By Dan Boone… In the NFL the owners ask a lot of the fans. The personal seat licenses extortion, 10-beers, seven-buck hot dogs, six-buck sodas, full priced exhibition game tickets, 25-buck Made in China team caps, $75 made in Indonesia game jerseys, $30 parking, and tax-payer-funded stadiums, to name just a few perks.
They ask for all that and more. Each year, every year, gang greed wants more…More, more, more. But fans of certain franchises always get less, less, less.
Some teams seemed doom. Whether cursed by the ghost of Bobby Layne, just destined to be team ruled by pettiness due to some rogue DNA rolling around the owners brain, or just plain incompetence and bad luck some teams always seem to be on the losing end.
So while the NFL and its billionaire boys club prepare to go the mattresses with tiny Delaware and its dreams of a state-sponsored sports betting, while the always hypocritical NFL rolls out lottery ticket games, let’s look at the franchises that give their fans the worst bang for their buck.
1. Detroit Lions
It’s been almost 50 years since Bobby Layne blew Motown in a huff and the Lions have been mostly lusterless ever since.
Beside George Plimpton, Barry Sanders, and the brief bright light of Billy Sims, there has not been much to excite Lion fans since.
It’s beating a dead cat, but what have the Fords been worst at football or Ford Motors? Both seem dead in the water and Motown might be an American ghost town soon.
The Los Angles Lions? It has a ring to it. The Hollywood Lions?
2. Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals broke into a pair of Super Bowls in the ’80s but it’s been a two-decade dead spell since. A dead spell broken by a string of spectacular arrests and failed teams.
Owner Mike Brown is considered to be one of the cheapest owners east of the Bidwells, and the Bengals always suffer from a short scouting staff and an inability to develop quality players or sign key free agents.
Superman used to have an enemy known as Bizarro who was an evil opposite version of Superman formed by a laboratory experiment gone horribly wrong. That is the Bengals in comparison to their division rival Pittsburgh Steelers.
What direction would the Bengals have taken if they had hired assistant coach Bill Walsh all those years ago? Would Ken Anderson be wearing a few Super Bowl rings right now?
Owner Paul Browns mania prevented the Bill Walsh hiring and Walsh always wondered why. So do the Bungle faithful.
3. Cleveland Browns
The city and franchise have not been the same since Marty Schottenheimer decided to play prevent defense against John Elway on what become known as “The Drive.”
The there was the sad sequel “The Fumble” then the tragedy “The Modell Move” and since then team returned its been mostly flat line football.
The recycled New York Jet Wonder Child wants to can the franchise quarterback from South Bend before he has a chance to prove he’s another bad Brown. It’s a big bet by a magic man who should little magic on Broadway.
The team lacks direction and talent and its Super Bowl less streak will continue well into the twenty teens and beyond.
But the 1940s and the Jim Brown era were quite a run. And quite a long time ago. Best thing for Browns fans to do now is to block arch betrayers Art Modell’s Hall of Fame hopes.
The Hall of fame isn’t for rats, is it?
4. Arizona Cardinals
A Super Bowl appearance doesn’t erase the curse of the Bidwells. Long known as one of the worst owners in any professional sports the fanatically frugal Bidwells won’t let the Cardinals success stand long.
Like the Phoenix their city is named for, expect this bird to rise from the ashes only once every 500 years or so.
The Bidwell’s would bring down any franchise in any sport in any country.
5. Kansas City Chiefs
While his Daddy HL Hunt was digging oil and talking John Birch blues and his brother Bunker was cornering the silver market Lamar Hunt was given the Chiefs to play with
And they played well in the 1970s. But its been a long sad, slow decline since the days of Lennie Dawson, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, and Hank Stram.
Under the mismanagement of Herman Edwards and Carl Peterson the Chiefs ended up a very boring team, very losing team, with little talent and less reason to spark any hope in the hearts of Chief fans.
It’s cold in Missouri at football games in winter time and Kansas City desperately needs to do something positive for its besieged, and worse bored, fan base.
