One Great Reason For You To Root For Every NFL Team This Season


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Everyone is always giving you reasons why you shouldn’t root for one NFL team or another. It’s all you ever hear. “How could you ever like that team?,” your friend asks when you tell him you think you’re going to stick around at the bar to catch the Jets game. Well, screw that noise. There’s 32 teams in the NFL, and there’s a reason to root for all of them. Except the Patriots. You never root for the Patriots (just kidding, you can, and we’ll tell you how).

Here’s a simple guide on how to root for every team this great league of ours has to offer.

AFC North

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Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers may have two key offensive cogs serving suspensions and a quarterback who resembles your dad once he started having an afternoon beer every day, but it’s impossible not to enjoy Antonio Brown. Not only is his route running ability so pristine that it caused one cornerback to exclaim that Brown “tried to kill me, man,” but the Steelers wideout has a personality almost as big as his statline. His hair is a giant Lego block. The paint job on his $300,000 Rolls Royce looks as if he spent two hours customizing it at a garage in Grand Theft Auto. He celebrated a touchdown last season by running full speed at the goalpost and sliding down it like a stripper pole. He has as much fun playing the game as you do watching him, and that’s something to hold dear.

Cincinnati Bengals

Admit it. You feel sort of bad for Andy Dalton after 2015. He got booed at celebrity softball game in his own city over MLB All-Star Weekend. He was owned by human bag of low-fat popcorn J.J. Watt. Then he went out and had his best season as a pro, only to break his thumb attempting to tackle a defender after throwing an interception, ensuring his playoff win total would remain at a robust zero. Then he lost his offensive coordinator, Hue Jackson, as well as two of his major weapons from 2015 in Mohamed Sanu and Marvin Jones. And Marvin Lewis will be his head coach until the day he dies. Prayers up for Andy Dalton, whose plight is worth your sympathy.

Cleveland Browns

Robert Griffin III is objectively weird. He drops premeditated catch phrases at press conferences. He bought an old Passat. He covered his offensive line in Washington with shade. He is openly dating a new girlfriend while not yet divorced from his wife.

Still, the way things ended with the Redskins still feels icky, like we all need a cold shower to wash it off of us. Griffin’s potential resurrection in Cleveland, a franchise desperately in need of its own miracle, would be almost too good to be true, but it would go a long way to helping us forget RG3’s injuries and standoffs with coaches and remember the good times, like when he was setting rookie passing records and taking photos with a bust of his likeness made completely out of Subway sandwiches.

Editor’s note: don’t ever root for the Browns, they will take your happy life and shatter it into a thousand small pieces until you are alone and malnourished and shivering forever.

Baltimore Ravens

If you cannot find it within yourself to root for Steve Smith Sr., the 37-year-old wide receiver who was planning on retiring, tore his Achilles and said nah, you know what, let me furiously rehab and play another year, then you are a soulless robot sent here to destroy us. Even in his advanced age, the snarling wideout will still let DBs know he’s eaten their lunch after catching a pass, which in turn raises our testosterone levels as fans and sends us running around our living rooms in a frenzy on Sundays, chucking slices of pizzas at the wall. And really, at the heart of it all, isn’t that what football is all about?

AFC West

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Oakland Raiders

When you root for Derek Carr, the young Raiders quarterback entering his third year with maybe more promise than anyone in black and silver since Rich Gannon, you aren’t just throwing your support behind a beleaguered franchise. You’re also doing your part to erase the memory of Derek’s older brother David, the former first round pick of the Houston Texans who was sacked more times than he threw touchdown passes (I have no idea if that stat is true or not, but it seems like it would be). NFL teams were actually afraid to take Carr in the 2013 NFL Draft simply because of his last name. Derek isn’t just doing this for the Raiders. He’s doing it for future Carrs all over this planet.

Kansas City Chiefs

Rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs to flourish is rooting to put head coach Andy Reid in as many end-of-the-quarter, pressurized time management situations as possible, which makes for better theatre than most Shakespearean plays. The face, the mustache, that blank gaze that says Okay, so if that clock says 0:02, that means I have two minutes, so hell yeah let’s run the ball again, wait what? It’s all so perfect. Plus, can we have have just one full season of Jamaal Charles? Please? Anyone? Hello?

