When the Cleveland Browns went all in for Deshaun Watson in March of 2022 — trading six draft picks (including three first-rounders) to the Houston Texans for the controversial quarterback, then signing him to the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history — a lot of Cleveland fans left the Dawg Pound in disgust.

As a longtime Browns fan myself, I was not one of them. That’s because one month before Cleveland decided to make the maligned Watson the face of its maligned franchise, I had already begun the process of dumping the Browns and adopting a new favorite team. My safe version of a mid-life crisis was already underway, and while the Watson trade didn’t help the Browns in that sense, it wasn’t a deciding factor.

In the grand scheme, though, who really cares what team someone roots for? It shouldn’t matter. And yet for tribalistic social reasons that can be more deeply studied and better explained by people more educated than myself, our sports allegiances define us in a lot of ways. Go to a random person’s social media page, and there’s a good chance you’ll find something related to which teams they root for (“#GoHawks,” “Pats fan,” “Raider Nation 4 Life”). Entire cities and regions get stuck with stereotypes thanks to their sports fans: Bostonians are labeled overly dramatic and cocky, New Yorkers overly rude and cocky, Philadelphians overly intense and cocky.

Fandom is an easy icebreaker. When I was introduced recently to a relative’s new girlfriend, she pointed at my Lakers jersey and said, “Oh, me and you are gonna be cool.” And, it turns out, we are cool. (She didn’t know then that I’m not necessarily a Lakers fan — we’ll address that in Part 3 of this series — but you get the point.) Fandom impacts how we dress, how we spend our weekends, where we take vacations, even how we raise our kids. Your favorite team might be the first thing you intentionally pass down to your newborn baby. So unless you’re someone who doesn’t care about sports — and if you’re on this site, that’s probably not you — then this stuff does matter.

Ironically, it was hometown pride that led me to my first and longtime favorite NFL team — a team that happened to be about 2,500 miles from my hometown.

In the late 1980s, I was a football-obsessed Seattle kid who was not a Seahawks fan. Later in life, whenever someone asked me about that, I would tell them it was because the Seahawks sucked at the time. But I’ve since gone back and looked at the books — and the Seahawks actually weren’t that bad. Seattle made the playoffs four times in six seasons from ’83 to ’88, and never had a losing record during that stretch. Why, then, did I have it in my head for so long that they were so bad? Maybe I’d been misled by listening to my Dad and my Grandpa and their buddies vent after losses (“Maaan, Seahawks ain’t no good…”). Maybe a typically cynical local sports media got into my impressionable young head. Maybe my standards for what is good softened over time, whereas 7-year-old me simply wasn’t tolerating any 9-and-7 BS the ‘Hawks had to offer. (Shout-out to Jeff Fischer.)

Either way, those Seahawks weren’t good or interesting enough to make me a fan as a kid, and so I was a free agent. Into that void of fandom ran Eric Metcalf. A star running back, kick returner, sprinter, and long jumper at the University of Texas, he was drafted by the Browns in 1989. Soon after, I found out that Eric Metcalf was from Seattle, and that he had played for the same little league football program that I would play for. And I wanted to be a running back, kick returner, sprinter, and long jumper. Thus, Eric Metcalf became my favorite football player, and the Browns became my favorite team.

I stuck with the Browns after Metcalf played his last game for them in 1994. I even stuck with the Browns after the whole team left Cleveland in ’95. When the franchise relocated to Baltimore and rebranded as the Ravens, rather than embrace a new team (or root for the Ravens), I simply didn’t have a favorite team for the next four years — until the Browns were brought back to Cleveland as an NFL expansion team in 1999.

The “new” Browns quickly became the laughingstock of the league, shuffling through head coaches and starting QBs at an alarming rate — which is why a lot of people didn’t really blame them for pouncing on an All-Pro talent like Deshaun Watson when he became available. And through all of that, I stuck with them. My sister even became a Browns fan along the way, after she moved to Ohio for college. The expansion-version Browns made the playoffs just twice (2002, 2020) and had a winless 2017 season. Names like Johnny Manziel and Josh Gordon and Hue Jackson became synonymous with football failure, and if any of them were voted into the Hall of Shame someday, they’d be inducted while wearing their Cleveland Browns gear.

