teams, not to mention endless inquiries as to whether they plan on finishing a food item.
    Moreover, as much as unwatchable sitcoms on CBS may have convinced you otherwise, you can’t be a slovenly mess and hope to attract a good woman who puts up with you. No, you’ve got to put forward a modicum of effort to keep yourself semi-presentable. That or become obscenely wealthy. Your call.
    Should you decide on fitness, a few simple strategies, easily incorporated into your regular sloth-filled routine, can produce dramatic results.
    For every six regular beers you drink, have a low-calorie one. It’ll trick your metabolism into thinking you’re trying to lose weight, thus kicking it into high gear. Either that or the horrible taste will make you swear off drinking for a round or two.
    Hide the remote. No, it won’t force you to get up and change the TV manually more often, but it will force you to yell for someone else to do it. And yelling has to burn at least a few calories, right?
    Eat work-intensive foods like crab legs or sunflower seeds. They require so much effort, you’ll think of eating as a chore and won’t want to do it at all. That is, unless some enterprising merchant is selling sunflower nutmeat. Then you is screwed.
    Stop eating your weight in bacon paste. It’s probably for the best. And not just because your heart stopped pumping an hour ago. Your resulting gas will also melt the eye membranes of those