I feel your pain.  Your team sucks, every year, year after year.  You get your hopes up in the off-season only to watch them be dashed by week 7.  Every year it's a new coach, a key free agent, a top draft pick and each year you think "we're on our way" and each year it's the same old story.  Maybe you have a decent year and think steps are bing made and thenthe next year it's back to 5-11 and despair.  I actually think those brief glimpses of a possibility make the inevitable failure that much more painful.  Maybe if your team was horrible you would find something better to do on Sundays and it wouldn't bother you as much but no, it does and you and millions more like you, watch every week, listen to the radio, read the web sites...for that one glimmer of hope you will never find.  Right about now you are saying, "I agree with you 100%, well...except my team.  We're different.  You'll see this year."  But in the bottom of your heart, and maybe you'll never admit it, this is about your team too.

I wish I had an answer for you but I don't.  I'm lost.  Please, help me to understand.  Take the Patriots and the Eagles.  I will take nothing away from these teams.  They are great and they have talent but can you look me in the eye and say these two teams have been the most talented each year?  Hardly.  Yet these have been probably the two most consistent teams in the NFL for years now.  And I would include Denver in that list.  There are plenty of talented teams in the league that don't make the conference championships about every year. Yet there are other very talented teams that are lucky to eek out a 500 season each year.

Look at the Cardinals.  They have won just a single playoff game since 1960.  So you don't have to count, that's 46 years and I have no idea how I counted that high on my fingers since I only have 10 of them.  You may have less fingers if you took wood shop in high school.  The Cards have only appeared in the playoffs in four seasons during that time period.  Last year I was crucified by die-hard Bengals fan after I commented that they don't have the best ownership in the league and that the team suffers because of it.  I also said that while the Bengals had the talent, I've been here before, thinking the Bengals were on the rise only to see them slip back to mediocrity.  Last year they went 8-8 and failed to make the playoffs despite having one of the most talented offenses in the NFL yet, being a dignified winner, I resisted posting on the Bengals fan boards "I told you so."  But maybe this year will be different.

After two good seasons early on, Tampa Bay hits a serious quagmire with 14 losing seasons in a row, 13 of them having at least 10 losses.  Then Hugh Culverhouse dies, the team gets bought by Malcom Glazer and they become winners.  So are we expected to believe that the Buccs had 14 unlucky seasons, or bad coaches or were missing one or two pieces of the puzzle or does ownership really make more of a difference on the field than we thought? With the exception of the miracle Super Bowl season, the Raiders have been stranded on the side of the NFL road for a long time and look at their ownership, Al "Can I have More Hair Gel, Please" Davis. Just Win Baby has been long since been replaced.

No matter how much talent they have had in recent years, Detroit is still Detroit.  In 2001, the Lions hired Matt Millen as CEO and the Lions haven't been the same since.  In fact, from the time Millen was hired in 2001, it took Detroit until September 12^th, 2004 before they won a single road game.  That's 3 years + folks.  Yet William Clay Ford awarded Millen with a contract extension before the 2005 season.  Does Ford actually believe Millen is a puzzle piece away from a Super Bowl or does Matt do better at minding the bottom line than previous CEOs?  Is Millen's incredible, 24-72 record merely a stepping stone on the way to becoming the next NFL Dyansty?

I have said often times before that you shouldn't be able to buy a professional sports team unless you can wipe your butt with $100 bills.  I don't want my team making business decisions that save money but hurt the team.  I don't want my team to have even 45 cents left under the salary cap each year.  I want my team to win and in winning it increases team value, merchandise sales, etc.  That's where the money is, not trying to cut corners but by putting the best product possible on the field and winning.  But money can't be the only answer here either.  Lord knows Dan Snyder has done all but buy a Lombardi trophy since he took over yet that hasn't helped the Redskins any.

So if someone can tell me what Robert Kraft and Jeffrey Lurie have that most of the other 30 NFL owners don't, please tell me.  And don't take the easy way out and point only to Andy Reid and Bill Bilichick.  Don't point to McNabb and Brady.  Yes, they have talented teams and great coaches but there has to be something else, something else we are all missing.  Those organizations field good teams and produce great seasons.  Years when other teams would have died about week 7, these guys still make the playoffs.  So what is it really about these teams that produces consistent winning seasons?  Maybe it's something that could be bottled?  If so, please send a case to Jerry Jones and charge it to the Underhills.