As a fan, it wears on you. The losing, the letdowns, the laughs, the lower than low expectations. Some fans get angry when their team is bad on the field and poorly managed; some get depressed; some become hopeless. For me, eventually I just got bored. I was tired of the Browns. I was ready to see what else was out there. My NFL and my overall sports fandom needed a jolt. After giving every NFL team fair consideration, many missed the cut for various reasons.

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Just Doesn’t Do It For Me: Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans

Nothing personal, I just didn’t feel that spark or connection.

(I really try to avoid metaphors between sports and romantic relationships whenever possible, so I’m fully aware that the previous sentence sounded exactly like something someone would say on Love Is Blind or The Bachelor.)

Too Close to Cleveland: Pittsburgh Steelers, Cincinnati Bengals, Baltimore Ravens

When Sports Illustrated‘s Conor Orr, also a longtime Browns fan, did this same exercise recently, he wound up choosing the Bengals as his new favorite team. His runner-up was the Ravens. Orr admitted that he was done with the Browns thanks to the whole Watson thing, thus he liked the idea of rooting for one of Cleveland’s AFC North division rivals.

I’m not in that boat. Going with another AFC North team feels weird to me, since it’s not like I hate the Browns all of a sudden. I have family that still roots for the Browns and thus hates the Steelers, Ravens, and Bengals. Although I did knowingly commit a Browns-fan felony a few weeks ago when I bought a Lamar Jackson #8 Ravens jersey.

I Never Liked You Anyway: Denver Broncos, New England Patriots

In two of the NFL cities where I’ve lived (Seattle and Las Vegas), the local fan bases cannot stand the Broncos or the Patriots. When I lived in New York, they couldn’t stand the Patriots. Browns fans can’t stand the Broncos. I’m pretty sure I’ve rooted against Denver and New England in every Super Bowl (and probably every AFC title game) in which they’ve appeared. There’s just too much baggage for it to work.

Hard Knocks and Hard Choices: Detroit Lions, L.A. Chargers, L.A. Rams, Miami Dolphins

HBO’s Hard Knocks might be my favorite TV show of all time. Every year, the training-camp docuseries gives me some fringe NFL players who I’ll end up following for the rest of their careers, and at least for that one season, I can’t help but root for the featured team to do well.

A few Hard Knocks alums tugged at my heartstrings enough that I really considered them for the role of my new favorite team. But did it really have long-term potential, or was it one of those Hollywood showbiz flings?

Too Big: Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers

One of the factors that hurt the Yankees during my MLB process is that some franchises are too big of a brand, with too much history and too deep of a fan base, to just dive in and become a fan in your 40s.

It’d be like trying to become a fan of Army football or Navy basketball when you didn’t serve. Just leave them be over there and go a different route. You’ll never really be one of them.

Too Good: Kansas City Chiefs

As much as I like Kansas City the city, this would be too bandwagon of a pick right now. The Chiefs have been two each of the last three Super Bowls and won two of them, and have the league’s best player right now and probably for the next five years in Patrick Mahomes. Must be nice for those fans, though…

Y’all Gotta Change That Name: Washington Commanders

I’ve mentioned before that team names, mascots, and logos matter to me. Washington’s old name was bad enough that I can’t bring myself to buy any of their throwback gear. The interim “Washington Football Team” was just silly, and the Commanders isn’t much better. And then there’s this thing. It’s tough to claim a team as your favorite when you’re embarrassed to say their name out loud.

So that’s 26 teams down (including the Browns) and six remaining.

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The Finalists:

Atlanta Falcons — Every child of the ’90s and young adult of the 2000s liked the Falcons at least a little bit. Deion Sanders, Andre Rison, Jamal Anderson, Warrick Dunn, Iron Head Heyward, Michael Vick … there were a lot of years in that stretch when the Falcons may not have been the best team in the NFL, but they were the coolest. (Eric Metcalf also played for Atlanta for a couple years.) The uniforms, colors, and mascot are cool. The city is cool. And the team’s foundation is set up for years of future coolness with Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and A.J. Terrell as key building blocks.

