If You Couldn't Be A Viking Fan. . .

Hello and happy Saturday to all of you out there. With the weekend plodding on with no real news of any significance, I thought I'd pose another in what could become a series of hypothetical questions.

We know that we're all here because we're fans of the Minnesota Vikings, the team that we've been fans of for as long as we have been for whatever reasons we might have. However, this question involves the other thirty-one teams in the National Football League. Specifically, the question is this:

If you couldn't be a fan of the Minnesota Vikings (for whatever reason), what NFL team would you pick up as your team?

Personally, I think my interest in the National Football League would drop considerably if I couldn't cheer for the purple and gold on Sundays. I'm not sure how big a fan I could be of any other team. However, if I had to pick one, I think the choice would be pretty easy.

If there were no Vikings, or I couldn't cheer for them, and I had to pick a new team. . .I think that team would be the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Steelers, to me, represent one of the most stable franchises in the National Football League. Since 1969, exactly three men have coached the Pittsburgh Steelers (Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin). They rarely have the drama that a lot of teams have (though they're not completely immune from it), and it's rare for them to have long stretches where they're languishing at the bottom of the league.

Also, from watching games on television and my interactions with other fans both before and since I began running this website, Steeler fans are the best fans in the NFL. (Well, the best non-Viking fans, obviously.) They're always well-represented at road games, and I expect them to be quite well-represented when the Vikings and Steelers clash in London this September.

So, if for some reason I could no longer be a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, I think the Steelers would be my choice.

I'm not sure if this is something anyone else has thought about. I've never really been big on the concept of having a "second favorite" team or anything, and I wouldn't call the Steelers that. It's more about the level of respect I have for their franchise and how they conduct business.

What are your thoughts, ladies and gentlemen?