A Steelers Fan Guide To Hating BR’s ‘Team Guides To Hating’
It’s real easy to hate this guy and his team.
Hate hate hate. Why can’t we all just get along?
In the NFL, as it is with pretty much any competitive sport in the world, rivalries are aplenty. They can be forged from years of repetitive meetings every season. Sometimes a rivalry can be instantly formed based on a single play – usually in the case of a hard hit, confrontation, or use of words. There’s much more of an emotional investment when those games are played. Much more is at stake than just a win or loss. Some rivals, the really special ones, become a cesspool of hatred that Satan himself crumbles in front of – like the Steelers/Ravens rivalry. Hatred has a special place in the NFL. It can also stem from teams that become easy to dislike based on how they run their organization or the players/coaches on that squad. Take for instance the New England Patriots. Everyone other than Patriot fans can certainly rally around the fact that they want this team to lose so badly when they play week in and week out. Rooting for the Patriots when you aren’t from New England is like rooting for Lord Voldemort. The masses of NFL fans HATE the Patriots.
This is where my beef lies with Bleacher Report and their recent ‘Guides to Hating.’ Hate is such a strong emotion and should only be reserved for those who really deserve it – the Ravens and Patriots (and their fan bases) if you are a Steelers fan. Are there really other teams out there that actually deserve that kind of emotional commitment from Steeler Nation? I don’t believe so. It’s quite one thing to dislike any other team in the AFC North. But to hate the Browns? What for? For sucking so much? How does that work? You have to admit that the old rivalry between those two teams has wavered over the last decade (really since the old Browns became Baltimore and the new Browns emerged). So it’s hard to even begin to hate a team like that. Hate the Bengals? For what? Delivering us Ginger Spice for the next several years to beat up on and giving us hours of entertainment by reading about all their run ins with Johnny Law? No no, my friends of Steeler Nation, BR is really off base here with this whole to do of ‘hatred.’
Let’s continue with the Bengals. BR posted a Pittsburgh Steelers Fan Guide to Hating the Cincinnati Bengals. Firstly, I think any Steeler fan is well equipped to know the circumstances and history as to why they should feel one particular way or another about a team. Secondly, a guide like this pretty much picks up any little nugget to use as munition for stirring up hatred. James Harrison is a reason why Steeler fans should hate the Bengals? Really? Pretty sure the Bengals didn’t ‘steal away’ Harrison from the Steelers. What happened between Harrison and the Steelers was between just the two of them. The Bengals just got the fallout – or sloppy seconds as we’ll see this season. That’s no reason to hate them. Another listed reason – the Bengals kept the Steelers out of the playoffs this past season. Pretty sure it was the Steelers who kept themselves out of the playoffs back in 2012. Period. And lastly, the Bengals are a nuisance and that’s why we should hate them? Flys are nuisances. I usually just swat them out of the way. But I don’t hate flys. Ok, so maybe the whole ‘Who Dey’ is enough to make me want to slap a Bungles fan upside the head. But who could hate a guy that’s willing to dress like this? Apparently BR can justify it and they keep sending the Hate Guides out every day. Make it stop!!! You should see some of the stupid reasons they have for why teams should hate the Steelers.
I think it’s quite fair to say that there are teams that deserve hating. The Steelers could certainly be one of them. If I were a Ravens fan (dear God what did I just say?!?!?) I would hate the Steelers. If I were a Seahawk fan, I would hate the Steelers because Seahawk fans are dumb enough to think that the Super Bowl was ‘stolen’ away from them (those entitled West Coast whiners). But just because a team in the NFL is not your team, doesn’t mean they deserve my time and emotion to be hated. I know it’s slow in the offseason, but can we not waste time by writing articles like a hate guide….. or ones like this hating on hate guides?