When the game is actually going on, Bills fans are mostly just run-of-the-mill, though even as I type that, I seem to recall an incident where a rather salacious foreign object was thrown on the field by a fan. The team has been mostly bad since the early 1990s, and the weather in Buffalo stinks for at least half of the season, so while loyalty in that kind of situation would normally be rewarded against that backdrop, I’m getting tired of all the videos of parking lot hijinks. Wrestling moves performed off vans and through flaming tables, copious amounts of alcohol being consumed, various other illicit activity occurring - and that’s just the parking lots! Bills fans are close to jumping the shark, assuming that shark is soaked with booze and about to be lit on fire. Oh, and they used to pipe in noise at the old RCA Dome. Now that Luck has retired, the team is just kind of there. Can you think of one defining quality that jumps out? They’re not rude or vile or particularly rabid or noteworthy in any memorable way. Indianapolis’ nickname is the “Crossroads of America,” which is a nice way of saying that the most interesting thing about the city is that a lot of people pass through it.
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What was their prize for being so bad? Only Andrew Luck, hyped as the best quarterback prospect since, wait for it, Peyton Manning. Fast forward about a decade and a half and, wouldn’t you know it, Manning was out for a year and the Colts were once again the laughingstock of the league. The team was only a few years removed from a near-miss in the 1995 AFC championship game when it sank to the bottom of the standings just in time to select Peyton Manning first overall. The Colts get docked here because they haven’t had to endure much in the way of hardship. That would be a sadder sentence to type if there were more truly passionate Dolphins fans out there.
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Truly passionate Dolphins fans spent most of the last seven seasons caring deeply about whether or not Ryan Tannehill would someday lead them to the Promised Land, only to see him nearly do it with the Titans last season. They even made the playoffs in 2016, just their second trip to the postseason since 2001. On one hand, it’s tough to blame them because the Fish have become a factory of mediocrity, churning out 7-9 seasons with metronomic consistency with a dash of 6-10 or 8-8 thrown in here and there to liven things up. “Should I go to the Dolphins game or go to the beach? Should I go to the Dolphins game or play golf? Should I go to the Dolphins game or kick back and eat some of the best food and drink some of the best drinks anywhere in the world?” That seems like a reasonable internal monologue for most Miami fans, who, despite the franchise’s major success under Don Shula, and longstanding tradition, don’t seem all that interested in the team. State Farm Stadium is routinely taken over by visiting fans, and really, when is the last time you thought, “Goodness, Arizona Cardinals fans sure do love their team? These folks are rabid!” Exactly. Despite those successes - and Kyler Murray's promise - fans still don’t seem to care.
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They got themselves a shiny new stadium, albeit in Glendale, won their division a few times, were two minutes away from beating the mighty Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII and even drafted and kept a surefire Hall of Famer in Larry Fitzgerald. Since 2006, though, the Cardinals have bordered on good.
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The franchise made a grand total of one playoff appearance in its first 20 seasons in the desert. You could understand the indifference of Cardinals fans back when the team played at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe and was largely terrible. Back when the Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys were together in the NFC East, Jerry Jones could count on having eight home games, seven road games and one de facto home game when his team traveled to Phoenix to take on Cowboys West.