Who You Should Be Cheering for This Weekend
With the New England Evil Empire and the NFL's biggest jerk (Google "Sean Payton is a dick") getting eliminated from the playoffs during NFL Wild Card weekend, we all now get a chance to cheer for some teams instead of against them.
To assist your cheering efforts, the HOTPO staff provides you the cheer-ability ratings for the eight remaining playoff teams.
Fans cheer their favorite teams for many reasons: team colors, winning records, family tradition and geographic proximity to name a few, but chances are your team is out. We ranked the remaining teams based upon their underdog status (underdog is better than a favorite because you are cheering for an historic upset), whether their players are perceived as good dudes (maniacal tough guys can be cheered, but egotistical A-holes should not be supported...looking at you Aaron Rodgers), and general HOTPO staff biases.
From worst to first, here is the 2019 NFL Playoff Cheer-ability Ratings:
8. Houston Texans: Defensive lineman J. J. Watt and QB Deshaun Watson are superstars that are fun to watch, but they were not fun to watch when they struggled mightily with the not so mighty Buffalo Bills last week. This is an expansion team with no history, and we would rather see classic teams in the Super Bowl playing for the most prestigious championship in professional sports. And, uh-oh, look here...coach Bill O'Brien was an assistant for the New England Patriots from 2007-11 - can't have any of that Patriots stank on ya and get cheered by the HOTPO.
7. Green Bay Packers: The Packers are a classic team playing football in a classic venue, but you have to be a little tired of all these Packer fans and their Packers bars in places way south of Oshkosh. Would you believe there are four Packers bars in the District? There are 17 in California, for goodness sake. This year, Green Bay is a favorite in the #2 NFC slot and Aaron Rodgers is a known dou...uh, slightly arrogant.
6. Tennessee Titans: These guys ousted the mighty Patriots and maybe should be rated a little higher, but the HOTPO staff can't have coach Mike Vrabel making this AFC South team a juggernaut. I hate to admit I am starting to like the former Patriot Vrabel and I would probably love the Nashville football experience in person. But, Tennessee can be a little bit of a boring watch. The Titans have gone 9-7 for four straight seasons...just kind of meh.
5. Kansas City Chiefs: Kansas City is a classic AFL to NFL franchise losing Super Bowl I, winning Super Bowl IV, then never making it back. This AFC #2 seed is a traditional underdog in search of their first title in 50 years. Chief coach Andy Reid has been a wildly successful regular season coach, but a sub-0.500 coach in the playoffs (and an awful 2-5 in the playoffs since coming to KC). Kansas City is led by the electric QB Pat Mahomes, too. Classic sharp red uniforms, outdoor in the cold, with the smell of KC Masterpiece BBQ wafting through the parking lot. What is not to like?
4. Baltimore Ravens: Time for a little hypocrisy. This is the AFC #1 seed, but John Harbaugh seems like a great dude (scroll down to the embedded video on this one). The Ravens franchise has only existed since 1996 so they are still nouve riche, but they have been to the playoffs 11 times, won two Super Bowls, and it feels like they are a young classic team, if there can be such a thing. Hypocrisy completed, QB Lamar Jackson was the quarterback that nobody wanted, and now he is playing like the league MVP. Good for him, good for the underdog everywhere. Finally, we have a good number of friends here along the Potomac that are Ravens fans. When in Rome...
3. San Francisco 49ers: Niners QB Jimmy Garoppolo was cast aside from the New England Evil Empire by owner Robert Kraft like a Florida strip mall masseuse. Coach Kyle Shanahan got sent packing from his offensive coordinator job with Washington when his father got canned by the Redskins after the 2013 season. That's a quarterback and a coach evicted from easy-to-hate organizations finding success after joining a San Francisco team coming off a 2-14 season in 2014. Two cast offs turn around a formerly classic franchise. I dig it.
2. Minnesota Vikings: The Vikings have been in the NFL for 59 seasons, are 0-4 in Super Bowls and haven't been in the big game since Super Bowl XI. That one was played following the 1976 season, by the way. Minnesota QB Kirk Cousins had three straight 4000-yard passing seasons for the Redskins and even got them to the playoffs in one of those years, but Washington let him walk. Look at this clip of the Viking locker room after their victory last weekend. It is clear that entire team thinks Cousins is a good dude.
1. Seattle Seahawks: The HOTPO was headquartered in the Pacific Northwest when they won their first Super Bowl in Feb. 2014. There is a cool vibe out there and it's even more of a fun place to be during football season when the team is doing well. The Seahawks limped to the playoffs without a healthy running back this year then asked Marshawn Lynch to put down the Skittles and come out of retirement to play a little bit. That's crazy. More crazy, it is working. Seattle lost Super Bowl XLIX to the Patriots because they didn't give the ball to Marshawn inside the five yard line. Maybe they right that wrong this year.
Recommended Reading
If you don't like looking at the playoffs through the lens of teams to route for, maybe you are interested in cheering for a preferred Super Bowl matchup. John Breech of CBSSports.com did a good piece ranking the sixteen possible Super Bowl matchups remaining. We see some things similarly.
Sports Illustrated did a two part series on Why I Love My Team (Part I/Part II) back in 2015. I haven't read all of either, but I ran across some decent nuggets. They of course short changed the Colts.
And this book, Educated by Tara Westover...holy smokes. I got tons of books, articles, and silly ass social media posts that I want to read. I don't need any help creating a reading list. Sometimes the HOTPO senior editor makes recommendations and I am always resistant. She persisted on this one (and one previous). I am glad she did. This book negatively affected my sleep. I would read it at night and it would get me so amped up and interested...kept turning pages, couldn't sleep. Just astonishing.
