Who are the NFL's greatest fanbases? Well, it's a difficult question to answer. The loudest? The fans in Kansas City set a Guinness World Record back in 2014 at 142.2 decibels. The largest? That's still undoubtedly the Dallas Cowboys.
But to really answer the question, we have to go deeper than that. Fans that have seen off the worst of times and kept right on making noise, fans that truly make life difficult for opposing teams, and fans that know you need to keep pin drop silent when the home team offense is on the field.
Seattle Seahawks
Although the notion of the fans as "the 12th man" has been around since the late 19th century, the Seattle Seahawks really made the idea their own in 1984, when they retired the number in honour of their fans. In 2003, a giant No. 12 flag was installed at their home stadium and home games now begin with a ceremony for its raising. Prominent supporters are often invited to raise the flag.
Seahawks fans make their impact in other ways, too. They have twice set Guinness World Records for noise generated during matches, and registered the equivalent of a small tremor when Marshawn Lynch broke through the New Orleans Saints defense to score in January of 2011. That run became known as the Beast Quake.
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans fans endured some of the most consistently terrible play in the history of team sports in the early decades of the franchise's existence. With the notable exception of quarterback Archie Manning, the early Saints teams were terrible. Their first ever winning season was the 20th of the team's existence.
A fan born in the Saints' first season would have been 33 years old when they saw their first playoff victory, a 2000 Wild Card win over the Rams.
The fans gave their team a nickname "The 'aints", and took to wearing bags over their heads at games, joking that they wouldn't want to be spotted watching such a bad team.
Despite all of that, the Saints are integral to life in New Orleans. They are inextricably linked with the colour, style, and flavour of life in the city. Mardi Gras is the biggest day in the city's calendar, but Saints home games are probably next.
The city's recovery after Hurricane Katrina is credited, in some part, to the success of the team. The famous blocked punt by Steve Gleason upon their return to the Superdome after the disaster was immortalised in a statue that now sits outside the stadium, titled "Rebirth". The Superdome is routinely cited as one of the toughest places to play, one of the loudest arenas in the league, and that is a credit to the fans.
Over 800,000 people, in a city with an official population less than half that, lined the streets to celebrate the club's first Super Bowl victory in 2010. When they saw their team unfairly denied in the infamous "Nola No Call" refereeing debacle in 2018 NFC Championship Game, New Orleans fans switched off in record numbers, giving the Super Bowl its lowest rating in any market as fans held blackout parties.
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns have been a profoundly struggling franchise for most of their existence since their rebirth in 1999. The same fans that support them now, saw their team taken from them in 1995 when owner Art Modell moved the former Cleveland Browns to Maryland to become the Baltimore Ravens. When the new team began, the fans flocked to them after refusing to support other teams in the interim.
They are infamous for their loyalty, having continued to fill the stadium despite years of abject play and incompetent coaching. The Dawg Pound, a section of the stadium reserved for the most passionate fans, is a beloved part of NFL fan culture even far from Cleveland.
Despite losing every game in 2017, the Browns saw almost no dip in home attendance, still averaging 63,882 fans for every game.
Browns fans have long memories too, often reminding other supporters of their club's eight pre-Super Bowl championship wins.
Buffalo Bills
There are few more long suffering fan groups than those of the Buffalo Bills. Their first period of sustained success in the late 1980s culminated in four successive Super Bowl trips. They lost all four.
In the middle of that run, Bills fans set a single-season record in 1991, with 635,889 fans passing through the turnstiles.
Somehow, Bills fans managed to survive that unprecedented series of defeats, only to slip into a decade of mediocrity. To make matters worse, divisional rival New England emerged from their own period of obscurity, dominating the biannual meetings between the two teams for the better part of 20 years.
Finally emerging in recent years after all that time under Tom Brady's thumb, the Buffalo Bills are now one of the NFL's most feared teams. Quarterback Josh Allen has led the Bills to back-to-back-to-back AFC East titles, and on deep playoff runs. Like the Seahawks, the Bills have retired the No. 12 jersey in honour of the fans. They went one step further, enshrining the jersey number in the team's Hall of Fame.
In all of that time, Bills fans have remained.
Braving the toughest weather in the NFL, perhaps excluding Green Bay, the Bills fans are famous for their extravagant pre-match tailgating.
In the mid 2010s, a new tradition was born at Bills tailgates, the smashing of tables. Bills fans bring folding tables to the pre-game parties for the express purpose of attempting to shatter them with their own bodies. If that's not cause for an inclusion on a list like this, what is?
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