Week 12 Recap and the Five Worst Fan Bases in the NFL

Interesting things are afoot in the playoff picture these days.  Just about every team nipping at the heels of that final NFC wild card lost this weekend, and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati may end up do-si-doing after all like I originally predicted at the beginning of the season.  It wasn’t a great time with the picks, but I took some risks, both good and bad, and we saw a few notable upsets and near-upsets too.  Good thing you’re not putting bets on this stuff, right?

Without further adieu, here's your Week 12 recap in Quick Snap form.  I'll also feature a big idea, team and/or player each week to keep things interesting.  This week: the Five Worst Fan Bases in the NFL.  But first, the good stuff:

Week 12: The Good Stuff

·     R.G.III., R.O.Y. – 2012 has really had an excellent rookie QB class to say the least, and 4 out of those 5 rookies emerged victorious this week.  None were more impressive than Robert Griffin, however, who has posted a near-perfect passer rating for two consecutive weeks and looked virtually unstoppable against the Cowboys with 4 TDs in the second quarter alone on Thanksgiving.  It was an abysmal Thanksgiving for the home teams, by the way.  I admit I got distracted by other-shiny-thing Andrew Luck in recent weeks, but the way Griffin is playing, a wild card isn’t out of the question for the Redskins either.  One thing’s for sure, it’s going to be a very, very tough Rookie of the Year debate depending on how these final five weeks play out.

·      Ray Rice, Rasputin – You could chalk up Baltimore’s stunning overtime win Sunday to yet another pathetic Chargers collapse, and I wouldn’t blame you.  Still, my mind is totally blown after seeing how Ray Rice got the Ravens there in the first place.  In the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, somehow Rice picked up a 4^th and 29.  On a tiny check down.  After dodging an insane number of [missed] tackles to get the Ravens into tying field goal position.  Talk about Never Say Die, God must be from Baltimore, and his name is Ray Rice.

·      San Francisco’s Defensive Schooling – True, these guys haven’t really gone anywhere since they’ve put up consistently spectacular defense for two years now, but even I was impressed with the way they took down my beloved Saints on Sunday, QB controversy or not.  (P.S., Who didn’t get a little joyful schadenfreude watching Alex Smith eagerly waiting with his helmet on from the sidelines?)  Of course, Drew Brees gave San Francisco just as many TDs as Colin Kaepernick earned himself, but the defensive strategy the Niners drew up was brilliant.  They played heavy coverage until it paid off in the first half, lulling the Saints’ offensive line into a sense of false security and then unleashed holy terror in the pass rush for the next 30 minutes.  I couldn’t bear to watch it anymore around the two-minute warning, but San Francisco deserves a ton of respect for stopping a hot team at home dead in their tracks.

·      Nailed It!: My Best Prediction of the Week - I took a few more chances against the spread this week than I normally do with mixed results, but my assessment of the coaching matchup (and unfortunate Ryan Lindley) were pretty good in Cardinals v. Rams:

o  "The Cardinals' 0 - 6 streak is starting to feel just as idiosyncratic as their 4 - 0 start, and surely Ken Whisenhut isn't stupid enough to start his third string QB again.  But maybe that's my point in picking the Rams here: Jeff Fisher just isn't that stupid."

Week 12: The Bad Stuff

·      The Return of Blatantly Terrible Officiating – Just in case there are a handful of fans who haven’t fallen back out of love with the return of the A-Team NFL referees, we’ve seen some of those old-fashioned terrible calls in recent weeks.  None was more blatantly awful than during the Lions-Texans game for all the world to watch on Thanksgiving.  At a glance, Houston appeared to score a long TD run after Justin Forsett broke a tackle near the line of scrimmage and sprinted all the way to the end zone untouched.  The problem?  He was obviously down by contact during said broken tackle, which the refs refused even to review, instead penalizing Detroit for trying to challenge the play. Sure, the Lions’ penalty was warranted in the rule book and the refs were also playing by it when they refused to review the replay, but this is definitely a situation in which the spirit versus letter of the law has just about everyone’s heads spinning.  Even as we speak, Detroit fans must be feeling the Thanksgiving heartburn since that score eventually sent Houston to overtime and then a win.

