Because of free agency, pro sports don’t engender the same marrow-level rage that college sports do. Sure you may have a devotion to your Designated Market Area’s team because you hope that they represent your geographic region with dignity and honor (and that they sell enough $140 tickets so you’ll have something to watch on TV on Sunday afternoon and Monday night and Thursday night and Saturdays after college is done), but it’s not like you want to lay siege to the next DMA over the way you might want a nuclear holocaust to scorch Tallahassee, Fla., on a given Saturday in the fall. 

It was this past weekend during the Divisional Playoffs as my beloved Saints lost… and the New England Hatriots won… and then Colin Duh-pernick and the San Francisco 49ers won… and then I climbed on an airplane not knowing if Phillip Whine-Me-A-Rivers would pull the upset of the universe against the eldest scion of the Manning Clan and John Elway’s Denver Broncos… Well, it was this weekend that I realized that I needed a Hierarchy of Hate just to navigate the Super Bowl. Who am I going to root for when three-fourths of the possible teams are paragons of hatred?

Drawing up my Pro-style Hierarchy, I realized there was much to hate about the NFL… even though we are 15-year veterans of DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket, and I tend to go into mourning for a week or two after the conclusion of the Super Bowl, regardless of the outcome. The Super Bowl signals eight long months of boredom punctuated by spring training, a flippant bracket attempt at the NCAAs, a passing glance at the NBA playoffs, an opportunity to complain that the NHL is still playing in the middle of the summer, and a few afternoons snoozing on the couch to golf and NASCAR before football returns. For me, it is a time for my blister of hate to sink back below the surface of my skin, awaiting a hot summer day to erupt like a pimple on the buttcheek of humanity.

Because professional athletes are itinerant, they don’t inspire the same loyalty or grounding to a place that they used to – the way Archie Manning gamely toiled through the drought-years of the Ain’ts while raising a fine family that maintains its deep ties to the New Orleans community. Hell, the teams don’t have the same loyalty to the players that put them on the map (Hey Peyton, thanks for the good times and the Super Bowl. Sorry about the bum neck. We’re gonna try our luck with Luck!)

And speaking of the Indianapolis Baltimore-Colts, very few professional teams inspire loyalty to their DMAs: I’m looking at you Baltimore Raven-Browns… and you too, Tennessee Titan-Oilers… oh, and you, Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders… and I might as well include those pesky Arizona-St. Louis Cardinals, which means I can’t possibly forget the St. Louis-Los Angeles Rams. I think this is the opiate nature of the NFL: Things that once inspired outrage are so commonplace today that they appear as quaint fixtures of history, like hoop skirts and rotary phones.

My Hierarchy of Hate for the National Football League spawns from the personalities that play the game – like a Fantasy Football Team, if I were the Antichrist drafting players for the Revelations division of the All-Apocalypse League. That being said, I still hate a few teams out-of-hand: All teams from New York earn their own special place in the black hole of my soul because… they’re from New York, the place that gave us the Yankees. I hate the New England Hatriots because their head coach Bill Belicheater does not smile and their supermodel quarterback (and baby-mama abandoner) pouts even when he’s ahead by four touchdowns… even though he’s married to a woman so beautiful, she only goes by one name. Why so serious, Brady? You’re married to Giselle. You are the luckiest SOB to play the game. Crack a motherfucking smile once in a while, asshole!

I am also not a fan of fans of the Philadelphia Eagles (I just ducked a D-battery ensconced in a snowball), nor am I fond of the six-ringed Ben Rapelisberger apologists that hail from the City of Bridges… and Oakland fans… well, yeah, they’re Oakland fans. They’re almost as pathetic as Cowboys fans who can’t figure out why they can’t manage to win a playoff game with all of Jerry Jones’ money at their disposal. Hint: He sucks as a GM.

So yes, there’s much to hate about the NFL, most of it personality driven. For example, I’ve never historically hated the 49ers, since they always bitch-slapped the Cowboys… but I don’t like how they treated Alex Smith… and every time I see Colin Kaepernick, I just want to say, “duuhhh.” He just looks like his voice would be Beavis… or is it Butthead? And frankly, his answers to most interviews follow suit… but the Carnival Barkers can’t seem to remove his genitals from their mouths long enough to make an impartial analysis of his  skills. He’s not doing much for me, but he also hasn’t raped anyone or killed anyone, so I can’t really hate him. I just won’t root for him.

And speaking of rapists and killers… I hate Florida State University because of the torrent of criminally minded thugs that it has unleashed on Saturday afternoons… but the very next day, we have a veritable perp-walk of multi-millionaires parading across the plasma-screen. What’s up with that, NFL? So I hate, out of hand, any miscreant that avoids justice by virtue of the fact that he has an agent and an entourage and the audacity to claim that his success means that God vindicates his past life choices. Hey, FUCK YOU, RAY LEWIS: WELCOME TO THE PINNACLE OF THE HIERARCHY OF HATE.

You’re welcome. And remember: Haters gonna hate. I’m a hater, ergo I hate. If you want sunshine and jellybeans, call me in May: My football hangover should have worn off by then.