Denver Broncos

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a quarterback. You attend a college in Northwestern that has produced exactly eight NFL players in its entire history, nine if you count yourself, none of them remarkable. Then imagine, two years after you were drafted by the Denver Broncos as their third string quarterback, with one snap under your belt (a kneeldown), you are asked to start for the defending Super Bowl champions and follow in the footsteps of one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. That is Trevor Siemian’s life right now, a life that would cause many of us to wear Depends every day to practice out of pure terror. Root for Denver and poor, poor soul Trevor Siemian, so that he may have a support system to fall back on when he inevitably fails.

San Diego Chargers

Nothing like being told by the NFL that you can either be the B-squad in a shared stadium with the Rams in Los Angeles in 2019 or swindle the citizens of San Diego into paying for a $1.8 billion new stadium. That’s what the Chargers are faced with, spending most of their efforts trying to figure out what the future is for the franchise instead of, you know, the product on the field. But the NFL will not win. It can’t win. Not against a team that once had Junior Seau and peak fantasy football LaDainian Tomlinson. Not against a team that owns the dopest powder blue uniforms in the league. Not today, Roger Goodell. Back the Chargers, and flick off the establishment. We promise it’ll feel good.

AFC South

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Indianapolis Colts

The #takes came for Andrew Luck this offseason. Oh they came, and they were hot, heavy and crispy. The No. 1 overall draft pick in 2012, the anointed one, struggled through an injury-plagued 2015 season? Run and fetch my pitchfork from the back shed, Denise. I’ve got a mob to join. Nothing gives people more pleasure in this wonderful country of ours than absolutely obliterating anyone slipping off their pedestal, and for Luck, 2015 was his Raspberry Award. He’s still lurking, though, behind that fairly disgusting beard and crazy murderer eyes of his. He’s healthy now, and he’s still got T.Y. Hilton at his disposal, one of the best deep threats in the league. I’m here for an Andrew Luck rebirth, and you should be too.

Houston Texans

J.J. Watt is coming back from multiple injuries and… nah I’m just kidding. Don’t root for that guy. Do root for his counterpart of the defensive line, Jadeveon Clowney, who possess the athletic ability to turn a man into dust in his arms. He hasn’t shown it at the NFL level yet, and needs to this season if he wants to avoid his career becoming all about a single YouTube clip shown on a loop for the rest of his life. Nothing worse than walking into some drab cocktail party when you’re 40 and having some dude in a bowtie tap you on the shoulder and say “Hey! You’re the guy who made that big hit once in college! What’s up?” Let’s not let Clowney become that guy who has to endure that conversation.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Name a Jaguars player from the past. Any of them. Fred Taylor? David Garrard? Byron Leftwich? That’s all I’ve got, and man is that depressing. For the first time since installing swimming pools in his stadium was just an inkling in owner Shahid Khan’s head, the Jaguars have an honest to goodness entertaining team, rife with talent on both sides of the ball. For a place that looks like humidity is at 200 percent, always, a good football team in Jacksonville would provide a brief reprieve from sweating through all six shirts you brought to the game. Blake Bortles, Allen Robinson, T.J. Yeldon, Jalen Ramsey, Myles Jack, Dante Fowler… look at all these good Jaguars, all on the same team at the same time. That’s pretty cool, man.

Tennessee Titans

Head coach Mike Mularkey is almost certainly going to ruin Marcus Mariota by forcing him to hand off 100 times a game and setting up an electric fence around the pocket, so rooting for the Titans is more like rooting for Walter White to turn into Heisenberg over the span of 16 games. If by Week, say, 5, the Titans haven’t won a game and DeMarco Murray is moping on the sidelines, I’m hoping Mariota goes rogue and ignores every play call coming into his headset so he can run around like a madman and remind his coach that it’s 2016. That would just be great.

AFC East

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Buffalo Bills

Tyrod Taylor, LeSean McCoy, Sammy Watkins… there’s a fun offense hibernating somewhere underneath the tundra of Buffalo. And how can you not fawn over Taylor’s story, a career backup who evolved into an explosive quarterback under Rex Ryan and is now spending his spare time counting guap to the tune of a 6-year, $92 million extension. Plus, the old school Bills logo is objectively the best logo ever created. Fight me if you disagree.