·      The Steelers’ Attempted Suicide – I’m not sure what was worse, the Steelers’ abysmal 8-turnover game or the fact that the Browns still only won by six points in spite of it.  What I do know is that the Steelers have bigger problems than Charlie Batch right now—the holes in the offensive line are really starting to show without Big Ben there to shake off five defenders around his ankles, and the rest of the offense is providing no help to match severe attrition on defense. In any case, Pittsburgh’s looking like a prime candidate for the second-half Lady Blitz Kiss of Death award after I had them beating out Baltimore for the division title in my most recent playoff predictions.

·      Green Bay’s Early Fold – Speaking of teams totally exposed by injuries this week, few looked more lifeless from the get-go than the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night in the Meadowlands.  There can be no doubt they were outplayed and overpowered for about 50 minutes of action by the Giants, but it really looked like Aaron Rodgers & co. weren’t even trying, much to the chagrin of fantasy owners everywhere.  Even with a quarter and a half left to go, the Packers were too busy handing the ball off to their third string running backs and dumping check downs behind the line of scrimmage to even attempt to look respectable.  This may just be a grand conspiracy from an Aaron Rodgers-begrudger, but I’m more than a little suspicious that he was more concerned about padding his efficiency stats than trying to give his team a chance when the going got tough.

·      Shanked It!: My Worst Week 12 Prediction – While it was still technically an upset, I’m feeling more than a little foolish about my Cowboys-Redskins pick, since it couldn’t be much further from reality in retrospect:

o   "The Redskins could walk away with the win in Dallas, and I'm certainly rooting for them to do so.  But I think Rob Ryan's defense will have the edge against RG3, who's putting up a respectable rookie year but also fallible against solid defenses like this one."

Week 12 Feature: The Five Worst Fan Bases in the NFL
I was intrigued this week to read that Ed the Fireman is stepping down as the unofficial mascot of the New York Jets.  I too would be deeply embarrassed having to support Mark Sanchez on a weekly basis, but apparently that wasn't the reason for Ed's return to anonymity.  Rather, he was tired of being constantly harassed by his own fellow [drunken] Jets fans when his team wasn't doing so well.  Which got me thinking on a slow week, which teams have the worst fan bases in the NFL?  Let's find out:


5) San Francisco 49ers - Oh sure, they've got plenty to cheer about now that everything's coming up roses with Jim Harbaugh and a loaded defense/QB supply.  But where were all these suddenly-San Francisco fans between 1999 and 2010?  I guess either jogging alongside the bandwagon and/or stockpiling their decals and car window flags for a rainy day.  SF's as fair-weather as they get, not that I'm bitter about anything.
4) Pittsburgh Steelers - I know I need to tread lightly with some of my readership on this one, and to be fair, I know many lovely Steelers fans... because there's so many of them.  Normally I'd pick on Cowboys fans instead for being so inexplicably ubiquitous, but the way Dallas has played for the last several years, I'm starting to think they really are a loyal bunch for better or worse.  No, the Steelers get this one because every time you criticize them for supporting an alleged rapist, they're all "HOW MANY RINGZZZ DUZ YUR TEAM HAVE?! DUURRRR"  You're welcome, for this masterpiece theater performance.
3) Florida, All of It - What do the Buccaneers, Dolphins and Jaguars all have in common?  Constant threats of packing up for London and L.A.  I'm sure there's a perfectly sociological reason why the fourth most populated state in the U.S. doesn't turn out for any of its pro football teams, but there's no denying that these sunshine fans are pretty lackluster.  Fun fact: there are more empty NFL seats than suppressed voters per capita in Florida.
2) New York Jets - As mentioned above, the Jets have one of the few fan bases that would actually eat their own when the going gets tough.  Because nothing refutes the notion of misdirected hostility like trashing a New York firefighter instead of that mouthy coach who promises you the Lombardi every year and gives you Tim Tebow and Mark Sanchez instead.  Then there's all that entitled misogyny that makes these guys a notch worse than all those non-existent Florida fans.
1) Philadelphia Eagles - To be fair, Philly may have more reasons to be cranky than just about any other fan base in the NFL, given the last two seasons and a lifetime of Lombardi-less disappointment.  But theirs is a track record of epic proportions when it comes to unsportsmanlike conduct.  Where do we start?  Well, there's immediately booing your own first round draft pick, Donovan McNabb, who took you to five conference championships and a Super Bowl.  And Santa Claus (really).  But cheering for Michael Irvin when he suffered a career-ending neck injury on the field.  And also installing your own court and jailing system in-house to cut down on bottle-necking with all that criminal activity.  Just another Sunday in the city of brotherly love: