I'm used to losing. In fact, I'm an expert at it. In every sport I play I have experienced my fair share of defeat. Cricket, golf, snooker, darts, badminton, football - I can lose at all of them. And no matter how insignificant the contest is (usually completely insignificant), winning is a much more preferable feeling.
I also experience my fair share of losing when it comes to watching football and cricket. So much so that I'm pretty good at taking it on the chin and moving on. Sure, there have been some moments when it's taking a while to get over the disappointment (Mentioning no play off finals against Man City!) but due to the frequency of defeat I can get over it before I even leave the stadium.
However, winning is rather more preferable and I wish that I had been shoehorned into supporting a more successful team. Not that I want to be a glory hunter at all. If I support a team and they become successful then great but I don't want to start at the top because whoever are the best team. That's cheating and wouldn't give me much satisfaction.
On the flip side, I definitely do not want to support a team who are regarded as being the worst. That would be a very unsatisfactory place to start and the gap between 32nd and 1st is something that takes a long time to bridge. So I won't be supporting any team regarded as being the worst.
The NFL regular season finished on New Years Day. As the NFL is split into 8 divisions it is not straightforward ascertaining the full ranking order of these teams and there are 2 methods that seek to solve this issue:
The Draft
One of my favorite things about the NFL is the fairness of it. The worse you are the better players you get to pick for the next season. Every year the teams can pick players coming into the league from Universities/Colleges and the team with the worst record the previous season gets first (and subsequently 33rd, 65th etc) pick. Followed by the teams next in line, all the way through to the Superbowl winners getting pick number 32 (64, 96 etc).
The systems helps the weaker teams get stronger and helps keep parity in the league. It's not an instant fix, but more of a long term investment. For example, 3 years ago Detroit had first pick after becoming the first ever team to lose all 16 of their matches. They picked quarterback Matthew Stafford and his play (along with that of the whole team) has steadily improved since then and they have just reached the play offs for the first time in over 10 years.
Of course it's a bit of a gamble and doesn't always pay off. They are a list of "draft busts" that have been picked early on and completely failed to become NFL standard players. Look up names like Ryan Leaf and JaMarcus Russell for evidence of this. But it does give teams a chance to build for the future and stops the top teams stockpiling the best talent.
Having said that, I don't want to begin my supporting career with the team ranked as being the worst in the NFL! The league decides the ranking order of the teams based upon their overall record and a number of tiebreakers. This season 2 teams finished bottom of the pile with 2 wins from their 16 matches. It then gets a bit more complicated as "strength of schedule" is taken into account, ie who played better teams over the course of the season. Personally, it seems a bit of a silly system but who am I to argue with it. This has lead to the Indianapolis Colts being awarded the first pick of the 2012 Draft and loses them the opportunity of having my support!
Although given that the first pick of the draft is likely to be Andrew Luck they are unlikely to be too unhappy with the outcome. Luck is regarded as being a once in a generation player and the best thing to come out of college football since Peyton Manning...who plays for the Colts and whose injury is the main reason for their terrible season. Cue some easy Luck based puns!
Power Rankings
The Colts may have had the worst record over the course of the season but that doesn't mean they are the worst team at the minute. In fact, their 2 victories were in their last 3 matches so arguably they are more in form than quite a few other teams in the league.
This problem is something of an obsession for nfl fans and journalists. Each week every NFL website , tv programme and journal publishes it current "Power Rankings", a list of the teams in order of how the journalist(s)/fan currently rates each team. It's entirely subjective and it's main function is to provide a talking point for fans and analysts.
The nearest equivalent in football would be trying to rank the 32 teams that qualify for a World Cup. Every team will have had a different set of fixtures coming into the tournament and there will be many different opinions as to the ranking order of teams. There's no right or wrong but it would prompt a lot of debate.
Of course, these rankings can fluctuate enormously. Just 8 weeks ago the Chicago Bears were been ranked around the 5th or 6th best team mark. Cue a couple of injuries and they are now languishing around at 20th.
Similarly to my desire to not pick the worst team based on Draft Order, I do not want to support the team ranked last in power rankings - especially as the regular season has now finished. Nfl.com do a combined Power Rankings based upon the overall consensus of their writers plus the rankings provided by users of their site. So, it's been contributed to by a vast amount of people. Therefore, it makes sense to use their rankings to eliminate my next team. As it goes, the general consensus is that the Indianapolis Colts are the worst team in the league despite their recent wins, instead I'm going to eliminate the team ranked 31st on the list so step forward the St Louis Rams.
Can't say I'm overly disappointed by this as they have been perennial struggles for the last 10 years and seem to be one of those clubs that suffers from poor decision making at all levels.
All of which leaves me with 29 teams to choose from...
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