New England Patriots

Look, I’ll level you with you guys. The New England Patriots are mostly trash. Tom Brady is a Trump supporter and got a haircut to look more like Megyn Kelly. “The Patriot Way” is some crocked up, propaganda bullsh*t. But Jimmy Garoppolo seems like a pretty chill dude, and when he was drafted by the Pats back in 2014 to back up Tom Brady, he probably thought there was no way in hell he’d see the field as a starter in the next five years, much less three. But here we are, with Good Ol’ Jimmy (that’s what I’m calling him) starting the Patriots’ first four games of the 2016 season while Brady serves his penalty for his crimes against humanity. He’s someone to pull for.

New York Jets

Aside from being an enormous, sentient football playing robot created to catch touchdowns, Brandon Marshall’s willingness to speak out on mental health issues in a league that still treats it as taboo is incredibly important. In fact, Marshall’s willingness to just simply use his platform to talk, whether it’s as a panelist on Inside the NFL or in the locker room after a game, is an example I wish so many others would follow.

Miami Dolphins

Mario Williams doesn’t get enough love. At all. Like, my man was selected over Reggie Bush, who was probably one of the most popular college players ever, by the Houston Texans in 2006, then promptly recorded 14 sacks in his second season with the team while Bush kept trying to run east and west in New Orleans to no avail. He’s already tied for 37th all time in total sacks with 96, and doesn’t seem ready to slow down. Ones in the air for Mario Williams, forever underappreciated.

NFC East

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Dallas Cowboys

One word: Dak. Dak Prescott is here to save us all. He’s here to save Tony Romo from himself, so that he won’t have to spend the rest of days rocking a back brace a la Dee Reynolds from Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He’s here to put an end to the Cowboys’ annual flirtation with Johnny Manziel. He’s here to drop ice cream flavor references into postgame pressers. And he’s here to, hopefully, ball out. If Dak Prescott flourishes in Romo’s stead this season, it will make for one of the best NFL storylines we’ve had in a very long time.

Washington Redskins

Josh Norman gets to cover Odell Beckham Jr. twice a year for the foreseeable future. That’s like watching a Conor McGregor-Nate Diaz bout every couple months, or something. Whatever, maybe that analogy doesn’t work, but what I’m trying to say is Josh Norman gets to prove he’s worth every bit of that enormous contract the Redskins gave him by facing off against one of the best wide receivers in the NFL multiple times per year, and I’m here for it. That team name is still racist as all hell, though.

Philadelphia Eagles

Chip Kelly and his “I’m smarter than you just kidding I have no idea what I’m doing” offense is gone, so, uh, that’s good I guess. Carson Wentz is going to play, so that’s fun. I’m really trying here, guys. I am. Can Philly bring back those all-black alternate unis? Those were dope. That’s all I’ve got.

New York Giants

Victor Cruz is back. That sentence alone should bring a smile to your face. After enduring a season from hell in 2015 in which he returned from ACL surgery only to deal with a lingering calf injury that eventually kept him out for the entire season, Cruz is finally ready to line up opposite Odell Beckham Jr. again. I hope he salsas for, like, 10 minutes straight after he catches his first touchdown this season.

NFC North

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Chicago Bears

I was watching the Cleveland Browns’ fourth preseason game against the Chicago Bears because I am a masochist, and wide receiver Kevin White was all over the field. It has to be the most deflating thing in the world to be drafted into the NFL and then immediately miss your rookie season because of injury. That could put you in a real dark place. But White was flying all over the place, making up for missed time like his watch was broken. Let us not forget my man went for 1,447 yards and 10 touchdowns in his final season at West Virginia. It’s go time, Kevin.

Green Bay Packers

All most people who are football fans want on Sundays are chips and dip, a beer with the same great taste and half the calories and Aaron Rodgers throwing deep to Jordy Nelson. We were robbed of that last season when Nelson went down with an ACL tear in camp, and his absence turned the Packers offense into something you might see on an elementary school playground. But Jordy is back, and all is right in the football universe as he attempts to Make the Green Bay Packers Fun Again™.

