Other than New York City, whose citizenry must choose between the Giants and Jets, few American communities have reason to be as split regarding their National Football League allegiances as Chattanooga.
Depending on where you live in the Scenic City, you're no more than 150 miles from Nashville and the AFC's Tennessee Titans, or no farther than 130 miles from Atlanta and the Falcons.
That makes choosing a primary rooting interest difficult, even though the Falcons have been around three decades longer than the Titans.
Yet when it comes to guessing which will have the better 2011 season, it is becoming increasingly easy to predict that the Dirty Birds will soar while the Titans snore.
For proof, just look at this past weekend. Continuing its quiet, wise, efficient formula for building a championship team, Atlanta re-signed veteran all-purpose back Jason Snelling to a one-year deal.
The Falcons are so deep at running back that Snelling's not even assured of smaking the squad for a fifth straight season, but the following words from quarterback Matt Ryan strongly hint that he'll be on the opening-day roster.
Said Ryan, "Jason's done a great job for us in the past. He's kind of a jack of all trades. He's a great player."
Then there are the Titans.
It could be argued that their two best players entering this season were cornerback Cortland Finnegan and running back Chris Johnson. Some might even lament that those two are their only two All-Pro quality players, though Finnegan's 2010 season was anything but award-winning, given the 2008 Pro Bowler picked off but two passes all year.
So what are those two up to not two weeks into training camp? Well, Johnson is yet to show, despite being under contract. And Finnegan walked out of camp Saturday morning without notifying coaches, teammates or front office personnel.
He did later Tweet that it was a "personal matter," but that didn't exactly smooth things over with new coach Mike Munchak or general manager Mike Reinfeldt.
"The important thing is that [Johnson and Finnegan] are under contract," Reinfeldt told the media on Saturday. "Usually you have holdouts on guys that have not signed contracts, draft picks, franchise guys. These guys have contracts."
Worse still, while Finnegan maintains that "Titans officials were aware of" the reasons for his absence, Reinfeldt said nothing could be further from the truth.
"We were totally surprised he turned around and left camp," the GM said.
No wonder ESPN's Paul Kuharsky blogged on Sunday: "This falls into the M.O. of some of the Titans key players in recent years - Nothing is their fault."
You could lay some of this at the feet of former coach Jeff Fisher, who forgave too much in recent years without consequences - unless it was quarterback Vince Young needing the forgiving, of course.
While Munchak appears even more low key than Fisher, a quote from wideout Nate Washington a week ago deserves repeating: "Mike's not going to let anything slide."
From the tone of Reinfeldt's words, Finnegan may find out the Titans, already expected to be terrible, just might decide to explore just how much worse they could be without him.
As for Johnson, word has it he's out the door as soon as possible, concerned that being the lone reliable offensive weapon could leave him bruised and battered and out of the league far quicker than he'd like.
If you're Reinfeldt and Co., you just might start seeing what you could get for CJ today via trade that could help you tomorrow, or at least a year or two down the road.
The Falcons, however, are acting as if there is no tomorrow. They know their Super Bowl window could easily close after this year or next. So they retained four-fifths of their 2010 starting offensive line when they inked guard Justin Blalock last week. They added defensive lineman Ray Edwards to put more pressure on the passer and traded five draft picks to lock up wideout Julio Jones from Alabama with the sixth overall pick.
Said Blalock late last week of all those moves, "We're going to be a playoff team. That's not going to change. We've got a good thing going here."
Then there are the Titans.