I still wasn’t a football fan in the years that followed. Baltimore’s attempts to acquire a new football team flew right over my head. Franchises bypassing Baltimore for Jacksonville and Charlotte? Didn’t register. I barely remember failed plans to buy the L.A. Rams.

It took until 1996 for Baltimore to land a football team. While the acquisition didn’t occupy prime space in my brain, I do remember the irony of a city that hated losing their beloved Colts to Indianapolis doing something similar to Cleveland and their Browns.

The team officially became the Baltimore Ravens on March 29, 1996, exactly twelve years after the Colts left. Their name was chosen via a telephone survey of over 30,000 fans. “Ravens” won in a landslide, easily beating out “Marauders” and “Americans.” I thought that if asked, I would have chosen “Ravens,” too. I still knew nothing about football, but it was fun having an opinion about something so many people were talking about.

Two months later, at a packed event held at Baltimore’s Harborplace, the Ravens officially introduced their team logo, uniforms, and colors (purple, black, and metallic gold). Football was back in Baltimore. Although I still didn’t understand the game, I was beginning to understand the camaraderie that came along with it.

As years passed, I realized that despite my own football disconnect, I’d somehow raised Ravens fans. Game days were exciting for my girls. Listening to the whoops and groans coming from downstairs, I felt I was missing out by not watching with them. Wanting to join in was the last push I needed to finally learn the game.

I came for the camaraderie and the snacks, but I didn’t know the half of it back then. Obviously, being a Ravens fan meant instant community in Baltimore. I just didn’t realize how many fans I’d meet outside of Ravens territory:

Granville Island, Vancouver: My husband doubles back to the restaurant we just left to retrieve the Ravens windbreaker he left behind. The hostess whips around from behind the counter, windbreaker in hand. This native British Columbian is a die-hard Lamar Jackson fan eager to talk Baltimore football.

Thunder Bay, Ontario: We may be chillaxing at a place on the northwest shore of Lake Superior, but being Baltimore Ravens fans scores us a free beer flight from the general manager. The Ravens originally snagged him with their defense, and he’s never let go. His dream is to attend a game at M&T Bank Stadium.

Savannah, GA: On a Sunday afternoon, a Flock of Ravens fans gathers as usual at an outdoor bar to watch the game. This is where we meet a trainer for the Buffalo Bills who hopes his NFL career arc eventually leads him to Baltimore.

Reykjavik, Iceland: It’s a few days before Christmas, cold enough that my husband wears his Ravens knit hat. A car passes our part of the sidewalk. “Go Ravens!” its inhabitants holler out the window.

Of course, team recognition works both ways. My daughter’s choice to wear her Ravens hat in Philadelphia sparked a different sort of conversation as several Philadelphia Eagles fans assured us that their team would beat our team that season (I don’t want to talk about it). The exchange was good-natured … but maybe don’t wear the hat in Pittsburgh.

There’s a lot wrong with this world. There are problems with football, too, but rooting for the same team provides that rare opportunity when we’re all on the same side, hoping for the same outcome. I’d like to think that any time this happens, we have an opportunity to bridge some gaps and establish a more human connection.

A new NFL season starts today. Watch responsibly. Be kind. And – Go Ravens!

On the face of it, those are funny statements. Up until maybe ten years ago, I knew nothing about football. Other than the marching band, nothing anyone did on that field made any sense to me at all. It was like watching a foreign film without subtitles. But everyone else was having such a good time on game day that I decided to figure it out.

It wasn’t easy. It helped to break down the game into drives instead of trying to digest the whole thing at one time. It also helped to realize that nobody watching the game had all the rules at their fingertips all the time. That’s what refs and commentators were for. (That and yelling at, apparently.) But on January 12, 2013, all the pieces suddenly clicked into place. Listening to the radio broadcast of the AFC divisional playoff game between the Ravens and the Broncos, following along as Ravens QB Joe Flacco threw a game-tying 70-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jacoby Jones with under a minute left in regulation football, I realized that the reason I was totally swept into the game was because I actually understood what was going on.

Fantasy football adds a whole new dimension to following a game. Not only does it come with a slew of expected scores and stats, there’s a posted probability-of-winning percentage that changes throughout your fantasy game. You can be groaning over the 38% chance of winning it says you have one moment only to see that percentage rise to 95% based on a real-time combination of projected points, performance, and time left to play. My fascination with this number is as strange as my idiot-savant football acumen, because I have never been much of a math girl (go figure.) But maybe I’m interested because this probability-of-winning thing isn’t math. It isn’t even football. It’s life.

I don’t believe in predetermined fate. I believe that outcomes shift based on actions taken within each moment. Like the probability-of-winning percentage, future options arise based less on a plotted path than on choices offered and made within the present, each of which shifts based on the choice made in the moment before it.

In that 2013 divisional game, the Ravens were the 9.5-point underdogs to the top-seeded Broncos. They were coming off a three-game losing streak (one of them a 34-17 loss to the Broncos), while the Broncos had won their last eleven games. According to ESPN’s Stats and Information’s win probability model, Denver had a 97.2 chance of winning the game right before Flacco launched that 70-yard bomb of a pass. But by the time Ravens rookie kicker Justin Tucker lofted a 47-yard field goal in double overtime to win 38-35, the game had more than justified its name: the Mile High Miracle.

The Ravens went on to beat Tom Brady and the Patriots in the AFC Championship game before defeating San Francisco to win the Super Bowl title.

So many things could have gone wrong. But they didn’t.

We can’t control everything in our lives, and there’s never a guarantee we’ll get the outcome we want (or think we want) in each situation. But neither do we have to assume that what looks like loss or failure at a given moment is a done deal.

With that in mind, I will sign off; I have a fantasy football team to draft.