A – Many of you have been saying I\u2019m an idiot for a long time.
\nB – Chiefs fan, you might want to skip this one.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been claiming, for years, that I\u2019ve shed many of my sports superstitions. And that\u2019s true to a point. Back in the glory days of my superstition-dom, game days involved elaborate ceremonies of picking the correct clothes, going through proper pre-game activities, finding the correct seat, saying and thinking the proper things before the game, and so on.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all that shit I\u2019ve (mostly) dumped. When the games begin, though, I can still be quite the freak. I change seats at halftime to try to improve my team\u2019s luck. If my team is playing well, I won\u2019t move, even if that means I have to sit in the same uncomfortable position for an hour-straight. Do I really need to use the restroom? Because we just scored ten straight points and I\u2019d hate to ruin that.1<\/a><\/sup> I\u2019m convinced Michigan made their comeback against KU last March because I switched beers late in the game.<\/p>\n So I still have some issues.<\/p>\n And those issues reared their ugly head Saturday.<\/p>\n When the Colts-Chiefs game went to halftime, with the Chiefs leading 31-10, I flipped the TV over to Netflix and told the girls they could pick a movie. I was done. It\u2019s one thing for the Colts to get embarrassed at home in the playoffs. It\u2019s another for it to happen against the Chiefs, my hometown team that I never had much love for.<\/p>\n They kicked off a movie, I grabbed my Kindle and started reading. After about 20 minutes I checked the score. Hey! The Colts scored. But, wait a minute. They\u2019re still down 21. I scrolled back through the game summary to see Andrew Luck had thrown a quick interception and the Chiefs cashed it in for another TD.<\/p>\n Back to my book.<\/p>\n I checked a while later. The Colts had cut it to 14.<\/p>\n Normally, when I turn a game off in disgust and my team begins coming back, I start doing mental math. \u201cIf they get within XX points, I\u2019m turning the game back on.\u201d I did not go through that process Saturday. Even with the Chiefs\u2019 long history of playoff heartbreak, I didn\u2019t think there was a way they would blow this game.<\/p>\n At next check it was down to 10. The girls\u2019 movie was just about over and I realized I might have a dilemma. The Colts had played like shit when I was watching and had just cut a huge deficit down to a reasonable one. Could I turn this game back on, and risk blowing it?<\/p>\n Uh-oh. Now it was three points.<\/p>\n We took the girls up to bed and I checked again. The Chiefs kicked a field goal to stretch it to six. In the 30 seconds it took to walk back down to the basement, Luck hit T.Y. Hilton and the Colts were up one.<\/p>\n I groaned and yelped and cursed.<\/p>\n S.\u00a0gave me a look.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Colts are coming back and because of my stupid rules, I can\u2019t turn the TV back on,\u201d I muttered.<\/p>\n She just shook her head.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re ahead! They were down 28 points! And I can\u2019t turn it back on because I don\u2019t want to mess it up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSounds like a dumb rule to me,\u201d she said. \u201cSeems like it\u2019s a good way to miss a great game.\u201d<\/p>\n I checked the score one more time. The Chiefs were driving.<\/p>\n \u201cSee, now I can\u2019t turn it on. If I do, and the Chiefs score, it clearly has something to do with me watching.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve told you this many times, baby…You\u2019re. Not. In. The. Game.\u201d<\/p>\n I stared at my phone screen, waiting to see how the Chiefs\u2019 drive ended. The moment I saw they had turned the ball over on downs, I flipped the TV on. Thanks to the delay on Yahoo, I only saw the Colts running off the field in celebration. Which served me right.<\/p>\n What a game, what a comeback, what an amazing entry in both the Colts\u2019 history and Andrew Luck\u2019s personal story. You can argue, next to the Super Bowl win and the comeback in the AFC title game that year, this is the third biggest Indy sports moment since we moved here. And I fucking missed it because of my stupid, idiotic superstitions.<\/p>\n So yeah, I\u2019m an idiot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n