The Soft Lounge Blog

Bills: I need A New Team Part II

For Part I of this story click here-now with a brilliant comment from Dizzy Ms. Lizzy, a native Buffalonian, and Jeremy-who rightly points out the short comings of rooting for the Lions and his amazement that they weren’t in the bottom eight.

Of course the bottom eight are much like a ring of Dante’s Hell-they are a special place where teams I loathe go to burn for all eternity.  The Lions, inept though they are, are not one of those teams.  Where will they fall on the list though?  The next eight teams-or do they rank even higher? 

Let’s find out!

So these would also, really, have no chance of me every rooting for them even though they aren’t in the “hate” circle.  A mix of teams that I either find blah or annoying.  Starting it off as the first of rest of the worst…

24.  Minnesota Vikings: It just bothers me that they are in the middle of Minnesota, where it snows like hell, and they play indoors.  The whole point of football along the North side of this country is to make other teams have to play in your shitty weather.  The dome is an atrocity (and the site of Super Bowl XXVI, which I also don’t care to remember.)

Add to that the Party Boat and the fact that they wear purple (easily the worst uniforms in the league) and yeah-not so much with the Vikings.  (They did lose 4 Super Bowls though, so I do have some empathy…but not much.)

23. Jacksonville Jaguars:  Something about this team bugs me-it might have to do with the fact that about every time the Bills need to get on a roll it’s Jacksonville that gets in their way.  This season not included,  Buffalo has dropped heart-breakers to this team (including last year’s playoff killer and the ’04 season opener that sent 75 Bills fans into an absolute emotional tailspin with the last play of the game).   Plus they are a Florida team-and I just don’t like Florida.  It’s like my anti-state, so teams from Florida are always hard for me to root for-which is why I rarely do. 

I do think Jack Del Rio is a good coach though.   Speaking of Florida though…

22.  Tampa Bay Buccaneers:  Sure the guy who owns the Bucs is from Rochester and also owns part of Mann U.  So what?  Site of Super Bowl XXV + Florida Team + John Gruden winning a Super Bowl his first year with Tony Dungy’s old team=a team I can’t root for.  And there are just too many letters in “Buccaneers.”  Plus I’d keep thinking of that stupid joke “how much do sailors pay for corn?”

Plus the memory of the old creamsicle uni’s will be forever burned in my mind. 

21. Kansas City Chiefs:  Nightmares of games we played in KC, Okoye the Nigerian Nightmareand Tony Gonzales.  I can’t really give you a very good reason I dislike the Chiefs, but I do dislike the Chiefs.  A history of underachieving and they also used to do that “Tomahawk Chop” thing like the Braves did-which was annoying  Maybe its all the red and yellow.  Nah, KC is no one to root for in my book. 

20. Tennesee Titans:  First of all, they took the Houston Oilers away-which was a team I loved to hate.  Secondly-the Titans?  Lame.  Third. Music City Miracle Mistake.  Revenge for the Comeback?  Maybe, but I do know that Buffalo hasn’t been to the playoffs since-making this the team (IMHO) that recursed the Buffalo Bills. 

This team would be much further down the list if I didn’t like Jeff Fischer and Warren Moon (who I always think of as an Oiler anyway) so much. 

19.  Arizona Cardinals:  The owner of this team is reputed to be one of the worst owners ever in sports.  I heard one story (that i can’t verify online) that he had players show up at a children’s hospital to sign balls and jerseys for the kids-and then charged the players for the balls and jerseys they signed.

Couple that with the fact that this team never does anything (except this year, I know) and well…blah.  I care not for the AZ Cardinals.  (The ass-kicking they gave Buffalo this year doesn’t help matters either.)

18.  Carolina Panthers:  First of all, pick a state.  Is it North or South Carolina?  Second of all, aside from the Outer Banks…why do I care?   Maybe its because years as a Big East guy I have an issue with the places where ACC schools (particularly Duke) come from.  But the Panthers?  The team that has Rod ”He Hate Me” Smart and Jake “couldn’t beat the frackin’ Patriots” Delhomme on their team?  While I do appreciate cheerleaders engaging in drunken sexual congress in public bathrooms (at least in the abstract), the mascot’s name is “Sir Purr.” 

17. New Orleans Saints:  This team is on the border between the top half and the bottom half of this list.  Why?  Because its a team from a city that I’ve never been to and has never particularly struck me one way or the other.  Frankly, I just don’t care at all one way or the other about this team-so that’s about it.  Stick it here in the middle.