ZachKC
01-10-2006, 03:52 PM
I thought this was a pretty funny read.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/060110_nfl
As we detailed earlier with the Baseball Misery Index in the spring of 2004, rooting for a team can bring two types of misery.
There is the misery of being so close to a Super Bowl win that you can practically taste the Gatorade in the jug as the players sneak up on the coach … only to watch the football bounce off the upright. And there is the misery of enduring so many losing seasons that not even John Facenda could make the team's history sound interesting.
Which is worse, getting left at the altar with nothing but the bill while Owen Wilson walks off with Rachel McAdams OR never even getting a date and spending all of your weekends eating TV dinners in your mom's house while watching "Supernanny"? Do a few recent years of enormous success overcome decades of attending games with a paper sack over your head? Do a few recent years of losing overshadow decades of riches from covering the spread? Or to put it more exactly to Steelers fans, do four Super Bowl rings in the 1970s offset Terry Bradshaw's singing "A Hard Day's Night" during the Super Bowl halftime show?
As Drew Rosenhaus might respond, "Next question, next question."
Unlike everyone's favorite agent, Page 2 is determined to answer these questions. To do so, we developed the Misery Index, a 60-point system that measures two types of fan misery -- despair (produced by losing seasons) and pain (brought on by agonizing ends to winning seasons). It also accounts for both historical and recent misery (though New Orleans fans might very well ask, "What's the difference?").
It's the same system we used with the Baseball Misery Index, but there was one major obstacle in compiling the NFL Misery Index that we hadn't faced before. Namely, what the heck do we do with all of the football teams that have moved?
The NFL has hosed fans so often in the past two decades that it's a tricky issue. Do you consider the Houston Oilers' woes when calculating the Tennessee Titans' misery? What about the Baltimore Ravens? Do you count the leftover angst from the Colts' midnight departure, or do you only consider the pain of dealing with Brian Billick's ego? And what of the Cardinals? Who is more miserable there? The fans in the city they left (St. Louis) or the fans in the city they moved to (Phoenix)?
n the end, we decided to focus on the city rather than the team. After all, it's not the teams that accumulate misery, it's their fans (along with mounting debt for personal seat licenses). And that type of misery remains in a city even longer than the exhaust fumes belching from a fleet of U-Hauls putting the pedal to the metal.
So for our purposes, Cleveland's misery index is based on the current team as well as the old Browns. Baltimore's ranking is based on the Ravens and the Colts. Houston's is based on the Oilers and the Texans. And so on.
Detroit's misery, however, is all its own.
1. Cleveland Browns
Sure, Cleveland once was an NFL powerhouse, winning three championships in the days before Roman numerals. But that was so long ago that America's heartland actually still manufactured things.
The decades haven't been kind to Cleveland since Jim Brown retired to the set of the "Dirty Dozen" to pursue his "acting career." The Browns have had more losing seasons than winning seasons in the past three decades. They've lost five games that could have sent them to the Super Bowl, losing three of them in a span of four years. They watched John Elway march the Broncos 98 yards for a touchdown in the final minutes of the AFC championship game on Jan. 11, 1987. They watched Ernest Byner fumble at the 3-yard line. But just when it seemed it could get no worse, owner/Satan spawn Art Modell stole the team and took it to Baltimore -- where the Ravens won a Super Bowl. Sure, Cleveland got a replacement team. But it stinks. It was like having someone take your Jim Brown throwback jersey and giving you a Jeff Garcia giveaway T-shirt in return.
Lousy teams, painful losses, a hijacked team. Sheesh. The only thing missing from the Browns' misery is Kathy Bates' crushing their ankles with a sledgehammer.
10. (tie) San Diego Chargers
Damn. If only it had been Ryan Leaf who insisted he would never play for San Diego.
Historic despair 5.0
Recent despair 5.0
Historic pain 6.5
Recent pain 4.0
Intangible misery 7.0
Misery outlook 3.0
MISERY INDEX 30.5
13. (tie) Kansas City Chiefs
They can always say they played in Super Bowl I and won Super Bowl IV, but the glory days are growing ever more distant (why, oh why, did they draft Todd Blackledge instead of Jim Kelly or Dan Marino?). Heck, even the Royals would have made a playoff opponent punt the ball at least once.
Historic despair 4.0
Recent despair 4.0
Historic pain 4.0
Recent pain 5.0
Intangible misery 4.0
Misery outlook 5.0
MISERY INDEX 26.0
24. (tie) Oakland Raiders
Look, no one made you invite Al Davis back to town.
Historic despair .5
Recent despair 3.0
Historic pain 5.0
Recent pain 2.0
Intangible misery 1.0
Misery outlook 3.0
MISERY INDEX 14.5
28. (tie) Denver Broncos
And to think. All those years of misery finally came to an end with consecutive Super Bowl victories, all thanks to a new helmet containing a sleek image of a horse face.
We're talking about the new logo, by the way, not Elway.
