TheWhiskeyMiser
Active Roster
https://www.thrillist.com/entertain...in-the-nfl-patriots-raiders-seahawks-and-jets
You are who you root for. And from August to January in America, plenty of people are more likely judge you based on what jersey you wear on Sundays than they are to judge you based on your job, home state, underwear preference, and so on.
Because while some fanbases are pretty unobjectionable -- and, therefore, people you could actually see yourself being friends with -- others you make a point to avoid from Saturday night until Monday morning. And a good rule of thumb: the better the team, the more unpleasant the fans.
So, who are the folks we might invite over to our tailgate, and who are the ones we pray don’t sit next to us on an airplane? Our crack team broke ‘em all down, from the NFL's most pleasantly irrelevant fans to the league's most obnoxious.
15. Miami Dolphins
Listen, there, Al Bundy of NFL fanbases, at some point you have to stop responding to trash talk from fans from NY/NJ (who take up half your stadium) with “17-0!” That was FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO. And, yes, you’re the only fanbase in South Florida that’s not one losing season away from complete apathy, but most of your old-school fans are middle-aged guys who moved up to Lighthouse Point and Jupiter sometime in the 1990s -- and they're not so obnoxious. But you know who is? Your "new" fans who can’t name two players on the defense and come to Sun Life to take selfies at LIV. So basically, in half a generation, you'll be the same as Heat fans, and move up a solid eight spots on this list, regardless of whether you ever win another playoff game.
5. Philadelphia Eagles
Eagles fans are the people who get into fights at an 8-year-old girls’ T-ball game, possibly with an 8-year-old girl. They just enjoy spite and hatefulness for the sake of spite and hatefulness. Not to be all cliche (and, yes, we can see your eye-rolling now, Iggles fans), but you are a fanbase that booed Santa Claus, cheered when an opposing player got a career-ending neck injury, and threw batteries at the Easter Bunny. You can't deny that in the past, you have been HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE people. And really, what's changed? Definitely not your team's ability to win it all. But to be fair, having to watch games at Veterans Stadium would've hardened even the nicest of people -- there's a reason that place had a courtroom and jail cell on the bottom level. Must be something in the cheesesteaks. Hopefully all that saturated fat will alter your brain chemistry enough to convince yourself that Nick Foles can outfox Tom Brady.
4. New York Jets
Jets fans are to the NFL what New Jersey is to the United States; you carry a chip on your shoulder (comprised of 10lbs of Italian sausage and other assorted spiced meats) and anybody who dares question the greatness of your team is met with an overcompensating “J-E-T-S” cheer and possibly a punch to the gut. For some reason you are convinced Joe Klecko should be in the Hall of Fame, and Joe Namath should be on Mount Rushmore. But those delusions aside, at least you remain appropriately pessimistic about your team’s chances, since the last time you even sniffed the Super Bowl was before Woodstock.
3. Dallas Cowboys
For most of the past two decades, the Cowboys' die-hards' belief that they're still living in the First World of Fandom has been laughable. But on occasion, it's been insufferable. Would the Cowboys have had a snowball's chance in Miami at winning the Super Bowl had Tony Romo not muffed that snap against Seattle? Apparently the answer is "yes!" Was that 2007 team loaded at every position? Sure! Is this FINALLY the year Jason Garrett pulls a Bill Cowher and figures things out? Absolutely! As long as you don’t get screwed by a BS call in the playoffs... AGAIN. Cowboys fans used to say Texas Stadium had a hole up top because God loved watching the Cowboys, but isn't declaring God a fan of YOUR team pretty much the pinnacle of obnoxious?
