Part of being a true fan of a team involves a stubborn refusal to understand that the other team has fans of its own who care about their team as much as you care about yours. Impossible! The other team is nothing more than Opponent. When you are watching on Sunday afternoon, all you want to know is: How do we kill these guys? Whom do we boo? Die, humans wearing different colors than the colors for which I have grown accustomed to cheering!
We are here to help. With a slight nod to Drew Magary’s Why Your Team Sucks series, we want to give you three people to scream at on the television every Sunday, peppering Cheetos flecks in every direction. The Giants play the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Here’s whom to boo on the Eagles.
Michael Vick. Obviously. He ran a dogfighting operation in which dogs were electrocuted, drowned, shot, and hanged. He introduced the world to the concept of the “rape stand.” He lied about the whole thing and, for good measure, tested positive for marijuana while awaiting sentencing. You’d hate this guy even if he weren’t playing football for a bitter rival. But he is. If it’s possible, hate him just a bit more on Sunday.
Ron Mexico. This is how big a jerk Michael Vick is: He’d be on this list even if he wasn’t responsible for the murdering of dogs. You’ll recall that back in 2005, during his Atlanta Falcons days, a wonderful little lawsuit was filed in Gwinnett County, Georgia, alleging that Vick passed along Herpes Simplex 2 to his accuser, and admitted that he’d known he’d done it. (According to the lawsuit, “Ron Mexico” was the alias Vick used while seeking treatment.) The two parties settled in 2006, and tragically, that officially licensed Mexico No. 7 jersey your ordered never arrived.
Donovan McNabb. During last season’s playoffs, with the Eagles comfortably in the lead, McNabb followed an eight-yard run by going out-of-bounds and picking up one of the phones to the Giants’ coaches’ box. Perhaps the incident was silly — coach Andy Reid laughed about it after the game — but the Giants didn’t find it very funny. During the off-season, they had a photo of it hanging in their locker room to remind themselves of the loss and (one would hope) to build up record levels of hatred toward McNabb, which they can act upon on Sunday.