Minnesota Vikings

This was going to be all about Teddy Bridgewater stunting on the haters while continuing to wear a glove on his throwing hand like the lead singer of a Michael Jackson cover band, but then we lost Teddy for the year to a horrible injury and now everything is terrible. The Vikings new stadium is sick, though. The Vikings get major pity support from me, and they should get it from you, too.

Detroit Lions

Even without Calvin Johnson, the Detroit Lions offense is brimming with potential. Golden Tate, who is very good, gets to take the reigns as the team’s No. 1 wide receiver. They snagged Marvin Jones in free agency to line up on the other side. Ameer Abdullah is glossed over but incredibly talented. So god damn it, Detroit, sack up and reach your potential. For America.

NFC South

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Atlanta Falcons

When someone as freakishly talented as Julio Jones exists, you want his every waking moment on this planet to be spent doing things on the field that other people cannot and will never do. That’s a stupid and unfair expectation to have, but when Jones does things like go for 1,871 yards and 8 touchdowns while catching passes from a quarterback whose nickname stems from the crappiest light beer on the earth, it feels warranted. Also, Devonta Freeman, a bowling ball with dreads, is here too, and he is awesome.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Year 2 of Jameis Winston, Mike Evans improving, Vincent Jackson is still here… yadda yadda yadda. You know what truly excites me? That freaking pirate ship at Raymond James Stadium. It’s still there. That place opened in 1998, with a literal pirate ship behind one end zone. It shoots cannon balls when the Bucs score. It has an animatronic parrot that TALKS TO YOU WHEN YOU WALK BY. Fans can’t actually sit in it (it’s reserved for friends and family of Bucs’ personnel), which is trash, but still. It’s 2016 and the Bucs still have a pirate ship in their stadium. We are truly blessed.

New Orleans Saints

You cannot ever root against the Saints. Not even when its starting quarterback runs a Pyramid scheme and says stupid things about Colin Kaepernick. Not even when its former defensive coordinator tells his players to “kill the head” of opposing players. You can’t, because what happened between that team and the city after Hurricane Katrina is magical and amazing and meaningful. Also, don’t sleep on the combo of Brandin Cooks and Michael Thomas at wide receiver. Root for them to dominate instead.

Carolina Panthers

Cam Newton may have announced the retirement of the Dab, but whatever touchdown celebration he pulls out in 2016 is sure to enrage hundreds more columnists and old white folk alike, and that is really the best thing you can do. Kelvin Benjamin is now back to help Newton achieve peak fan outrage, so put on your hats and jackets, because the #takes are coming.

NFC West

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Los Angeles Rams

There’s this stigma that, in between eating salads made of lettuce and strawberries and telling their neighbors the best way to get on the 405, the good people of Los Angeles have no actual interest in having a football team. Then all of them showed up for the Rams first preseason game back in L.A. against the Cowboys and that sentiment began to dissipate. We’ll see what happens once the regular season rolls around and Jeff Fisher is still trotting out Case Keenum at quarterback, but for now, L.A. is doing just fine supporting its NFL team, thank you very much. We’ve got your back, L.A.

Seattle Seahawks

Marshawn Lynch is gone, which is terrible, but if you’re not hip to the Baby Beast Mode duo of Thomas Rawls and Christine Michael, who may eat less Skittles but run over just as many people, than you’d better recognize. Here’s hoping they close that Marshawn-sized hole that’s been left in the Seahawks backfield rather quickly.

San Francisco 49ers

This one isn’t hard. Colin Kaepernick’s stand (or sit, I should say) against the National Anthem is both brave and important, and so is his continual stand in the face of shortsighted criticism from a lot of big names in sports media. It’s braver than a lot of things most of us will ever do in our lives. And, damn, if that afro isn’t a work of art.

Arizona Cardinals

Carson Palmer, who seems like a good dude, has a rapidly closing window as a human being who is still able to throw a football pretty well. The Cardinals looked stacked last season, only for Palmer to suffer some sort of a nervous breakdown in the playoffs. That’s sort of sad, and a dude who has endured multiple ACL tears in his career deserves a better going away party. Couple that with the much anticipated return of Tyrann Mathieu, a guy seemingly no one but the Cardinals would touch when he entered the NFL Draft, and this isn’t a hard team to root for.

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