Historic despair 1.5
Recent despair 1.0
Historic pain 5.5
Recent pain 1.0
Intangible misery 2.0
Misery outlook 2.5
MISERY INDEX 13.5
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/060110_nfl
As we detailed earlier with the Baseball Misery Index in the spring of 2004, rooting for a team can bring two types of misery.
There is the misery of being so close to a Super Bowl win that you can practically taste the Gatorade in the jug as the players sneak up on the coach … only to watch the football bounce off the upright. And there is the misery of enduring so many losing seasons that not even John Facenda could make the team's history sound interesting.
Which is worse, getting left at the altar with nothing but the bill while Owen Wilson walks off with Rachel McAdams OR never even getting a date and spending all of your weekends eating TV dinners in your mom's house while watching "Supernanny"? Do a few recent years of enormous success overcome decades of attending games with a paper sack over your head? Do a few recent years of losing overshadow decades of riches from covering the spread? Or to put it more exactly to Steelers fans, do four Super Bowl rings in the 1970s offset Terry Bradshaw's singing "A Hard Day's Night" during the Super Bowl halftime show?
As Drew Rosenhaus might respond, "Next question, next question."
Unlike everyone's favorite agent, Page 2 is determined to answer these questions. To do so, we developed the Misery Index, a 60-point system that measures two types of fan misery -- despair (produced by losing seasons) and pain (brought on by agonizing ends to winning seasons). It also accounts for both historical and recent misery (though New Orleans fans might very well ask, "What's the difference?").
It's the same system we used with the Baseball Misery Index, but there was one major obstacle in compiling the NFL Misery Index that we hadn't faced before. Namely, what the heck do we do with all of the football teams that have moved?
The NFL has hosed fans so often in the past two decades that it's a tricky issue. Do you consider the Houston Oilers' woes when calculating the Tennessee Titans' misery? What about the Baltimore Ravens? Do you count the leftover angst from the Colts' midnight departure, or do you only consider the pain of dealing with Brian Billick's ego? And what of the Cardinals? Who is more miserable there? The fans in the city they left (St. Louis) or the fans in the city they moved to (Phoenix)?
n the end, we decided to focus on the city rather than the team. After all, it's not the teams that accumulate misery, it's their fans (along with mounting debt for personal seat licenses). And that type of misery remains in a city even longer than the exhaust fumes belching from a fleet of U-Hauls putting the pedal to the metal.
So for our purposes, Cleveland's misery index is based on the current team as well as the old Browns. Baltimore's ranking is based on the Ravens and the Colts. Houston's is based on the Oilers and the Texans. And so on.
Detroit's misery, however, is all its own.
1. Cleveland Browns
Sure, Cleveland once was an NFL powerhouse, winning three championships in the days before Roman numerals. But that was so long ago that America's heartland actually still manufactured things.
The decades haven't been kind to Cleveland since Jim Brown retired to the set of the "Dirty Dozen" to pursue his "acting career." The Browns have had more losing seasons than winning seasons in the past three decades. They've lost five games that could have sent them to the Super Bowl, losing three of them in a span of four years. They watched John Elway march the Broncos 98 yards for a touchdown in the final minutes of the AFC championship game on Jan. 11, 1987. They watched Ernest Byner fumble at the 3-yard line. But just when it seemed it could get no worse, owner/Satan spawn Art Modell stole the team and took it to Baltimore -- where the Ravens won a Super Bowl. Sure, Cleveland got a replacement team. But it stinks. It was like having someone take your Jim Brown throwback jersey and giving you a Jeff Garcia giveaway T-shirt in return.
Lousy teams, painful losses, a hijacked team. Sheesh. The only thing missing from the Browns' misery is Kathy Bates' crushing their ankles with a sledgehammer.
10. (tie) San Diego Chargers
Damn. If only it had been Ryan Leaf who insisted he would never play for San Diego.
Historic despair 5.0
Recent despair 5.0
Historic pain 6.5
Recent pain 4.0
Intangible misery 7.0
Misery outlook 3.0
MISERY INDEX 30.5
13. (tie) Kansas City Chiefs
They can always say they played in Super Bowl I and won Super Bowl IV, but the glory days are growing ever more distant (why, oh why, did they draft Todd Blackledge instead of Jim Kelly or Dan Marino?). Heck, even the Royals would have made a playoff opponent punt the ball at least once.
Historic despair 4.0
Recent despair 4.0
Historic pain 4.0
Recent pain 5.0
Intangible misery 4.0
Misery outlook 5.0
MISERY INDEX 26.0
24. (tie) Oakland Raiders
Look, no one made you invite Al Davis back to town.
Historic despair .5
Recent despair 3.0
Historic pain 5.0
Recent pain 2.0
Intangible misery 1.0
Misery outlook 3.0
MISERY INDEX 14.5
28. (tie) Denver Broncos
And to think. All those years of misery finally came to an end with consecutive Super Bowl victories, all thanks to a new helmet containing a sleek image of a horse face.
We're talking about the new logo, by the way, not Elway.
Historic despair 1.5
Recent despair 1.0
Historic pain 5.5
Recent pain 1.0
Intangible misery 2.0
Misery outlook 2.5
MISERY INDEX 13.5