I think I know what might be really hindering this franchise. ( I might be wrong)

[*Nately120*]

(12-29-2018, 11:37 PM)Whatever Wrote: Well, certainly, it would be a lot easier to be supportive if the team if they had more playoff success.  I certainly understand why the fanbase is negative.  But the fanbase is negative and toxic because they choose to be negative and toxic.  Other teams have been worse and still turn out to support their team better than we do.

Are the fans justified in having a toxic attitude?  Yes.  But it's still our choice to be toxic.  The FO, coaches, players, and fans are all a part of that culture.  

You know what, yeah, screw that star player that doesn't want to come here and play in a half full stadium for fans who won't buy his jersey.  He just doesn't get it.  He doesn't know what we've been through.  We don't need guys like that.  We're gonna build through the draft and I'm sure there's some 2nd and 3rd tier FA's that will just be glad to have a paycheck that will come help put this team over the top.  

That's the thing with players that can put a team over the top.  They tend to have options.  That means they have to actually want to come play for you as opposed to someone else.  Our actions as a fanbase are counterproductive to what we would like to see happen.

I'd say the quartet of misery in the NFL is the Bills, Lions, Bengals, and Browns.  What makes us extra "meh" about football compared to those fanbases may lie in the notion that when our team stink or disappoints we won't have a new HC or GM to get pointlessly excited about.

I don't see us as choosing to be toxic, so much as we are just apathetic.

As a fanbase we are able to get as stupidly excited as any other...hell, we have been pumped to see guys like AJ McCarron, Jeff Driskel, and Auden Tate get significant playing time, for Pete's sake.  If we actually followed up 3 losing seasons in a row by finding a new HC we'd explode with excitement.  This past off-season we fired our o-line coach after 25 years of crap and we made legitimate off-season moves to do something/anything to address an o-line that had been a glaring weak spot for years.  We almost orgasmed with glee.  

We've gotten optimistic over some pretty lame stuff, actually.  What choice do we have?