Football Fans: The Optimist
The Optimist is a naive soul, a new fan full of youth who has yet to have their heart truly broken.
It’s one thing to have a little optimism for the team once in a while. Maybe they just fired a bad coach or coordinator, and made a good hire or plugged a big hole in free agency. But these are small hopes. The Optimist thinks everything is great and maybe all they need is a lucky break or two and they will win it all. They say with confidence that their team is better than others, like it’s established fact. When things are going poorly it just growing pains. It’s impossible to convince the Optimist that their team has many faults and football fandom is a cruel mistress. They are typically just a few years into being a fan and usually former bandwagoners who still care and follows the game regularly now.
Optimists are relatively rare and usually are fans of teams with decent recent success. You don’t get a lot of Optimists in fandoms like Cleveland or Detroit. They are like new shoes, they need to get broken in a bit. You can’t change the Optimist, only the team’s performance can.
The Optimist eventually evolves. Their team might continue to get close, have reasonable success, but never reach the top and slowly make the Optimist realize the harsh truth: Every year, only one out of 32 fanbases finishes the season happy. This turns them into the Pessimist. Or, their team has a string of back luck right in a row, and dives into the gutter. This breaks the Optimist. At this point he either stops caring and becomes a fairweather fan or a casual fan. If the game has gotten it’s claws into the Optimist before it breaks him though, he changes into the Bitter fan. We will see him next.
Is it possible to be a tempered optimistic fan? I fit most of the description, but it’s not out of blind optimism; I actually have statistical facts, game film analysis, and schedule matchups that back up my faith.
You are the Stat Nerd. I’ll get to you you big obnoxious number crunching know it all
The only time I’ve ever met one of these fans is when they’re bandwagon fans or as my dad so appropriately calls them “glory hunters”. That’s true when it comes to these fans. They see that the Giants, the Broncos, the Niners, the Pats or whoever is doing well (would be Seahawks now) and they follow that team for championships, nothing more. That’s why they’re so optimistic. They can always move on to another team. And that’s why you never see them in Cleveland, Tampa, Detroit or Jacksonville.
You’ve never met a Rams fan then.
I know a Rams fan. He’s a very bitter guy after the Super Bowl that they lost to the Patriots in 2001.
No,they exist. Scroll around the team reddits and you’ll find some for every team. They can list the entire roster and will determinedly argue about how 3rd string OLB from State Technical College is just primed for a 40 sack season.
I’m an optimist…and a Bills fan. It’s apparently fun, watching me get broken every season for the last 14 years.
Yes, yes it is.
Yeah go Bills! You know its not as bad for 16 year old Bills fan like myself who has never seen playoff football from my favorite team in my life that I can remember so I sort of don’ know what I’m missing. Also I didn’t live through those 4 years that shall not be spoken of.
They’re rare, but I’ve encountered one other possible evolution of the Optimist, who might be described as the Pollyanna, or perhaps the Deranged Optimist. This is a fan who, having started out as a garden-variety optimist decades ago, should have long since tempered his expectations, or quit following the sport religiously, or, well, anything. Instead, you end up with a lifelong fan who is convinced every year that his team is on the verge of going undefeated and only rules out possibilities as they become literally impossible. What really stands out about this rare breed is indefatigability — ten years of no bowls/playoffs? Well, there’s always next season to look forward to. Star player tears his ACL? I’m sure he’ll be back by the end of the season — and, hey, I hear his backup’s nevef lost a game! First halfway-decent coach in forever leaves for a less depressing job? You just wait — that WR coordinator we just promoted will be Coach of the Year before too long. Down four scores with two minutes to go? Our kicker is a legend — four onside kicks is nothing! There’s just no getting this breed of fan down.
My favorite example of this kind of fan is a lifer I met at WKU (probably one of about five lifer WKU football fans in existence) who was, and as far as I know still is, convinced that any day now the school will go all Boise State on college football and parlay it into a Big Ten invite.
Took me a while to find the sexy rexy – what is this, a sexy rexy for ants?
Shhhh! You’re not supposed to talk about it.
sigh
maybe next year
All fans are optimists at heart. Why else would we continue to watch?
Patriots (and, I would imagine, 49ers, Packers and Saints) fans are in that weird purgatory where we’re expecting 12 wins every year, but lie awake at night dreading the 1st or 2nd round playoff exit before the season even starts.
I’m an optimist to my core, but I’m also a Bengals fan. # years in a row of shit the bed heartbreak and I’m having trouble being optimistic this year. I’ll get there though, I always do. THIS IS OUR YEAR!
You’re an optimist until you remember that Andy Dalton is your QB.
The truth hurts 🙁
I love watching these fans every year and finding their broken souls in the corner of my favorite sports bar crying after a bitter defeat.
ಠ_ಠ
Your team won a SB three years ago. Don’t get me started on the perennial lolphins
I was a broken man before those two super bowls happened. The good fortune cannot repair me all the way. But that is why I am just the pessimist instead of the jaded bitter fan.
Poor baby had a single four win season in 2003, and a three win season in ’83. However did you survive? ㅠㅠ
I go to school where everyone loves boston. I felt Like i was on top of the fucking world the monday after those super bowls
There are optimistic Browns fans, they usually just hang out in their padded rooms. But seriously, did you see the game against the Patriots last year? How can you expect anyone to mentally survive that kind of horror?
Browns Fans: YES. THERE IS HOPE. JOHNNY FOOTBALL IS THE FUTURE!!!!
Josh Brown: (Gets suspended for a year).
Nate Robinson: (Breaks Arm)
Rest of browns receivers: (suck ass)
Bryan Hoyer: (Tears both ACLs)
FARTER MCFARTERSON
I guess I’m in the minority, because I’m for the most part an optimist, and I’m a Dolphins fan. This is the first year I REALLY started to follow the team, and I got to feel the dissapointment of having the post season in your hands and then losing it ._.
The thing is, I’ve noticed every year I’m optimistic good things happen. Every time I’m pessimistic, bad things happen. I went into the season last year with an air of unease. And bam, 2-14. Meanwhile, I had high hopes during the 12-4 season, and towards the very end became a pessimist. We got blown out by the Pats in the Divisional round that year.
I think it’s bad juju to be a pessimist man. That’s why I have high hopes for our defense and whoever starts at QB this season (Fitzmagic? Based Keenum? We’ll find out.)
This is just Confirmation Bias. If you feel uneasy or optimistic you latch onto the things that go your way. If you are a pessimist, then OF COURSE you lost, that’s what you expected. If you expect things to go well, then when things do that means you were right! It doesn’t have any resemblance to actual events. I went into every game in the 2007 and 2011 playoffs expecting to lose and we won the super bowl both times. I was convinced we’d lose until the time ran out both times. If we had lost I would have been right and claimed I felt it all along, but in reality I was just gloom and doom until proven wrong.
I tend to be optimistic until the game starts. Then I become a pessimist until the game ends.
Better than Johnny football