2. Oakland Raiders
Right now there are at least 50 people in San Quentin Prison for something they did after a Raiders game. Possibly 100. The official team of the California penal system is a far cry from the renegade outlaws that got them their sociopathic fanbase, but your average Raider fan isn’t really as concerned with “winning” as he is with “beating opposing fans with blunt objects.” No lie: I’ve literally seen guys in Broncos jerseys with police escorts walking through the parking lot at O.co. A stroll through the concourses is about as close to spending a night in the Alameda County Jail as anyone should ever get, though at least in jail there’s somebody making more than $12 an hour around to protect you. And as you wade through empty liquor bottles after another home loss, there is a better-than-average chance you won’t be able to get into your car because somebody is being beaten up behind it. Things should only improve in Las Vegas.
1. New England Patriots
You did it. You really did it. Never before in the history of sports fair-weather fandom has there been a group as obnoxious as the Pats' fans. I’d like to rewind to the year 1993, when everyone was convinced the Pats would move to St. Louis and become the Stallions, and most Boston people COULDN’T CARE LESS. The Patriots were, for so very long, the bottom of the barrel in terms of local fan enthusiasm. The Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and all of the major college hockey teams in the Boston area all enjoyed more support than the Patriots. And then of course we know what happened. It became the year 2000 and Andover and Wesleyan graduate Billy Belichick started coaching, Drew Bledsoe got hurt, handsome Tom Brady stepped in, and the hapless Patriots started winning Super Bowls. And suddenly the fans came out of the Walden Pond woodwork.
Now everyone from Chelsea to Cochituate to Chatham claims that they’ve been die-hards forever, that they were huge fans during the Grogan and Tony Eason eras, that they know who Dick MacPherson is, and remember when fans used to hold up signs saying “Missing with Sisson” for kicker Scott Sisson. They shed accusations of cheating as if they are old John Hannah jerseys, even though everyone everywhere knows that Belichick is one of those guys who will cheat even while they’re winning just because it makes him feel clever. And so the calls of “P-A-T, Pats, Pats, Pats” ring out everywhere, and people still head to the town next to the town with the jail outside of Boston to watch their squad cooly go about the “Patriots Way” of mechanically winning games and refusing to sign beloved veterans because they would like to get paid more for bleeding for this team forever. But everyone knows you dyed-in-the-wool Pats fans are really just Bruins fans in Brady’s clothing. And deep down, you know it too.
You are who you root for. And from August to January in America, plenty of people are more likely judge you based on what jersey you wear on Sundays than they are to judge you based on your job, home state, underwear preference, and so on.
Because while some fanbases are pretty unobjectionable -- and, therefore, people you could actually see yourself being friends with -- others you make a point to avoid from Saturday night until Monday morning. And a good rule of thumb: the better the team, the more unpleasant the fans.
So, who are the folks we might invite over to our tailgate, and who are the ones we pray don’t sit next to us on an airplane? Our crack team broke ‘em all down, from the NFL's most pleasantly irrelevant fans to the league's most obnoxious.
15. Miami Dolphins
Listen, there, Al Bundy of NFL fanbases, at some point you have to stop responding to trash talk from fans from NY/NJ (who take up half your stadium) with “17-0!” That was FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO. And, yes, you’re the only fanbase in South Florida that’s not one losing season away from complete apathy, but most of your old-school fans are middle-aged guys who moved up to Lighthouse Point and Jupiter sometime in the 1990s -- and they're not so obnoxious. But you know who is? Your "new" fans who can’t name two players on the defense and come to Sun Life to take selfies at LIV. So basically, in half a generation, you'll be the same as Heat fans, and move up a solid eight spots on this list, regardless of whether you ever win another playoff game.
5. Philadelphia Eagles
Eagles fans are the people who get into fights at an 8-year-old girls’ T-ball game, possibly with an 8-year-old girl. They just enjoy spite and hatefulness for the sake of spite and hatefulness. Not to be all cliche (and, yes, we can see your eye-rolling now, Iggles fans), but you are a fanbase that booed Santa Claus, cheered when an opposing player got a career-ending neck injury, and threw batteries at the Easter Bunny. You can't deny that in the past, you have been HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE people. And really, what's changed? Definitely not your team's ability to win it all. But to be fair, having to watch games at Veterans Stadium would've hardened even the nicest of people -- there's a reason that place had a courtroom and jail cell on the bottom level. Must be something in the cheesesteaks. Hopefully all that saturated fat will alter your brain chemistry enough to convince yourself that Nick Foles can outfox Tom Brady.
