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Less Of A Fan? Nope, Don't see It

Nobody

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I was having a discussion today with a close friend and neighbor of mine who is a huge Steelers fan. Not a new fan, he's in his 70s and has pics of himself at their first Super Bowl.

Every time there's a game on, he goes overboard. Decorates his van, houses, lawn, trees, fence, etc. with Steelers stuff. The complete disappointment on his face when they lose and I drive down the street to watch him take it all down is glorious lol. I always make sure to take pictures :laugh:

Anyway, today we were talking football. Specifically, preseason football. The look on his face when I said I don't care at all about preseason football was like I told him I shot somebody. He acted horrified. He said, "all these years I thought you were a diehard Skins fan, you're a pretender." WTF? He seriously sat there and tried to make an hour long argument about why I'm not a real fan, just because meaningless football doesn't get me all revved up.

I get that some people love it. It means football is back. We haven't seen our guys play in X amount of months. I get it. I just don't care. I have never been excited for games that don't count. It's the same reason I don't watch the Pro Bowl. If it's on in the background, whatever, but I'm not gonna record it, and I'm not gonna hang myself if I miss it. Don't get me wrong, I do want to see what Griffin can do, so I might actually watch a preseason game. Might. Might not. Not really sure how it determines the level of fan you are.
 
I get excited to watch young players we wont really see much of, and new talent.

But other then that i'm with you.

Personally I think the whole 'real fan' or 'die hard' fan is a bunch of garbage anyways. There are people who think you can only be a 'real' fan if you go to the games, or if you watch every game, or if you know every player. I personally think it's dumb. To me there's bandwagon fans (who cheer for whatever the winning team is), and fans (who cheer for their team whether they are good or bad). That's it.
 
I get fired up every year for preseason Skins games. Honestly, after about the second quarter of the first game....I'm done with it.

I do believe this year will be different with RG3, Garcon and Jenkins. I also want to see if Banks can play WR.
 
Like I said, I get why people love it, it's just preference. This guy tried his hardest to explain why it discredits me as a fan though, but everyone is different. I know people who have no problem missing a regular season game. My head would explode at the thought. A lot of people quit watching if we suck. I went to the station and raised hell a couple of years ago when we were in the gutter in week 15, and the local station manager at WAVY here in Hampton Roads decided to pull our game to show the Steelers, just because we sucked.

But for all of this guy's rant, well over an hour's worth, I was able to say my part in about 15 seconds. I simply looked him in the face and said, "You talk a lot of smack for a guy who roots for a rapist." It was cheap, but so was his argument :D
 
He seriously sat there and tried to make an hour long argument about why I'm not a real fan, just because meaningless football doesn't get me all revved up.

I get that some people love it. It means football is back. We haven't seen our guys play in X amount of months. I get it. I just don't care. I have never been excited for games that don't count.

Nothing that RG3 does, is meaningless.

That's like denying the power of Reed Doughty's ability to crush every one of us simultaneously, with his left pinky.........And did I mention that Reed Doughty is actually right-handed.
 
No need to defend your fan level. Those statements will always be there. Many fans of competitive sports are also competitive. Not really a big deal.

As for pre-season games, I watch every minute. Growing up in a season ticket holder family, they were the games I got to go to when I was very young. My Mom and Dad were great at identifying under the radar, fringe players who would end up better than public expectations. I have fun trying to do the same. If others don't watch the games or don't care about the games, it doesn't matter at all to me one way or the other.

My main complaint about pre-season game telecasts is the commentary. They talk about position battles prior to the start of the game, but once it starts their focus seems to be on trying to make it sound like a regular season game. When that invariably fails, they deteriorate into long stories about the past, pretty much ignoring what's going on on the field.

If they would treat it for what it is, it could be so much better. Rather than saying "Helu to the left side for a gain of 3" and then continuing their story about something that happened with them in the NFL in 1986, focus on the key players on that play, who made the tackle, who blocked well, who missed a block.

When at the pre-season games, I can focus on specific players, to see, at least in my limited way, how they're performing. I have fun with that and really wish the telecasts would provide us with more of that, with the addition of some expert analysis and insight. Maybe someday.
 
If you don't care at all about preseason, then IMO you are by definition "less of a fan." You literally like less about football than someone who watches preseason even casually.

The real discussion is whether or not that even means anything...some will say it does (like your Stiller fan neighbor), most will say it doesn't. Personally, I could care less if someone watches preseason or not, I'll still drink with them at a tailgate and discuss how many sacks Kerrakpo are gonna get this season!
 
