October 23, 2009

NFL’s Most Annoying Fans - AFC South

This is the third in a running feature at ECB. We'll be rating NFL Fanbases by annoyingness and picking a winner for each division. After that, we'll select wild card teams, and have ourselves a little playoff. If you have suggestions for upcoming divisions or wildcard selections, send them to [email protected].  For previous entries, see here.

Indianapolis Colts

Quick Reaction: Colts fans somehow have the weakest reputation of any Midwestern fan base (other than the Rams).  This is almost certainly due to a lack of history, dome play, and Indy being a second-tier city. 

The most annoying feature of Colts fans is their unwillingness to listen to any criticism of Peyton Manning.  Most fan bases are a bit in the tank for their signal caller, but Colts fans love Pey-Pey a bit too much.

Houston Texans

 Quick Reaction: There’s always something a little annoying about expansion team fans.  You always question what they were doing before the team arrived.  Were they Cowboys fans?  College Football?  Astros? 

Expansion fans haven’t suffered together as a fan base for years, they have no shared experience, and everything still has that new car smell (even after 7 years).

Jacksonville Jaguars

jaguars fans

Quick Reaction: If you can’t sell out your stadium, I’m not sure if that qualifies you as annoying or just non-existent. 

Tennessee Titans

 Quick Reaction: Titans fans come across as relatively normal people, except they probably would spend far too much time telling you how the Grand Ole Opry is a great tourist attraction. 

Even though they’re still a relatively new team, I feel like the Titans developed an identity very quickly, which can help to make their fans less annoying (or sometimes more annoying).

The Big Winner

Jacksonville Jaguars - I considered giving them a pass because there aren’t enough of them to be annoying, but I’m sure there are tons of people walking around Jacksonville wearing Jaguars jerseys who can’t bother themselves to buy a ticket to a game that isn’t sold out.  And when you get down to it, that’s one of the most annoying things a “fan” can do.

4 comments:

DMtShooter said...

Um, Texans fans were Oiler fans who had their team ripped from them. They had stuff to do, once upon a time.

gpb said...

Houston is like Baltimore losing the Colts. I agree with Shooter. Or the other option is to apply the same logic to the Ravens.

A few years ago, I would have argued that Colts fans are bad simply because they talked up Peyton and complained about how he didn't have a ring. Besides, you can't really hate a man that led you 117-59 over his career (assuming he didn't miss a start).

It is a hard debate but it's between the Colts and Jags. I'm still surprised they can't sell out games because there isn't anything to do in Jacksonville. Why the ACC championship has been there boggles my mind.

Brien said...

Fair point about the Texans fans. This really is one of the less annoying divisions in football.

Although it's very odd that all the teams came to their cities in the last 25 years.

J-Red said...

This division really lacks annoying fans, but it's the division with no identity anyway. I mean, the "South" moniker doesn't really describe a division that spreads from both ends of the Gulf Coast and on to nearly the Great Lakes.

Still, I've met a bunch of Titans fans and never an annoying one. I've met a bunch of Colts fans and never an annoying one. I stayed in Houston for a few days in October while escaping Hurricane Ivan and never met a Texans fan. I've never met a Jags fan either.

We're all just waiting to get to the AFC and NFC East.