The Ten Most Insufferable Fanbases in Football, Ranked
This is not a ranking of bad teams. Bad teams are fine — bad teams are most teams. This is a ranking of fanbases you would not want to sit next to, which is a completely different measurement and one nobody keeps official records on.
Arguments in the comments. That is the point.
10. Green Bay
A town of 107,000 people that has convinced itself it is the spiritual capital of a nation. They own the team, which they will tell you. They will tell you in the parking lot, on the plane, and at your cousin's wedding.
9. Pittsburgh
Six trophies, the most recent from the 2008 season, and a towel they wave like it is a religious object. Every bar in America has one Pittsburgh fan who moved away in 1994 and never stopped talking.
8. New Orleans
Genuinely one of the best cities on earth, and a fanbase that has spent seven years explaining one missed call to strangers. It was a bad no-call. It was also seven years ago.
7. Kansas City
Nothing is more tiring than a fanbase in the middle of a good run that thinks it is a permanent condition. Ask them about the officiating and watch the temperature change.
6. San Francisco
Five titles, all before most of the current fanbase could drive, and an inexhaustible supply of reasons why the most recent loss did not count.
5. Seattle
The loudest building in the sport, and a fanbase that materialised more or less entirely in 2012. Ask one where they were in 2009 and enjoy the pause.
4. New England
Two decades of winning did something permanent to these people. The dynasty ended and the personality did not. There is also the small matter of the camcorder.
3. Philadelphia
In their defence, they do not claim to be nice. They threw batteries at Santa Claus, they boo their own draft picks, and they climb greased poles. Self-aware, which helps, and still exhausting.
2. Dallas
The nickname was handed to them by a highlight reel in 1978 and they have been quoting it ever since. Last title: the 1995 season. Thirty seasons of January silence and not one ounce of humility lost along the way.
1. New York
Two football teams, neither of which plays in New York, and a baseball team with twenty-seven banners that somehow gets raised in conversations about football. The confidence is not attached to anything current. It has not been for a while.
Who did we get wrong?
Every one of these has a shirt, and the ones that do not yet will. If your city is missing from this list and you think it belongs there, that is usually a sign you are the one being talked about.
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