Folks, today I decided to run a very scientific poll in a Facebook group asking fans to name the team who they thought was the most irrelevant team in the league. Surprisingly, I agreed with the top 3 so I decided to blog about it.
When I define irrelevant I don’t want anyone to think that I mean “bad” because in some ways being bad gives you relevance. Look at the Cleveland Browns. They were the joke of the league for 15 years and because of that it gave them relevance. I’m talking about the teams that nobody gives a shit about. The teams that if they were to disappear nobody would notice on a national level and on a regional level there’d be a few sad fans but pretty much nobody would care (e.g. the Rams leaving St. Louis).
So without further adieu, here are the three most irrelevant NFL Franchises.
1. Tennessee Titans
I felt like this was pretty obvious. Literally nobody cares about the Tennessee Titans one way or another on a national level. The only person I’ve ever met that hates the Titans is a Jags fan which makes sense because they’re in the same division but other than that nobody cares.
They have the league’s two most mediocre quarterbacks in Marcus Mariota and Ryan Tannehill. I’m pretty sure they run the ball 50 times per game. They ranked 27th in points per game last year. The most exciting thing that has happened to this franchise in the last ten years is when their head coach, Mike Vrabel, recently said that he’d cut his own dick off to win a Super Bowl.
I was in Nashville, Tennessee last week and if it wasn’t for the stadium across the river from downtown nobody would even know that there’s a football team in the town. In fact, I’m still not sure that there’s a football in the town and I even saw a soccer game in their stadium. There’s no Titans gear anywhere. There’s no posters of players or advertisements. There’s no pride. If they disappeared nobody would care.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Nissan Stadium, where the Titans allegedly play, is basically a knock off of the Buccaneers stadium just without the pirate ship. When designing it they basically said “how can we design the world’s most boring stadium that will attract virtually no major events even though we play in America’s most vibrant city?” It perfectly sums up what the Titans are: mediocre and pointless. Nashville is the best city in America and they deserve better than this.
2. Cincinnati Bengals
Coming in at number two is the Bengals. This was also an easy one to surmise even before I did this poll. Fun fact about the Bengals: Since I’ve lived on this earth they haven’t won a playoff game. That’s right, the last time they won a playoff game was in January of 1991 when they beat the Houston Oilers AKA the Tennessee Titans AKA the only franchise that’s less relevant than them.
Sometimes when me and my friends get drunk and talk about sports we like to play the game, “can you name 3 players on the Bengals defense not named Geno Atkins?” You should seriously try it sometime. It’s a great game that is incredibly challenging and virtually impossible to win.
Other reasons that make this team irrelevant: Andy Dalton is somehow still the quarterback of this team. I don’t know how the hell that hasn’t been addressed yet. They also hired Zac Taylor to be their head coach simply because he knew Sean McVay. Zac Taylor also shares a name with the 12th President of the United States (Zachary Taylor) who died of a stomach ailment because he ate too much raw fruit and drank too much milk while celebrating the 4th of July. If that death doesn’t personify the entire existence of the Bengals franchise then I don’t know what does.
3. Jacksonville Jaguars
This one personally hurts to have to write because I was lucky enough to attend their first home playoff game in a generation back in 2017 when Blake Bortles led them to a 10-3 Victory over the Buffalo Bills and he ran for more yards than he passed. It was an epic game that you could only appreciate if you were in attendance (and really, really drunk).
That being said, this is a fair ranking. They’re definitely not as irrelevant as the Titans or the Bengals but no team gets talked about moving to London more than the Jags do. I’m not convinced that the people of Florida really care about this team simply because they really don’t care about most of the professional teams in the state. It’s the heart of SEC country there and the biggest game to happen at their stadium every year is the Florida vs. Georgia game.
Jaguars fans also make it pretty easy to make fun of them. For most teams the rallying chant is “Let’s go (insert team name here” but for the Jaguars, they yell out “DUUUVALL.”
What exactly is Duval?
Duval is the name of the county that Jacksonville is in. Can you imagine going to a Detroit Lions game and yelling “WAYNE” or a Chicago Bears game and yelling “COOK!”? That’s essentially what Jags fans do every single game. It makes no sense that they use the name of their county as a rallying cry.
In recent years, the team has had a somewhat better product on the field and they have exciting players like Jalen Ramsey (for now until Tom Coughlin sends him away for having a personality) and now Nick Foles. Things are looking better. That being said, for 11 of the past 12 seasons they’ve had a top 10 pick but they haven’t had the number 1 pick once. That level of mediocrity is outstanding. That’s the type of irrelevance that gets you a spot on this list. You’re not good enough to be a playoff team but you’re also not bad enough to get the best player on the board. It’s the very reason why I decided to compile this list.
Oh, and passing on JJ Watt in order to take Blaine Gabbert is really sad. I hope people don’t talk about my Giants passing on Josh Allen (who coincidentally went to the Jags) in order to take Daniel Jones in the same way in ten years.