St. Louis Rams: My "Camptown Race"...

"Going to run all night... Goin' to run all day..." Stephen Foster wrote a diddy in 1850. It was a humorous slant on races run, and still to be run.

I be sooo ignorant! I forgot just how to not have fun during the 2015 NFL season. I 'dun shoulda thought more about that "reality thing", shouldn't I? But then, what is reality, and who's is it? This one is mine, and I follow a team I've loved for years for one simple reason: It's fun!

Writing can bring out whimsy, drama, horror and passion. It all comes from a thing stuck inside that big bone ball at the top of our necks. Shake it too much, and, well, you get like my friend Brandon Bate. I, of course, am of sound mind, a thick skull, and even thicker skin. I smile knowingly - or unknowingly, depending on which reality I deem deserving - when some want to look at the St. Louis Rams for 2015 with less tinted rose colored than mine. Why?

First, let's take a simple fact that's pretty undeniable: You're reading this on a ST. LOUIS RAMS FAN SITE. It may be just me, but fans tend to like the teams they want to read about, eh? Second, I never understand how some can delve so thoroughly into their observational bag-'o-reasons to the point all they can see is darkness? Each year, players get better. They learn, grow, and the succeed or fail at their own pace. The Rams are once again the youngest team in the NFL. I'm jealous to a point too. How can they stay so damn young every year, and I get older? What the hell is up with that?

But youth takes patience, and so does watching a team grow into who they'll be in the NFL. Don't get me wrong, I've groaned and thrown a certain snack food in the air a time or two when my Rams have an "Oops!" moment. Yet, I'm a guy with a short memory when it comes to the NFL, simply because I know there's another play to watch, another game to look forward too.

The NFL isn't an easy place to be for teams, players and coaches alike. Second-guessing is the rule, and done more often than not by people who've never gotten close to playing professional football. I'm constantly amazed at the tension filled build-up before every NFL season begins. Worse still, their are these down right wizardly folks who seem to know how a player is going to perform before he even does? They don't have wands - like Harry "Scarface" Potter. In truth, they really don't have much more than anyone else. But they do have a reality they've built for themselves out of "inkling straw", past-performance tape, and a keyboard or two. Not really much to go on, right?

I often think about the razor's edge line between faith and futility. What kicks people over the edge to the point they no longer can see a long view that isn't saturated with shades of black and gray?

I'm a Rams fan. I'm a Jeff Fisher fan. I'm a Turf Show Times fan. I see light ahead, and wins for the team I love. I know what I don't know, and that thick skull 'o mine relishes the somewhat empty space not knowing much provides. Trusting coaches to train and choose players is what happens. Then fans band together to cheer, and groan at times too, when the game is on. The game isn't on - EVER - for those who don't have the strings of faith needed to love a team, no matter the record, or events of the past.

How about you? Is the game on for you? I know - absolutely KNOW - the game is on for me. It's time to play! O, de doo-da, day!