Carolina Panthers — Cam Newton is (was?) my favorite NFL player of the last decade, and so I rooted for the Panthers a lot during his time with the team (2011-19, 2021). I love the colors, the mascot, and the uniforms. I could realistically see myself traveling to see a Panthers home game, since I have family that lives near Charlotte. (I even considered moving to Charlotte myself awhile ago.) Plus, a team that has never won a Super Bowl, or hasn’t won a Super Bowl in a long time, has a certain appeal of getting in on the ground floor as a fan rather than hopping onto an active juggernaut.

Jacksonville Jaguars — Big cat mascots will always have an edge with me. The Jaguars are another relatively new franchise (debuting in 1995 alongside the Panthers) that hasn’t yet won a Super Bowl and is still building its legacy, with a fan base that seems open and welcoming to new members. The team’s owner, Shad Khan, is the NFL’s only known Muslim majority team owner. And his son, Tony Khan, runs the All Elite Wrestling promotion, so that’s cool: A vote for the Jags is a vote for Sting and Samoa Joe and the Lucha Bros, and that’s OK with me. There are also family roots: My Grandma is from Ocala, Fla., and the Jags are the closest NFL team to that town. Although I’m pretty sure Grandma wasn’t a Jags fan.

Las Vegas Raiders — The Raiders were my Dad’s favorite team when he was a little kid growing up in Seattle, since the Seahawks didn’t exist until he was a teenager. So when I was growing up, I heard a lot from him about old-school Raiders like Jack Tatum and Cliff Branch. In my lifetime, the Raiders suited up Bo Jackson, Marcus Allen, Jerry Rice, Charles Woodson … players that I’ll tell my kids about. If they were still in Oakland, the Raiders might fit into the “Too Big” category, but their relocation to Las Vegas coinciding with my relocation to Las Vegas makes it work. I was thrust into daily Raiders coverage when I worked for the local newspaper, and while I don’t work there anymore, I’m still surrounded by Raiders talk and Raiders fans. The team currently has Ameer Abdullah, my favorite Muslim player in the league. The cool factor goes without saying — it’s THE RAIDERS — and the franchise’s whole ethos via the late owner/coach Al Davis aligns with my natural contrarian/renegade side.

New York Jets — The Jets have a lot going for them. They are the current subject of this season’s Hard Knocks. They have the NFL’s first known Muslim head coach (Robert Saleh). They have the best cornerback in the league (Sauce Gardner), which is a plus for me since I played corner back in my day. (Yes, I wanted to play running back and return kicks, but that didn’t work out.) There’s the New York connection, and for another piece of personal nostalgia: Every football team I played for in little league and in high school wore green. The Jets are getting a lot of mainstream attention right now thanks to Aaron Rodgers and HBO, but they aren’t good enough (yet) to be a bandwagon pick.

Seattle Seahawks — The hometown squad. As detailed above, when the Seahawks were sneaky good back in the day, I didn’t realize it. But when they became undeniably good, which started with their first Super Bowl run in 2005, I felt the impact the ‘Hawks had on the city. There was a definite shift in which Seattle turned Seahawks-crazy, and it hasn’t let up. I watched this team bring families together for Sunday get-togethers and bring the city together for Blue Fridays and for a Super Bowl parade in 2014. Thanks to my Dad and my brother and my cousins and my friends back home, I’m as familiar with the Seahawks roster as I am with any team in the NFL. If I still lived in Seattle, I could easily see myself finally becoming a Seahawks fan.

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On that note, I know firsthand the challenge of not being a fan of the local team when you live in an NFL city. Pro football dominates the scene unlike any other sport, and it’s easy to convert if you’re not wholly dedicated to another team.

My time at the Vegas paper put me firmly in the Raiders’ universe. I quickly found myself invested, even through the Jon Gruden mess, the Henry Ruggs III tragedy, the Derek Carr soap opera, and the huge letdown following the high expectations of Year 1 of the Josh McDaniels era. I became a fan of Josh Jacobs and Maxx Crosby and Davante Adams and Nate Hobbs. And that was only over the course of two seasons, now entering a third.

This one was more organic than any other process in which finding a new team was a real possibility; I gravitated toward the silver and black and just kept coming back.

My team: Las Vegas Raiders

(That’s not me. But maybe some day … ??)