Who are you picking to Win the Superbowl? - NFL 2016-2017 Season

[Sommerswerd]

Anyone outside New England that wasn't a Pats fan before 2001 is a dirty bandwagon fan...

I would except kids under 10 from this. I think little kids are exempt from bandwagon rules...A little self-serving yes but its the accepted rule in my family... and how do little kids pick teams anyway? They get on the bandwagon with all their family/friends... I think that's OK as long as they don't try to climb off later when the music stops and the wheels fall off.

But generally yes, I agree.... provided that said bandwagoneer was older than 10 when they got on the bandwagon..

 

[schlaufuchs]

Let the church say Amen

I dunno dude. Can you really still call someone who's been following the same team for 16 years a "bandwagoner"?

Setting aside any and all (wholly justified) fudge Boston Sports Fans sentiment.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I dunno dude. Can you really still call someone who's been following the same team for 16 years a "bandwagoner"?

Setting aside any and all (wholly justified) **** Boston Sports Fans sentiment.

If they have been following a successful team and all indications are that when the success runs out they may well be right behind it...yes.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I dunno dude. Can you really still call someone who's been following the same team for 16 years a "bandwagoner"?

Setting aside any and all (wholly justified) **** Boston Sports Fans sentiment.

You got in before my edit, but yes, generally. See I differentiate "following the team" from "claiming the team"... If you want to keep up with the goings-on of (ie "follow") your local team, or a player you like, or a team that's gotten hot recently... by keeping up with the stats, cheering for them to win, betting on them, going to the games, whatever... knock yourself out... I fully expect anyone who lives in Tampa to "follow" the Bucs... how can you not?

However that is very different from claiming them as your team. Claiming "fandom" or "fan status" is when you start doing things like saying "My team" is the XYZs or when you talk about the team you speak as if you are a member of the organization, ie "we" won or "we" need a new QB... That is where the line gets drawn for me. Beyond a very young age...there is no bandwagon and switching around allowed (or respected/acknowledged) when it comes to that, at least not as far as I'm concerned.

And here's why... When a lifelong Browns fan gets mocked relentlessly because his team sucks... he can swallow that from a lifelong fan of some other team, because he knows that when that guys team sucks... be it next year, 5 years, or 20 years down the road, that guy is going to have to take his lumps for his team in return. There is some honor and equity in that, the idea that what goes around comes around, and everyone has to take his turn in the dunce chair getting mocked cause his team sucks. But the bandwagoneers sidestep all that... their team never sucks, because they just jump ship to another hot team whenever it suits them. Screw that... I'm not gonna accept any deriding from a guy about my team when he just keeps claiming the current reigning dynasty as his team. It's OK to get on a bandwagon a young child, because kids don't know any better. They have no concept of the fact that the team that is good now will suck later. But once you get to be an adolescent you are aware of this so all bets are off.

This is ESPECIALLY relevant as it relates to the Pats, because they are in an ongoing 15+ year dynasty. If you were originally claiming to be a fan of some other team as a kid, but then as a grown-ass adult you start claiming the Pats, I'm not acknowledging your fan status, ever... regardless of how long you've been riding the bandwagon. If you were 8 years old in 2001 and you jumped on the bandwagon, that's different, in that case its just good luck and I don't begrudge that, good on you. But you're 15, 20, 30 years old jumping on the Pats bandwagon?... please GTFOH.

I actually have a real life case of this in my family right now... A guy started claiming the Pats in 2006 when he was like 25 years old. No one in our family will acknowledge him as a Pats fan, not even my baby sis who is a real fan (since she was like 6 and Steve Grogan was the QB ). Basically anytime he tries to claim the Pats in front of any family members he gets mocked and booed and shouted down and relentlessly called out for being a ridiculous bandwagoneer.

 

[schlaufuchs]

:shrug:

imo the nefarious act is never to hop on the bandwagon. It's no crime to like to win. And most-everybody is going to have a story about when they "jumped in with their team" and that story is usually going to entail some time when that team was good. e.g.: I was always a follower of the SF Giants by dint of being a Bay Area native and the son of a Giants fan from 1962, however I didn't really hop on the Giants hype train full-time until 2007 when Lincecum came up. I jumped on the Giants bandwagon. Am I thereby a non-true Giants fan? What about the 49ers? I didn't hop on that train in earnest until Singletary's second year as head coach. Am I not a 49ers fan?

No. It isn't rooting for a good team that's dirty. The low-down rotten deed is jumping off a bandwagon. And when someone does that, I condemn them as they rightly deserve. But I prefer to give fans the benefit of the doubt. And honestly? I'll take the earnest bandwagoners any day over the crappy "trendy fans" we get here with the Warriors and Giants. At least bandwagoners can name all the players on the team. No scratch that. At least the bandwagoners understand the rules of the sport.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Perhaps a fair point. But the thing is you "jumped on a bandwagon" that you were already at least watching for. You are a bay area native and son of a Giants fan, and you tagged along but didn't jump on board until they were rolling...but notice that you didn't jump on board the A's bandwagon in 2006 even though you are a bay area native. Much more important, you didn't jump on that bandwagon and then say "oh, hey, the Giants are better so I'm over there now."

I have no problem with people in Chicago piling on the Cubs' bandwagon...except for the ones who were last seen cheering for the White Sox in 2005.

 

[Sommerswerd]

:shrug:

imo the nefarious act is never to hop on the bandwagon. It's no crime to like to win. And most-everybody is going to have a story about when they "jumped in with their team" and that story is usually going to entail some time when that team was good. e.g.: I was always a follower of the SF Giants by dint of being a Bay Area native and the son of a Giants fan from 1962, however I didn't really hop on the Giants hype train full-time until 2007 when Lincecum came up. I jumped on the Giants bandwagon. Am I thereby a non-true Giants fan? What about the 49ers? I didn't hop on that train in earnest until Singletary's second year as head coach. Am I not a 49ers fan?