Keep an eye on this B1G basketball season. Don't sleep on the Butler Bulldogs over-achievement tour in the Big East. We will get to the NBA eventually, I promise. And enjoy these football games this weekend!
To assist your cheering efforts, the HOTPO staff provides you the cheer-ability ratings for the eight remaining playoff teams.
Fans cheer their favorite teams for many reasons: team colors, winning records, family tradition and geographic proximity to name a few, but chances are your team is out. We ranked the remaining teams based upon their underdog status (underdog is better than a favorite because you are cheering for an historic upset), whether their players are perceived as good dudes (maniacal tough guys can be cheered, but egotistical A-holes should not be supported...looking at you Aaron Rodgers), and general HOTPO staff biases.
From worst to first, here is the 2019 NFL Playoff Cheer-ability Ratings:
8. Houston Texans: Defensive lineman J. J. Watt and QB Deshaun Watson are superstars that are fun to watch, but they were not fun to watch when they struggled mightily with the not so mighty Buffalo Bills last week. This is an expansion team with no history, and we would rather see classic teams in the Super Bowl playing for the most prestigious championship in professional sports. And, uh-oh, look here...coach Bill O'Brien was an assistant for the New England Patriots from 2007-11 - can't have any of that Patriots stank on ya and get cheered by the HOTPO.
7. Green Bay Packers: The Packers are a classic team playing football in a classic venue, but you have to be a little tired of all these Packer fans and their Packers bars in places way south of Oshkosh. Would you believe there are four Packers bars in the District? There are 17 in California, for goodness sake. This year, Green Bay is a favorite in the #2 NFC slot and Aaron Rodgers is a known dou...uh, slightly arrogant.
6. Tennessee Titans: These guys ousted the mighty Patriots and maybe should be rated a little higher, but the HOTPO staff can't have coach Mike Vrabel making this AFC South team a juggernaut. I hate to admit I am starting to like the former Patriot Vrabel and I would probably love the Nashville football experience in person. But, Tennessee can be a little bit of a boring watch. The Titans have gone 9-7 for four straight seasons...just kind of meh.
5. Kansas City Chiefs: Kansas City is a classic AFL to NFL franchise losing Super Bowl I, winning Super Bowl IV, then never making it back. This AFC #2 seed is a traditional underdog in search of their first title in 50 years. Chief coach Andy Reid has been a wildly successful regular season coach, but a sub-0.500 coach in the playoffs (and an awful 2-5 in the playoffs since coming to KC). Kansas City is led by the electric QB Pat Mahomes, too. Classic sharp red uniforms, outdoor in the cold, with the smell of KC Masterpiece BBQ wafting through the parking lot. What is not to like?
4. Baltimore Ravens: Time for a little hypocrisy. This is the AFC #1 seed, but John Harbaugh seems like a great dude (scroll down to the embedded video on this one). The Ravens franchise has only existed since 1996 so they are still nouve riche, but they have been to the playoffs 11 times, won two Super Bowls, and it feels like they are a young classic team, if there can be such a thing. Hypocrisy completed, QB Lamar Jackson was the quarterback that nobody wanted, and now he is playing like the league MVP. Good for him, good for the underdog everywhere. Finally, we have a good number of friends here along the Potomac that are Ravens fans. When in Rome...
3. San Francisco 49ers: Niners QB Jimmy Garoppolo was cast aside from the New England Evil Empire by owner Robert Kraft like a Florida strip mall masseuse. Coach Kyle Shanahan got sent packing from his offensive coordinator job with Washington when his father got canned by the Redskins after the 2013 season. That's a quarterback and a coach evicted from easy-to-hate organizations finding success after joining a San Francisco team coming off a 2-14 season in 2014. Two cast offs turn around a formerly classic franchise. I dig it.
2. Minnesota Vikings: The Vikings have been in the NFL for 59 seasons, are 0-4 in Super Bowls and haven't been in the big game since Super Bowl XI. That one was played following the 1976 season, by the way. Minnesota QB Kirk Cousins had three straight 4000-yard passing seasons for the Redskins and even got them to the playoffs in one of those years, but Washington let him walk. Look at this clip of the Viking locker room after their victory last weekend. It is clear that entire team thinks Cousins is a good dude.
1. Seattle Seahawks: The HOTPO was headquartered in the Pacific Northwest when they won their first Super Bowl in Feb. 2014. There is a cool vibe out there and it's even more of a fun place to be during football season when the team is doing well. The Seahawks limped to the playoffs without a healthy running back this year then asked Marshawn Lynch to put down the Skittles and come out of retirement to play a little bit. That's crazy. More crazy, it is working. Seattle lost Super Bowl XLIX to the Patriots because they didn't give the ball to Marshawn inside the five yard line. Maybe they right that wrong this year.
Recommended Reading
If you don't like looking at the playoffs through the lens of teams to route for, maybe you are interested in cheering for a preferred Super Bowl matchup. John Breech of CBSSports.com did a good piece ranking the sixteen possible Super Bowl matchups remaining. We see some things similarly.
Sports Illustrated did a two part series on Why I Love My Team (Part I/Part II) back in 2015. I haven't read all of either, but I ran across some decent nuggets. They of course short changed the Colts.
And this book, Educated by Tara Westover...holy smokes. I got tons of books, articles, and silly ass social media posts that I want to read. I don't need any help creating a reading list. Sometimes the HOTPO senior editor makes recommendations and I am always resistant. She persisted on this one (and one previous). I am glad she did. This book negatively affected my sleep. I would read it at night and it would get me so amped up and interested...kept turning pages, couldn't sleep. Just astonishing.
Keep an eye on this B1G basketball season. Don't sleep on the Butler Bulldogs over-achievement tour in the Big East. We will get to the NBA eventually, I promise. And enjoy these football games this weekend!
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