4. New York Jets
Jets fans are to the NFL what New Jersey is to the United States; you carry a chip on your shoulder (comprised of 10lbs of Italian sausage and other assorted spiced meats) and anybody who dares question the greatness of your team is met with an overcompensating “J-E-T-S” cheer and possibly a punch to the gut. For some reason you are convinced Joe Klecko should be in the Hall of Fame, and Joe Namath should be on Mount Rushmore. But those delusions aside, at least you remain appropriately pessimistic about your team’s chances, since the last time you even sniffed the Super Bowl was before Woodstock.
3. Dallas Cowboys
For most of the past two decades, the Cowboys' die-hards' belief that they're still living in the First World of Fandom has been laughable. But on occasion, it's been insufferable. Would the Cowboys have had a snowball's chance in Miami at winning the Super Bowl had Tony Romo not muffed that snap against Seattle? Apparently the answer is "yes!" Was that 2007 team loaded at every position? Sure! Is this FINALLY the year Jason Garrett pulls a Bill Cowher and figures things out? Absolutely! As long as you don’t get screwed by a BS call in the playoffs... AGAIN. Cowboys fans used to say Texas Stadium had a hole up top because God loved watching the Cowboys, but isn't declaring God a fan of YOUR team pretty much the pinnacle of obnoxious?
2. Oakland Raiders
Right now there are at least 50 people in San Quentin Prison for something they did after a Raiders game. Possibly 100. The official team of the California penal system is a far cry from the renegade outlaws that got them their sociopathic fanbase, but your average Raider fan isn’t really as concerned with “winning” as he is with “beating opposing fans with blunt objects.” No lie: I’ve literally seen guys in Broncos jerseys with police escorts walking through the parking lot at O.co. A stroll through the concourses is about as close to spending a night in the Alameda County Jail as anyone should ever get, though at least in jail there’s somebody making more than $12 an hour around to protect you. And as you wade through empty liquor bottles after another home loss, there is a better-than-average chance you won’t be able to get into your car because somebody is being beaten up behind it. Things should only improve in Las Vegas.
1. New England Patriots
You did it. You really did it. Never before in the history of sports fair-weather fandom has there been a group as obnoxious as the Pats' fans. I’d like to rewind to the year 1993, when everyone was convinced the Pats would move to St. Louis and become the Stallions, and most Boston people COULDN’T CARE LESS. The Patriots were, for so very long, the bottom of the barrel in terms of local fan enthusiasm. The Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and all of the major college hockey teams in the Boston area all enjoyed more support than the Patriots. And then of course we know what happened. It became the year 2000 and Andover and Wesleyan graduate Billy Belichick started coaching, Drew Bledsoe got hurt, handsome Tom Brady stepped in, and the hapless Patriots started winning Super Bowls. And suddenly the fans came out of the Walden Pond woodwork.
Now everyone from Chelsea to Cochituate to Chatham claims that they’ve been die-hards forever, that they were huge fans during the Grogan and Tony Eason eras, that they know who Dick MacPherson is, and remember when fans used to hold up signs saying “Missing with Sisson” for kicker Scott Sisson. They shed accusations of cheating as if they are old John Hannah jerseys, even though everyone everywhere knows that Belichick is one of those guys who will cheat even while they’re winning just because it makes him feel clever. And so the calls of “P-A-T, Pats, Pats, Pats” ring out everywhere, and people still head to the town next to the town with the jail outside of Boston to watch their squad cooly go about the “Patriots Way” of mechanically winning games and refusing to sign beloved veterans because they would like to get paid more for bleeding for this team forever. But everyone knows you dyed-in-the-wool Pats fans are really just Bruins fans in Brady’s clothing. And deep down, you know it too.
