Who do you root for in the NFL,and why?

[Igor Stravinsky10]

Joel's posts about the Browns got me wondering. I'm originally from Chicago so I'm diehard Bears, but I grew up in Cedar Rapids. Chiefs, Packers, Vikings were always on tv in CR while I was growing up so a lot of my friends are fans of theirs.

Who do you root for in the NFL, and why?

OP's Mom was also a Bears fan. I miss her.

 

[JupiterHawk]

Steelers. Brother was a Steelers fan and that's who I started to root for in the 80's.

 

[HawkMachine]

Grew up in small town Iowa.

3rd grade I became a huge fan of Dan Marino and became a Dolphins fan.

If it wasn’t the Dolphins I’m pretty sure I would have became a Bears fan.

It’s been a LONG time but the Dolphins are back.

It’s nice that my kids can finally witness a good team. Raised them Dolphin fans and my boys still wear gear sometimes.

 

[torbee]

Bears

I guess I’m a masochist 🥺

 

[alaskanseminole]

Bucs. I'm from Florida and in the 90s they had Thunder & Lightening (Mike Alstott and Warrick Dunn), Sapp, Brooks, Barber, Lynch, and Dungey. Lots of fun to watch.

 

[Igor Stravinsky10]

Grew up in small town Iowa.

3rd grade I became a huge fan of Dan Marino and became a Dolphins fan.

If it wasn’t the Dolphins I’m pretty sure I would have became a Bears fan.

It’s been a LONG time but the Dolphins are back.

It’s nice that my kids can finally witness a good team. Raised them Dolphin fans and my boys still wear gear sometimes.

I'm still bitter about the 1985 MNF game, Bears @ Dolphins 😑

 

[luvmyhawks]

Denver broncos because I live in Denver and all my in laws are die hard bronco fans.

 

[artradley]

Bears. Because WD hen I was eight my little league team was The Bears. This preceded Bad News bears by a couple decades.

My son is a Rams fan because his 2nd grade flag football team was the Rams.

 

[GOHOX69]

The Ravens. Because I'm a hard core g who lived in charm city and their defenses of years past reminded me of the 85-86 bears.

 

[IAFB2021Champs]

Vikings

Dad and brother are fans so I joined. Plus I grew up in NE iowa where I was closest to the Vikings although it was a good mix of Vikings, bears and buttpacker fans.

I often wonder if I should try and convince my infant son to like a better team so he doesn’t go through the same misery every year. Which would mean picking teams besides the Vikings, twins, Timberwolves and Hawkeyes as well.

 

[Moral]

The Kansas City Swifties because seeing T-Swizzle cheering touchdowns must brings me so much joy. She's had such a hard life and so much to overcome that I'm just happy for her when a touchdown scores.

 

[pink shizzle]

Tampa Bay. I was in 1st grade living in Wisconsin and didn't have a team.

Tampa was on TV and Mike Alstott got the ball and absolutely ran the defender over- just wrecked the guy. I thought that was awesome and they became my team. CSB

 

[Igor Stravinsky10]

Vikings

Dad and brother are fans so I joined. Plus I grew up in NE iowa where I was closest to the Vikings although it was a good mix of Vikings, bears and buttpacker fans.

I often wonder if I should try and convince my infant son to like a better team so he doesn’t go through the same misery every year. Which would mean picking teams besides the Vikings, twins, Timberwolves and Hawkeyes as well.

Nope. Carry on the family tradition 🙂

 

[pink shizzle]

The Kansas City Swifties because seeing T-Swizzle cheering touchdowns must brings me so much joy. She's had such a hard life and so much to overcome that I'm just happy for her when a touchdown scores.

I loved it when an extremely clear penalty was called against the Chiefs and the camera cut to her and Maholmes' wife yelling "WHAT THE F*CK?!" at the ref.

 

[The Tradition]

Long-suffering Miami Dolphins fan, here.

Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, the Dolphins were the only NFL team in the state when I was a kid. I started paying attention when they were doing the undefeated season and winning Super Bowls.

I've been waiting 50 years now for a third Lombardi Trophy....

 

[pink shizzle]

Bucs. I'm from Florida and in the 90s they had Thunder & Lightening (Mike Alstott and Warrick Dunn), Sapp, Brooks, Barber, Lynch, and Dungey. Lots of fun to watch.

I was a big fan of Simeon Rice

 

[DirtyJohns97]

I grew up a Packers fan because of my dad. Same for the Dodgers, although I didn't follow him with the Celtics. Turns out pops was a front-runner in his youth

 

[Jan Itor]

Watched KC vs Miami on Christmas Day no 1971, I believe. Miami won in double overtime. Been a Dolphins fan since.

 

[SL Hawk Fan]

Oakland Raiders - as kid (maybe 8 or 9yo) I remember watching them defeat the Vikings in the super bowl. At that age, you just want to support a “winner” and I'll admit that the Raider Mystique was pretty cool. These were the days of Kenny (the Snake) Stabler, Dave Casper, Fred Billitnikoff, Cliff Branch, Mark Van Egan, Ted (the Stork) Hendricks, John Matuzak, Jack (the Assassin) Tatum, Ray Guy, etc. Just a colorful bunch of badass football players.

Liked the Rams when they were in St. Louis but hate them (or really the ownership) with the fire of a thousand suns, now.

These days I mostly just root for teams with prominent Hawkeyes on the roster.

 

[InsaneHawkJJP]

When I was 6 it was the Bengals because tigers were my favorite animals. Then a few years later I switched to the Dolphins because I liked Dan Marino, my older brother still gives me shit about switching teams. Now, I don’t have a team, I just follow former Hawks. I haven’t watched a full NFL game in probably 4 years, that includes the Super Bowl.

