Bobby Bones: These 10 Long-Suffering Fan Bases Deserve a Title the Most

This list is not about rosters. Bobby Bones was clear about that up front.

"This is about fan bases. There's nothing more."

**10. Carolina Panthers.** Two Super Bowl trips, two losses, and Bones cannot shake the sense that the Cam Newton era was the last time that fan base truly believed. He wants them to get the ending they thought they were getting in 2015.

**9. Jacksonville Jaguars.** Never made one, and permanently treated as a little brother franchise, which Bones thinks is only because they are newish and have not been. The relocation jokes write themselves and he made a couple, then landed somewhere more personal. He moved a lot as a kid.

"I just want those fans to feel like they belong."

**8. Houston Texans.** A relatively young franchise, so Bones does not carry the same ache. What earns the slot is the city, which loved football through the Oilers long before this team existed.

He also listed, at some length, the reasons he nearly left them off: the traffic, Enron, and the Astros.

**7. Los Angeles Chargers.** Everyone makes fun of them, and Bones wants that to stop. He would like them to go deep enough into a January for everyone to agree Justin Herbert is the guy. They have a great coach, a really good quarterback, and a cool logo.

The clincher, though, was apparel. The Chargers starter pullover was the coolest one going, and Bones was not even a fan. He knew them from Tecmo Bowl.

**6. Atlanta Falcons.** The entire argument is a number.

Twenty-eight to three.

Bones extended it into the segment's best analogy, which is unflavored Robitussin. That is what the last several years have tasted like in Atlanta, and they have been drinking it since that night.

The sugar, obviously, is a Super Bowl.

**5. Cincinnati Bengals.** Three appearances, no titles, and this one is autobiography. Growing up in Arkansas without a team, Bones adopted the Bengals because Boomer Esiason was a left-handed quarterback and so was he. Ickey Woods helped.

He also delivered the update that makes the pick land. In October, Bones is inducting Esiason into the Radio Hall of Fame, having been inducted himself in 2017 as the youngest member ever, a fact he flagged twice as not a flex.

Getting to induct your favorite player of all time is, as he put it, cool.

**4. Minnesota Vikings.** Four Super Bowls, four losses, none in his lifetime, the last in 1976. Bones described them as a junior varsity Buffalo Bills, on the grounds that Buffalo's went bang bang bang bang while Minnesota has spread the misery across generations.

He credits them with roughly 70 distinct ways of breaking a fan's heart, which he relates to.

**3. Detroit Lions.** Never been. Generations have simply waited, which Bones understands as a lifelong Cubs fan who spent his life sitting and hoping.

What he actually wants to see is the city celebrating, and his prediction for how that would go says more about him than about Detroit.

"I bet they wouldn't burn stuff," he said. "Why don't we build a few houses for the less fortunate?"

He expects an outbreak of altruism, and compared what would happen in his own chest to the Grinch's heart growing three sizes.

**2. Dallas Cowboys.** He knew this one would generate mail and pre-emptively agreed with the mail.

"I know I'm an idiot."

The twist is that Bones grew up a Cowboys hater, precisely because everyone around him in Arkansas was a fan and, in his words, he is not a winner. The relationship changed by way of Arkansas itself, since Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer were all on the 1964 national championship team there.

He now has Jones' phone number and offered to FaceTime him after the show.

The case is not the roster. It is that Dallas has not reached an NFC Championship game since the 1995 season, which Mike supplied and Bones did not enjoy, and that a Cowboys run is the best story available to the sport for lovers and haters alike.

**1. Buffalo Bills.** Bones thinks this one is close to universal.

He started with the cold, which he does not understand as a way to live, and then arrived at the thing he did not appreciate as a kid.

Four in a row. In a row. In a row. In a row.

The adult read on it is the one that stings, because of how good a team has to be to reach a single Super Bowl. The desk added the detail that Buffalo was arguably the better team in only one of the four, against the Giants, while Washington and then the Cowboys were the best teams in football in the others.

Bones' position is that the numbers should have broken their way at least once, and that karma and the football gods owe them.

"If any fan base deserves it, if any fan base has been loyal and absolutely insane even when times were bad, it's Bills Mafia."