Who are the most hated NFL teams?

Hatred is a sensation that only arises from the deepest of passions. What is more passionate than an NFL fans love for their favorite team? Maybe the animosity towards their most hated team.

The NFL was formed in 1920 and since then some teams have cemented their legacies as the league's most hated teams.

What does it take to be a most hated team?

Success. Recent or past. Success and hatred have been mutually tied togetiher. The more a team wins, the more they will be hated. Lets face it, I don’t think there’s are a lot of fans across the league that truly despise the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Losing leaves wounds that don’t heal for years, if not decades and no one holds a grudge like a scarred NFL fan.

Sure there are divisional rivalries. How could there not be long standing bad blood between teams that are forced to play each other twice a year? But when we say hated, we mean not just by one team or one fan base. We want to know who the most hated teams are around the league.

Cowboys

I don’t think it comes as much of a surprise seeing the Dallas Cowboys at the top of this list. When you call yourself “Americas Team” you leave yourself open to a lot of disdain from those around the league that aren’t supporters of the boys from the Lone Star State.

Betonline.ag conducted a study in which they tracked nearly half a million tweets from the start of the preseason to Week 6 of the preseason. What they were looking for was tweets that taunted or used derogatory language towards a certain team. The study showed the Cowboys came up in those sort of “hate tweets” more than any other team by a long shot.

The Cowboys would fall under the category of teams that are hated more for their past success.There was a point in the 90’s where Troy Aikman and the Cowboys won the titles in four years. They haven’t won a Super Bowl in over 25 years, and have made the playoffs just 10 times since then. Most of those trips to the postseason were from teams who were relatively toothless in the playoffs.

At the moment there is an entire generation that has not seen the Cowboys contending for a Super Bowl, but just wait and see. If Dak Prescott can bring Dallas back to Super Bowl glory there will be a whole new batch of Cowboys haters.

Steelers

For decades, the Steelers have been known for their smash mouth, tough nosed brand of football. Think of the Steel Curtain back in the 70’s. They were a mean, no nonsense, knock-you-on-your-ass defensive unit that terrorized the NFL for the better part of a decade.

While they had their most successful stretch five decades ago, Ben Roethlisberger brought Pittsburgh back to the promise land and back in the crossfires of haters around the NFL. The Steelers went to three Super Bowls in six years, winning two of them in 2005 and 2008.

The Pittsburgh fan base is seemingly infinite. If you go to any Steelers road game just have a look around the stadium and you are guaranteed to see Terrible Towels blanketed around the stadium. The blue collar team has won support from fans across the country for their tenacious attitude and rock-em’ sock-em’ style of play.

It seems in winning over a lot of fans, they have also earned themselves a lot of haters. Isn’t that usually how it goes though? The more some people love you, the more most other will hate you. Just ask Biggie Smalls, “more money, more problems.”

Patriots

If I had a nickel for every person I met who likes the New England Patriots that isn’t from Massachusetts, I’d maybe have 10 cents. Recent success has skyrocketed the Pats to the top of this list.

Over two decades of dominance gave us this millenniums first dynasty in the NFL. A pretty boy quarterback, and six Super Bowls will win you some haters in a hurry. When you sprinkle on a bit of scandal in the process that will only stir the pot more.

From 2001 to 2018 the Pats won six Super Bowls and went to another three. In that span they were led by the Golden Boy, Tom Brady. The devilishly good looking quarterback with the super model wife who will go down as the greatest of all time did New England no favors in the fanbase department, in fact in added fuel to the fire. Fans grew resentful, even jealous of Brady’s success, looks and lifestyle while the Pats kept on winning.

Spygate and Deflategate earned them even more haters as it was found out the Pats were using methods that stretched the boundaries of what is legal in the NFL. First, they came under fire in 2007 when it was discovered they were illegally videotaping coaching signals of the New York Jets. And then in 2015 Patriots staff was caught deflating footballs to make them more to Tom Brady’s liking.