Steeler fans everywhere should just shut up. They all act like they are the Greatest Fans in the World but have no clue what it's like to watch their team play like crap for 20 straight years. Or even five straight years. Outside of Yankee Stadium there isn't a more spoiled fanbase in the entire country.

The Steelers have literally been a dominant, playoff-contending team for 40 years straight. A Steeler fan lecturing someone else on how to root for their team is like a trust fund baby telling someone not to worry so much about money. Tell him to enjoy his team's success and mind his own business.
 
Steeler fans everywhere should just shut up. They all act like they are the Greatest Fans in the World but have no clue what it's like to watch their team play like crap for 20 straight years. Or even five straight years. Outside of Yankee Stadium there isn't a more spoiled fanbase in the entire country.

The Steelers have literally been a dominant, playoff-contending team for 40 years straight. A Steeler fan lecturing someone else on how to root for their team is like a trust fund baby telling someone not to worry so much about money. Tell him to enjoy his team's success and mind his own business.

That too. One of my top sports-related pet peeves is Steeler fans talking about how great their fan base is. Yeah, right! 5 years of Redskins-like adversity and I'm willing to bet you see a LOT less yellow & gold everywhere.
 
Steeler fans everywhere should just shut up. They all act like they are the Greatest Fans in the World but have no clue what it's like to watch their team play like crap for 20 straight years. Or even five straight years. Outside of Yankee Stadium there isn't a more spoiled fanbase in the entire country.

The Steelers have literally been a dominant, playoff-contending team for 40 years straight. A Steeler fan lecturing someone else on how to root for their team is like a trust fund baby telling someone not to worry so much about money. Tell him to enjoy his team's success and mind his own business.

The thing that irritates me about steelers fans (and Patriots fans) is that because their organization has been so successful, they act like it means they (as fans) somehow know more about the sport than the rest of us.

As if they somehow actually had a hand in contributing to that success (outside of helping fund the team with their purchases/TV viewing).

No, being a steelers fan does not make you any more educated on football, or how a football team should be run, or what it takes to be successful than a lions fan, or a redskins fan, or a fan of any other team that has not seen success recently. (edit: looking back on this, the lions are kind of out of this category now, but we're still in it :( ugh!)

They seem to think that's the case though. Very annoying.
 
I work in the IT field and contrary to what some folks might think there are some hard-core sports fans that do this type of work. There are also some folks who have absolutely no understanding of sports whatsoever.

One of those guys who had no understanding of sports at all is a guy who I’ve worked with for the last 12 years and who I consider a good friend. He got remarried about 4 years ago to a girl who is originally from Pittsburgh and who is an absolute sports fanatic and a very knowledgeable fan. She has forced him to become a Pittsburgh sports fan and that's fine, but he acts like he's been following the teams since birth and that can get annoying. He still calls runs in baseball "points" sometimes.

Anyway, the first year he started following football in his miserable life the Steelers won it all. In a way that I’m not 100% happy to admit, that pissed me off greatly. “He hadn’t paid the price to call himself a real fan” I told myself. “He couldn’t name more than 3 or 4 players on the whole $%^&*@ team”. What’s more he wanted to talk about the games that season on Monday morning with the rest of the “football guys” and it lead to some very awkward conversations. He’s a friend so I played along during the regular season and even tried to help him along a bit but in the playoffs it became unbearable and he started talking all kinds of trash.

As some sort of cosmic balance the sport he knew the most about and gravitated towards the most was baseball and the Pirates have sucked for years so I was safe there….until now. I root for the Pirates to lose every game they play just so I can casually ask him how the Bucs are doing this year. He hasn’t caught on that I know EXACTLY how the Pirates are doing this year. It’s the only way I know to twist the knife. I hope like hell they find a way to just miss the playoffs. That won’t make up for the Super Bowl thing but it will be a start. If I have to hear how “The Pirates scored more “points” than the Yankees in game 7 to win the World Series" I’m going to have to find a new place to work.
 
Hog, you sure that guy isn't a Cowboy fan? :)
 
This is just many of the issues that drives fans of the same team to argue who's the "better fan".
In this case, they were not of the same team, but all too often, there seems to be a competition of fans, with "in-fighting" over who's more loyal. Pretty ironic and silly, for fans of the same team to do it, if you ask me.
 
Redskins fans have no choice but to look amongst themselves to see who is the "better fan," as we're clearly heads and shoulders above the rest of NFL fandom! :)
 

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