Photo Courtesy Of:
Wikimedia
And
Jeffrey Beall under CC BY 4.0 License.
Photo Courtesy Of:
Wikimedia
And
CASportsFan under CC BY-SA 4.0 License.
All kidding aside that comes with making up an admittedly cheesy Shakespearean sports post title pun, one of the best things for me about watching football games in the National Football League (NFL) and growing up in the city of Los Angeles in the '90's was having the freedom to choose which team I wanted to root for or not root for.
During this time, there were (and still are) friends and family members of mine who are fans of the Raiders, 49ers and Rams and Cowboys and Chargers respectively.The list is somewhat lengthy and mostly includes my mother Letty's friends and family.
As far as I know, two out of the three uncles on her side of my family have been lifelong fans of the Raiders going all the way back to when they were in Los Angeles in the 1980's and 1990's. Another lifelong friend of my mom's family is a fan of the Rams, so he has already staked his claim i this discussion most likely. Another uncle and a cousin also on my mom's side of the family are fans of the 49ers and Cowboys respectively. There is also another cousin in my mom's family whose husband and her family are fans of the Chargers. At least they were fans of the Chargers when the team was still in the city of San Diego which was pretty close to where they live in Oceanside. Now that the Chargers have moved to Los Angeles as of the 2017 NFL season, I don't know for sure if those members of my family are still fans of the team now that the team has since been relocated to Los Angeles. If I had to guess, I would venture to say that they are still fans of the Chargers but who knows? Lastly, on my mom's side of our family, there is one other cousin who does have a favorite football team like I used to for the most part, but like me, his favorite team is not and has never been a part of the Los Angeles or the state of California sports scene. That team would be the Kansas City Chiefs! To this day, I have never quite figured out how the fandom for the Chiefs came to be a reality for him? Then again, I don't think that I have ever asked him how became a fan of the Chiefs so that might have something to do with me not knowing about his story as a Chiefs fan living in L.A.!
Taking a quick look at the intensity level of NFL fandom on my dad's side of the family, other than my dad who was a fan of the 49ers before I was born and also while I was growing up and my aunt and her family who are fans of the Chargers, I'm not really sure if anyone else besides them are big fans of the NFL and the sport of football in general.
As for me, as a kid growing up with a huge interest in sports by mostly watching them on T.V., I started out as a Dallas Cowboys fan when I started watching football games many years ago. Approximately, at the same time that I started to get interested in following the Cowboys was also around the same time that they started going downhill after parting ways with head coaches Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer. Perhaps I was partly influenced to be a fan of the Cowboys as a result of the team's overall success back then and I was also most likely influenced by my cousin that I mentioned up above earlier who was also a fan of the Cowboys.
Since that period of time has come and gone, I have not had what you would call a legitimate or real rooting interest in any NFL team to be honest with you. As I mentioned above however, the fact that I don't actually have a favorite NFL team that I root for is something that has not really bothered me all that much since I have really liked having the freedom of watching football games and not having a dog in the fight so to speak. it is also worth mentioning that since I don't really have a favorite NFL team that I root for, my stress levels from watching the games are very low as compared to when I watch an Angels game in Major League Baseball (MLB) for example.
Jumping ahead to the NFL games that I watch presently, right now I don't really watch an entire football game in its entirety all the way through. These days, in order to quench my thirst or appetite for watching football games, my family and I have the NFL RedZone channel as part of our TV multi sports channel viewing package from Dish Network. The great thing about the channel is that instead of focusing the viewer's attention on a single Nfl game, the channel bounces around from game to game. If you are not a fan of any particular football team or you don't have any rooting interest in any specific game, then I highly recommend that you get the NFL RedZone channel if you don't have it already to begin with.
With regards to me being able to keep track of what goes on during each and every NFL game on Sundays on the NFL RedZone channel, I should also mention that it can be a very tough balancing act in trying to watch the channel at the beginning of each season in September and into October due to the conflicting schedule of MLB games in September and October at the same time as well. Since baseball is by far my most favorite sport to watch and thusly has my top viewing priority and attention, once the regular season and the playoffs schedule wraps up in the sport of MLB, it then becomes much easier for me to give more of my full and undivided attention to watching NFL games and the NFL RedZone channel.
In terms of trying to figure out for me which of the two football teams now located here in the Los Angeles to possibly support as a fan, each one has its own share of pros and cons. For the Rams, since they have moved back to the city of Los Angeles after spending many of the last few years in St. Louis until now, they have not experienced a whole lot success as a sports team franchise since moving back to Los Angeles in 2016. In 2016 the Rams finished their season with a final win-loss record of 4 wins and 12 losses after getting off to a 4 win and 9 loss start to that season under the team's then head coach at the time named Jeff Fisher. Fisher was then subsequently fired by the team after that very slow 4 and 9 start and was replaced by John Fassel on an interim head coaching basis for the rest of the 2016 season. At the time that Fisher was replaced by Fassel as the interim head coach in 2016, Fassel served as the Rams special teams coach going all the back to the 2012 season. So far in the 2017 season, the Rams have a record of 4 wins and 2 losses and are in first place in the NFC West division under yet another new head coach in Sean McVay.
When looking at the prospects of possibly supporting the Chargers football team as a fan, one important factor for me does play a very big part in deciding whether or not I will support or root for them. That is the fact that until they made the move to Los Angeles for the beginning of the 2017 NFL season, the Chargers didn't really have a very long, rich and memorable history in Los Angeles other than in 1960 when they were a team of the American Football League (AFL) during their first year of existence. To be a new team in Los Angeles, unless you have had my undying and faithful devotion previously as a fan, you will probably not be given my full and undivided attention after a full season of playing in a new city such as Los Angeles. Maybe with the more time and years that the Chargers spend as a team here in Los Angeles, I might possibly decide to root for them if they become a successful sports team here in Los Angeles.
Having taken all of the above into consideration on this fan support and rooting Los Angeles football team question, it seems to me that the safest bet for me to go with right now would be the Los Angeles Rams! On the other hand however, I never really had any fan allegiance whatsoever to begin with when the Rams were in Los Angeles during their first go around in the City of Angels. To that I say why couldn't team owners Al or Mark Davis of the soon-to-be Las Vegas Raiders let cooler heads prevail during that team's relocation negotiations over the last several years and move that franchise back to Los Angeles?! I'm sure the Black Hole bandwagon would have and maybe still has enough room to add someone who could be a possible new team fan member like me to the club!
Tim Musick
Copyright 2017
All Rights Reserved.