 

[Tenacious E]

Joel's posts about the Browns got me wondering. I'm originally from Chicago so I'm diehard Bears, but I grew up in Cedar Rapids. Chiefs, Packers, Vikings were always on tv in CR while I was growing up so a lot of my friends are fans of theirs.

Who do you root for in the NFL, and why?

OP's Mom was also a Bears fan. I miss her.

Lions and niners because of Hawkeyes.

 

[Titus Andronicus]

I have moved around too much. I am attempting to become a Raiders fan (once again), but it is not taking. I am sitting here attempting to think of the name of the starting QB and yikes! ... I cannot even do that.

I suppose if I had to name one team, it would be the 49ers since I lived there during their best years and actually watched most of their games on TV ... even going so far as to seek out a place to watch the games when I was travelling.

The most interesting development in pro sports is the Taylor/Travis show. I really hope that that works for her. If it does, KC will become "America's Team" with the largest fan base ever.

.....................................................................

The reality is that I have become a solid college football fan and now they are screwing that up. Even so, through friends and long conversations about their college teams, I have come to have a rooting interest in multiple teams.

 

[Dorrman]

Dallas Cowboys....Not really sure why. Somewhere there is picture of me wearing Cowboy PJ's when I was super young. My dad was a big Bears fan but it never transfer to me.

 

[St. Louis Hawk]

None of them.

And the entire league, but particularly Jerry Jones, Goodell, and Kroenke, can all pound sand.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

Chicago because I’m apparently cursed.

 

[HawCory]

NY Giants

This guy was my favorite as a kid(he also happened to be a fantastic role model for our nation's youth):

 

[Funky Bunch]

Miami. Grew up in Skins territory but jumped on the Miami bandwagon before Super Bowl 7. Luckily they were in the same division as the Colts and my dad took me to see them in Baltimore every year. My poor son is now a Fins fan and we've gone to games in Miami and every city in the AFC North.

 

[Moral]

NY Giants

This guy was my favorite as a kid(he also happened to be a fantastic role model for our nation's youth):

Lawrence Taylor was something else to watch. I guess looking back I liked to watch a lot of random defensive players back during that period of NFL.

 

[HawkBlocked]

When I was a kid, I liked the horns on the Rams helmet. That's all it took, and I'm still cheering them on 50 years later.

 

[seminoleed]

As a kid, the Baltimore Colts. Why? My hero, Johnny U.

Then the Falcons arrived in Atlanta, and they became my team. Why? 3 reasons.

1. Born in Atlanta.
2. After growing up in Tampa, moved to Atlanta for the next 50 years.
3., and most importantly, I'm a masochist.

 

[HawCory]

Lawrence Taylor was something else to watch. I guess looking back I liked to watch a lot of random defensive players back during that period of NFL.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[peacehawk]

Vikings, because my parents moved to north central Iowa when I was little.

 

[SSG T]

The Raiders

Why? My dad raised me right

Seriously, though, he was a fan during their AFL days, and I just kind of latched on. I remember Daryl Lamonica playing QB, Ken Stabler is still my favorite player ever, John Madden the best coach ever, the 1976 Raiders are still the best team I've ever seen and the number of guys they had that were as infamous as they were good was incredible.

Their style, their attitude, their desire to just beat the crap out of you and win at any cost...I don't understand how everyone didn't grow up a fan of theirs.

Oh, and other than technological upgrades, they still wear the same damn uniforms as they did in the late 60s...and they're still the best damn uniforms in the League.

 

[mthawkeyes]

49ers. The GOAT:

 

[stillh8unlv]

I travelled to Seattle/Vancouver Island when I was around 10 years old for a wedding and fell in love with the Pacific Northwest - drove past the Kingdome and just decided they were my team.

Team was only about 4-5 years old at the time, loved those jerseys.

Jim Zorn/Steve Largent/Kenny Easley/Dave Kreig - those were my guys.

 

[wausauhawk]

Colts. Moved around a lot as a kid, spent a few years in Indianapolis, so I adopted the Colts & Pacers as my pro teams since my dad had already drilled the Hawkeyes into my head.

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

Live in Indiana for almost all my life so Colts.

 

[SeaPA]

Grew up in a small town about 40 miles from Tampa; was 13 when the Bucs were formed. My dad's office had season tickets that he split with his two partners, so I got to go to some of the games. Was in the stadium for a few things...
* their first regular season TD pass; it came on a 4th & goal from the one. Handed off to the RB, who tried to vault over the line & into the end zone; the OL got pushed backwards, he got hit & bounced backwards but landed on his feet, looked to his left & saw a WR standing all alone in the end zone, and tossed it to him.
* following season, their first home victory - a season-ending win against the St Louis Cardinals. Tampa had beaten the Saints the previous week, in New Orleans, for the first win in franchise history.

 

[jasonrann]

Steelers. Brother was a Steelers fan and that's who I started to root for in the 80's.

Also a Steelers fan. I grew up in the late 70's, early 80's. At the time, the Vikings, Bears, Chiefs and Packers all sucked. I was a big fan of Steelers colors being a Hawkeyes fan. They also had some players that I really liked, especially Rocky Bleier and Jack Lambert.

 

[HawkeyeShawn]

Rams. Followed them from the early 80’s. My parents bought a random NFL jersey out of the JC Penney catalog one year for Christmas. It just happened to be the jersey of #85 Jack Youngblood. Been a fan of the Rams ever since, regardless of the city they called home.

However, as I’ve gotten older, I tend to enjoy any team that has a former Hawkeye on its roster.