It’s like people think that the only way to be a “true” fan (whatever the hell that even means) is by being completely oblivious to all of your team’s faults.

Yes, I’m hard on the 49ers. Yeah, I often show a flare for unconventional expectations and I haven’t been known to laud my team with outright praise even on the rare occasions when things do go right. Does that make me any less of a fan? Of course not.

Hang out with me during a 49er game and you’d see: I yell and throw shit at the tv when the 49ers screw up; I get up out of my seat and cheer when they score; I get nervous on crucial 3rd downs and during the 4th quarter of close games. I’m probably more animated than most 49er fans during the games – you could probably even pick that up from the gameday threads. I may not talk up my team much during the week, but during those 60 minutes of regulation play, there’s no bigger optimist than myself.

To question my fanhood because I have a less narrowed view of NFL football, or because I like to look at my team analytically, rather than through rose-colored glasses is just stupid.

Would you accuse Earl woods of not loving his son, Tiger? He drove his kid towards success in what some would consider a pretty ruthless fashion, but just because he held his kid to a higher standard and constantly pushed him to get better doesn’t mean that he wasn’t supportive of him. The reason that I see the faults and flaws of my beloved 49ers whenever I watch a game is because I see the potential for them to improve. I see how and where they can get better, and I don’t rest satisfied until I see that change made. I don’t sit there and say “yeah, sure, we had a ypc average of 0.3 for that game…but at least we stuck with it!” F that. What good is that thought process? I’m not going to comfort and console a team that isn’t playing as well as they can. I’ll come out of that game saying, “We sucked and we’re going to keep sucking until we fix this,” and I’ll say that because I’m a fan.

Really, I shouldn’t have to validate myself to you at all. I mean, who the hell are you? What have you done for me or this team of ours that should give me any reason to care about what you think? I just feel that it’s pretty pathetic that you can look at one of your peers – someone that you have a very unique connection with, in fanhood – and your first reaction to their differing views is to accuse them of being some kind of phony or traitor.

Go ahead and doubt my allegiance to this team if you want. I’ve been bleeding red and gold for as long as I’ve been crawling, and I will someday die an old man with the same sense of loyalty to this team. Your attempt to discredit this part of me speaks volumes about the type of person that you are outside of the football realm, and I have no desire to present to you even the slightest bit of respect for it.

Grow up.