A Call To Losing Sports Teams

What do you do if you're a die-hard fan of a losing team?  Six weeks into a 17-week NFL season; the Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions have a combined 4 wins. Between the six teams, they have played 33 games and have again, 4 wins. If history teaches us anything, it typically takes 10 wins for any team to make the NFL playoffs. Sure, realistic expectations weren't for any of these teams to compete for the Super Bowl, but fans at least want a competitive product on the field. But 'how competitive?' is the new question.  With no realistic chance at the playoffs, what are fans now to do? Most fans would (and as they should) do the same: come out every week and cheer on their team in hopes of a victory. The reality in modern football, however sad some might feel about it, is that fans some will cheer, albeit quietly or perhaps secretly, for their team to lose in order to secure a better draft pick once the season ends. With some fans, you won't hear it aloud, but if you look at them closely the morning after a meaningless win, you can see a sense of bittersweet disappointment as they look at the updated standings in the newspaper and they realize that that win lowered their team's draft pick by 4 positions. The team could fall even 1 spot lower on the draft ladder with a win, but still fans will realize that the odds now of getting that star quaterback from college next year are still that much lower. It's past the point of no return. These fans can't be pleased and they can't be saved.. until the next year.

So what remains for these diehard fans to get excited about with a losing team?

At first, there was the pride of not being too bad: so bad that the team's inability to win would be remembered in highlights and record books 30 years from now. Every Miami Dolphins fan went through an incredible ordeal in the 2007 season. No NFL team had the distinctions of an 0-16 record, and the Dolphins were 0-13 with 3 games to go, the final two games against top quality teams. In week 14, Miami finally (in overtime for added suspense) secured their first and only victory that season over an embarrassed team from Baltimore. The nightmare was over in Miami and fans agreed never to speak of it again and that 2007 year has likely been erased from most fans' memories.

Then the following season, as if inspired by the 2007 Dolphins, the Detroit Lions set out to succeed where the Dolphins failed. It's as if the Lions organization was saying to football fans, "You think the 2007 Dolphins were the worst team in history? Pleeeeeze! Have you no faith? We are the Lions! And we are, and forever shall strive to be, the worst organisation in the history of football. Just you watch." Or how about a real quote from comedian-turned-commentator Dennis Miller: “Detroit’s so bad this year, they might lose their bye week.” That 2008 season, the Lions achieved the unachievable. They quietly had a perfect season: 0-16. And no one, Lions fans included, was surprised.

So with the distinction of worst team ever solidified in history, what are fans to fear from a losing team this year so long the result is an ever better team the following year? The players won't stop competing, as at this point they're playing for bonuses, or even auditioning for their own job again next year. Some fans might cheer against them for "The Greater Good," of this coveted draft pick, but this argument doesn't hold water for all. "The reality is that many fans will cheer for their team to lose to have a higher pick for them to boo on draft day." I'm pretty sure a New York Jets player said something like that. Other teams, like the Bills, have fans cheering maybe just to keep the team in Buffalo and prevent a permanent move to a cursed (and uninterested) Toronto sports market in Canada. Most fans of losing franchises, however, are just plain tired of talking with the average football fan and having this common interchange:

"Who's your favorite team?"
"The Detroit Lions"
"..... I... I'm sorry."

For me, the only thing more exciting than a #1 draft pick, is a W: any win on any week, or every win on every week. Just win. Not for the Super Bowl this year. Not for bragging rights. Just for the real fans, like myself, who sit in front of their TVs and subject themselves every Sunday to 3 hours of torture in cheering for the lost cause. Give us a reason to get excited again, and do it every week, not every offseason.

aa.