I think of an interesting question:  Why remain loyal to a franchise?

I think remaining loyal to a franchise is much like that of remaining loyal to your country.  Even during bad times you should stand by them because they gave you plenty to hope for during the good times.

But as a 26 year old male, I have not really seen the Dolphins go through many good times.  I remember picking up Tecmo Super Bowl at a friends house.  I was being babysat and my friend was (is) a huge Bengals fan.  He asked his dad if we could play, and since they were orange and already taken I started looking for other teams with orange.

For those of you who have never played the game, the AFC team selection looks like this:

As you can see it didn't take me too long to see how far it took to go from Bengals to Dolphins.  Part of it was me asking his dad if "Is this team any good?" and he said "Yeah, they have one of the best players in the game".

Easy decision.  And I've been loyal ever since, despite my few years of not watching football for whatever reason.  I can't remember exactly when I got back into football but it was during between the end of the 2007 season and the 2008 draft.  Apparently my memory recalling going through the 2007 season must be from some jerk telling me the Dolphins sucked at 1-15.  I knew it was a horrible record, I'm no idiot.  Horrible is kind of an understatement, right?

At any rate I remember being thrilled Parcells was in town,  hearing about the "Pillar of defense" and Chris Long vs. Jake long.  I had no idea what those positions were but from what I could gather one of the two was going to us via a lot of people's opinion and from the articles I was reading it was saying we would pass up on Ryan because we needed to rebuild the lines.  That was an Andy Cohen article.

I remember watching us pick Jake Long and hearing a smattering of boos and cheers and the announcers saying that it all starts on the line and the offense is built around the left tackle.  That made me pretty happy.  Then Chris Long went second and Ryan third so I knew we were in the right market, or thought at the time.  Now, it seems to be right.  IMO we picked right in Long.  Not that Chris would have been a bad decision, as he has been a lot better on the left side than the right, or that Ryan would have been a bad pick, but from what I know now we had  no line then.

So fast forward to this draft.  I'm thrilled we picked Pouncey.  Everyone else I'm taking a wait and see.  I think as a rule linemen have less of a chance to bust than other positions, so I'm not so worried about him.  (But cue Tony Mandarich here).

Now we come to the lockout, which threatens the entire sport.  The lockout is the hunter and the NFL is the endangered animal.  I originally told myself that I wasn't going to write an article here before that was figured out but I'm beginning to think it may take a while, so to write one because I told Jerry I'd do them frequently came to mind and I decided to ramble about this.

So, why am I loyal now?  We've had 11-5 and two 7-9s.  As it is with everything in my life, it's a hope for the future.  I have infinite hope.  Here are a few of mine this year regarding the Dolphins and the NFL:

NFL Lockout ends
Odrick comes back healthy and remains that way.
Pouncey pans out
Our defense remains dominant
Our offense gets a whole lot better
We win the division
The AFC Championship game
and, as always, the Super Bowl.

If half those pan out I'll be happy.  Hell, if none of those pan out I'll be happy because I have a good life.

What I want to know is, why are you loyal?