6. San Francisco 49ers
Shopping mall Godfather Eddie Debartolo liked to try to bribe corruptible Southern Governors and to bet big on his team but at least he wanted very badly to win.
And win the big one. Never again will we see an owner willing to stockpile his team with so much high priced talent.
The salary cap won’t allow an owner to import the entire starting defensive line of the San Diego Chargers as back ups or stash Steve Young on the roster after slipping a fellow owner a million in cash as Eddie D once did..
But at least Eddie D wanted to win the York’s don’t seem to care. The lack of Fast Eddie D has laid this once proud franchise low.
7. Oakland Raiders
I like Al Davis. He’s done more for football then any modern era owner but the old pirate needs a first mate who can pick talent, pay coaches contracts, and negotiate trades.
Al has lost his magical mojo.
Me hopes he gets his mojo back but the pirate king is aging and the players he picks aren’t playing at a high level anymore.
John Madden phone home? Help Mad Al find his mojo.
8. Dallas Cowboys
Like Lamar Hunt, old Dallas Cowboy owner was the scion of a Big Oil Dallas Daddy.
But Clint, unlike Hunt, was a wild one who loved his booze, pills, powders, cheerleaders, and Cowboys.
But unlike Jerry Jones, Clint hired Tom Landry, Gil Brandt, and Tex Schramm to run the football end of things while he funded the fun times until his bubble burst.
Jerry Jones thinks he is Tom Landry, Tex Schramm, Gil Brandt, and Clint Murchison Jr. ruled into one all knowing football being.
The Cowboys have not been the same since Jimmy Johnson left. When was the last time the Cowboys won a playoff game?
Jones seems like he has more fun running a free wheeling circus rather then a football team so Cowboy fans ought to enjoy Jessica Simpson new reality TV show which will feature their starting quarterback in a starring role.
Would Roger Staubach do that? What would have Tom Landry said about that?
Who knows? But the circus is in town and fans better pluck up the big bucks to see the show.
The last time fans in Dallas town were being held up like this was when Clyde Barrow was running about West Dallas with a wild woman, bootleg booze, and a trunk full of stolen guns.
Anyone want to buy any naming rights for the ball park?
9. Washington Redskins
Even in his 80s, old Redskin billionaire owner Jack Kent Cooke liked his wild, wind shield riding, drug toting, brown eyed South American ladies and he loved his Redskins.
He left his Redskins in the able hands of Joe Gibbs and Bobby Beathard. To current owner Daniel Snyder the Redskins are but a big toy to boost his ego and build his bank account by fleecing the Redskin faithful.
Failed coaches and free agent flops come and go quicker in DC then corrupt lobbyists these days and under Danny it doesn’t seem like it going to get better.
But for the fans it will definitely get costlier.
Why pay more for a product so much poorer then it was two decades ago?
Well it is Washington.
10. Chicago Bears
Sure they signed Jay Cutler but its a shameful stain on the teams old name that all its passing records are held by Sid Luckman who retired 60 years ago before passing rules were liberalized.
The Bears owners have a history of cheapness and it all began with the Papa Bear George Halas.
Bronko Nagurski left the Bears in the ’30s because pro wrestling paid better than the Papa Bear did. Mike Ditka, the player, once said that Halas threw nickels around like manhole covers. The great Dick Butkus’ career was riddled with bad knees and worst contract disputes.
QB George Blanda was signed by the Bears for $600, a fee Halas hounded Blanda to refund when he made the team, and after long running money feud with Halas Blanda left the Bears for a Hall of fame career elsewhere. Blanda later said Halas was even to cheap to buy him a kicking tee.
The great Bear team of 1985 was dismantled by Halas grandson, Mike McCaskey, who refused to bring in a capable back up QB or USFL stars while releasing such stars as Wilbur Marshall, Willie Gault, and Otis Wilson over contract disputes.
With Cutler the Bears finally have a capable QB but it might have came four years after their defense peaked.
Don’t expect a Bear to change its coat.