No. It isn't rooting for a good team that's dirty. The low-down rotten deed is jumping off a bandwagon. And when someone does that, I condemn them as they rightly deserve. But I prefer to give fans the benefit of the doubt. And honestly? I'll take the earnest bandwagoners any day over the crappy "trendy fans" we get here with the Warriors and Giants. At least bandwagoners can name all the players on the team. No scratch that. At least the bandwagoners understand the rules of the sport.

Couple things... I will try not to TL;DR. Quick note... bandwagon fans are still fans... as long as they acknowledge that they are bandwagon I will mostly just let them be... mostly. It's the ones who jump ship from one team to another and then carry on like they are lifers, mocking the fans of other teams etc., that I will lambast without mercy.

Most importantly, your qualifiers, "always a follower", "bay area native", "son of a fan", "didn't really", "full-time", "in-earnest"... all that stuff indicates that you're a lifelong SF fan who wasn't that big into sports as a kid and got more into it with age. Bottom line, I'd call you a legit SF (Giants or 49ers) fan any day of the week... As a general thing, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt/presumed-fan status for their local teams until they say otherwise... seems silly not to, from my perspective.

The last thing is that I am a little sexist in my perception of "fandom" in the sense that when I was growing up, literally every little boy, friends, cousins, siblings, schoolmates, etc, had their "big three" (NFL, NBA, MLB) teams declared in elementary school, basically to a man (boy). The girls, not so much... they mostly couldn't give a crap about sports at that age. I find that ladies are just less interested in big three sports overall, so it seems dumb to hold girls to the "10 year rule"... so we don't, at least not in my family. It's understood that girls can declare fandom whenever they get around to caring about sports... for my Mom, this was well into middle-aged life, when not-surprisingly, her sons started playing football. Not sure whether this is relevant to you or not, but there it is.

In any case, the point, as you correctly identified, is that once you declare for a team, there is no switching allowed.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm picking the Patriots to win the Superbowl.

Speaking of bandwagon fans, I'm not a Patriots bandwagoner. I've made my peace with Brady and Belichek and their cheatin' ways. My main reason is the retirement of Peyton Manning who I was a huge fan of. Patriots had his number on too many occasions, so I had to hate them. Now I am free to root for them.

I'm rooting for the Patriots because I want to piss the liberals off who hate Brady and company. Not that I am conservative mind you, I voted for Clinton. I'm just having fun seeing liberals blow their gaskets the past few months. The only positive aspect of Trump winning the election. Sorry, no more politics talk, I couldn't resist a little since they are all rooting against Brady and the Patriots.

A big reason I started liking Brady more was an article I read a few months ago declaring Brady the best quarterback ever. Not just one of the best, but THE best. I really couldn't disagree with the article, and I have accepted the conclusion of the article. Brady is the best quarterback to ever play the game. Of course if Peyton Manning was playing against him, I'd have to root for whatever team Peyton was on.

 

[Disgustipated]

Argh, why does every team I root for lose? Except last year of course. But I still wasn't happy with the way Denver won. 1 passing touch down would have been nice to close out a career. Manning's stats were horrible.

And the commercials are absolutely horrible. I miss the days when politically incorrect commercials were allowed. Commercials now days are feel good commercials with no humor whatsoever.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This is going better than I had dared to hope. Now the big potential highlight left to hope for would be Tommy Turtler crying on the sidelines halfway through the fourth quarter of a hopeless blowout.

 

[BirraImperial]

21-0 Atlanta...I was certainly not expecting the Pats to be down 3 scores so early...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Since politics has already entered the thread...

The other highlight I'd like to see is head coach Dan Quinn in the victorious Falcons' locker room getting the traditional congratulation call from the White House and saying "Yeah, don't really want to talk to him."

 

[schlaufuchs]

Un. fudging. Believable.

Brady GOAT.

 

[BirraImperial]

The Falcons are the greatest choke artists in Super Bowl history...Probably even of all sports...
Great comeback for the Pats...It really takes guts to do something like this...

 

[Disgustipated]

wow, just wow. Even I feel bad for doubting Brady could come back from that. I'm speechless at that comeback.

as for the commercials they got a little better in the 2nd half and near the end of the game, but still can't compare to Superbowl commercials from the 90's.

As much as I love Peyton Manning (in a normal hetero way of course), I have to give Brady credit for the best QB ever. Wow. Thanks for not giving up and giving the best Superbowl comeback ever. The best superbowl I can remember in recent history.

As for the Half time show I prefer Katy Perry, Gaga just doesn't have many hits. The acrobatics were nice I guess.

 

[BirraImperial]

This is what happens when you start playing conservatively and with fear...You lose...The Falcons had it, they just had to keep playing as they were doing for 3 quarters...
Still, you have to give credit when it is due...Tom Brady is the greatest QB of all time, and Belichick is the greatest coach of all time...

 

[Disgustipated]

Makes you wonder how much Trump paid the Falcons to throw the game. Or maybe he threatened to deport them.

I really thought the game was over after the amazing catch by Jones (Falcons receiver) in the 4th quarter. Only to have them not make the 3rd down conversion after that. I really didn't think the Falcons defense would fold after that. But as I always say, defense wins games. And more often than not, the team with the best defense wins. (Broncos last year, Seahawks, Giants, Patriots older teams, Baltimore, Tampa Bay etc).

 

[Light Cleric]

THEY DID IT

THEY CHOKED

YES

 

[Sommerswerd]

Never doubted them for a minute

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, that sucked.