I found it fascinating that there are so many fans of far-flung teams wherever you live. Not all of those fans are transplants. A friend of mine was born & raised in the same Northern Virginia county, and she was a life-long Seahawks fan. With the advent of satellite and then cable/internet, there were bars that would play every Steelers game or Seahawks game or Raiders game or Cowboys game etc etc etc. Those weren't just that one team on that one tv out of many, that game would be on every TV in the place. They would pack 'em in. Tribalism at its finest.
Up here the top three NFL fan bases are !) Seahawks, 2) Packers, and 3) Steelers. There are some Cowboy and Raiders fans, and even a few Eagles supporters.
I was fortunate enough to be able to see a bunch of games at the old RFK Stadium back in the Joe Gibbs/Norv Turner days. I may have mentioned I used to work in the same business park in Herndon where their practice facilities were, and would see the players out on the town all the time over the years.
I once was a true fan of the Oilers, until they tried to strong arm the taxpayers of Houston to build them a new stadium when they had the AstroDome already. I was glad to see them leave after all the freebies that made all of them a great living. They have never accomplished anything after they left. I am completely opposed to forcing taxpayers buy these expensive stadiums that only the already rich will get richer. Let them spend their own money on new stadiums, they seem to have huge sums of money to throw away. Now I like Kansas City and the Eagles because they have both had a very long drought since winning. I have always liked the poor Detroit Lions simply because no matter how many losses they always came to play hard. They love to make them play during the holiday it seems every year. I was hoping to see the Lions finally go to the super bowl before I die. I haven't batted less than 500 in my life because I finally got to see Houston win two World Series. Now I'm waiting for those easterners to make the claim they did something illegal. Yeah, they showed up and dared to beat the best of the best more than a few times.
John, I agree. Even the last drafted must be very talented. I also think something is missing in how the scouts rate the players. They currently emphasize physical attributes. This is one of the reasons given for how Tom Brady was drafted a very low number 199 in round six of seven. I checked Google and got these reasons for overlooking Brady: "He did not have the prototypical NFL body," said Don Banks of Sports Illustrated on the NFL Network. "He came out kinda skinny [and] they didn't think he was strong enough." Vic Carucci of NFL.com added that Brady "looked slow". Obviously, they were all looking in the wrong place for what makes Brady the GOAT. With all the AI we have these days, you would think the scouting would include AI to analyze the more subtle attributes that the great ones like Tom Brady have. AI should be able to discover those overlooked non-physical features that a Brady, a Montana, and all the other greats have. Go figure. There's more to winning football games than a physical body. They are leaving the mind and heart out of the equation. The search for excellence in any field reminds me a great movie I saw years ago called "Woman's World". The movie was about several high-level executives being auditioned to become CEO of a large auto corporation. The guy who had to make the decision about who to select was asked "What are you looking for?" He answered, "I am looking for the X+, where X is an unknown attribute of character and + is that extra something that sets the person slightly above and apart from the rest. When I find the one who has the X+, I will have my new CEO."
The arguments for building a stadium are only believed by fools and by those who have other reasons for believing. How many "jobs" re created when home games are played less than once a week during a few months out of the year? It truly is a scam.
Yeh, everyone is on board with making the low-risk decision. As you know, that applies to a lot of stuff.
Same with me, I also was a fan of Dallas with Tom Landry part owner and coach. He didn't allow any of this silly stuff you see today. I remember one game where Dallas was losing in the fourth quarter and one of the well known players was hamming it up for the TV cameras and Landry walked over to him and fired him on the spot. I truly believe Landry could see the writing on the wall and had enough of it. The thing about football that burns me up is all the players act like they flew to mars and back and are national heroes to actually do what they got paid to do in the first place. I mean how many human beings have ever scored a touchdown in American Football, it isn't rocket science. There are no NFL players that have any humility, a Jr High or High School team show more professionalism than the nfl. They are not allowed to act like a bunch of clowns in tiny little car. There are never any games today where you don't see someone jump up and point to the end zone after being dormant for an hour and finally made a first down. Sadly there are no sports I really enjoy any longer. I do like F1 but they do not televise in the US and unless you have ESPN you would have to subscribe to a foreign stream for seasonal F1. The technology is mind boggling with the cars of today. This past season one car went thru a steel barrier fence and burned for about 5 minutes and the driver was able to walk away with minor hand burns. It was no doubt the safety designed into the car. Once an open cockpit they now have full roll cage meshed into the cockpit to keep tires and wheels from hitting the driver. I think there are other divisions of road racing that are great but they don't have a large enough audience to be televised.
There's the next team name that needs to be changed. Maybe we can called them The Volts. It's better than Lithium Boys.
I was gonna throw out all the midnight bus trips that teams have taken over the years. I forgot that the Oilers had morphed. I guess "loyalty" is a one-way street.
I remember being pissed when the Raiders moved from Oakland in the 80s (I used to be a real football fan but those days are gone forever.) They were once and forever the "Oakland Raiders" to me. Of course they were the Oakland Raiders, then the San Francisco Raiders, then the Oakland Raiders again, and now the Las Vegas Raiders. Sheesh.
Used to be, but I don't know if they still hold that title. Baltimore and Cincinnati are in the running for the dirtiest teams.