WaPo Asks: Why Do People Hate the Dallas Cowboys? Answer: The Fans. Go Get 'Em.

By Robert Wilonsky Fri., Nov. 20 2009 at 10:47 AM

Categories: Sports

The Washington Post's The League blog wonders this morning, "Why are the Cowboys So Hated? How does 'America's Team' remain one of the most loathed franchises in sports?" To which the responses, including essays from Eagles and Giants bloggers, have been varied and nasty. (Something about Cowboys fans being "soulless" and wanting "nothing more than to spoil the home team's party," whatever that means.) At least WaPo sports writer Leonard Shapiro just comes off as jealous.

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Leonard Shapiro

We don't hate the Cowboys for being successful. If that were true, I would hate the Steelers and the 49ers, and they generally beat the Cowboys anytime they played them. I hate the Cowboys because of their fans. If they get 4 yards on 2nd down against the Lions in a preseason game, they are going to do a dance and beat their chest and claim this is the year. They are not just the worst fans in America, but having grown up in the South, they lay claim to probably the least intellectual fans in America. If you take a survey, I imagine a large percentage of their fanbase are in poverty and don't know how to act in public.
Phil, what a relief! Thank you! I was fearful nobody had mentioned (or observed with much alarm) their disgust that a tiny tot from any team's adult fans could have been trained so poorly, so early. Thank god it's a Rotterdammer, that explains it. I can't tell you how queer that picture made me feel...
Still..... Sux to be a Redskin fan, especially when you play Da 'Boys.
I knew I had seen that kid flippin the bird before in that photo. It was actually at a dutch soccer match and the kid is a Feyenoord Rotterdam supporter. You can see the original photo here http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3603/3360148763_46413837f7.jpg Whoever did the picture just photo shopped the redskins logo over the Feyenoord one !!
Daniel Snyder makes Jerry Jones look like a genius. so there.
@Bill in Lewisville The Steelers? They didn't want the moniker. As far as drug arrests, what about Bam Morris? The whole "America's Team" obsession is stupid, and the fact that people dote on it, makes it that much more apt. As a Cowboys fan, I don't care about any of that stuff. I think Handsome Lance is right on about the COMPLETE history of a team. Going by that, the Cowboys have built a nice legacy. Up there with the Packers and Steelers and Niners and all those other teams that I hate but also respect (term used LIGHTLY). That includes the Eagles and their pre-Super Bowl era titles.
Nobody outside of Texas believes the Cowboys are Americas team. In fact with the long history of drug arrests I think a more apt description would be South Americas team. The Steelers are closer than the Cowboys as far as being the Yankees of the NFL.
People around the nation also "love to hate" New York City, and Texas in general. So there's that.
The New York Yankees are a good comparison and a good debate on which is the best sports organization, ever. The criteria is the ENTIRE body of work; championships, records, branding, wealth, hall of fame players, world wide recognition, venue, etc., as well as, the COMPLETE (as opposed to selective)history of the organization. They may suck one game or another, maybe a whole season, but there is no denying that The Dallas Cowboys, as an institution, is the best in the world in football. I believe that is what a real Cowboy fan feels when he gets obnoxious and feels pity for the other obnoxious fans of other teams. Now matter how you feel about how things are/were done, Jerry and Tex have done a helluva job.
"Really? NO ONE is going to jump on this and tell Handsome Lance Manion that the Redskins are from THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, and not WASHINGTON, D.C.? oh, Friends of Unfair Park...today, I am disappointed." Wow. Hopefully you were just trying to draw us offsides, otherwise wow, just wow.
Cowboys are year after year, the most popular football team. Constantly near or at the top in merchandise and TV ratings. That's why you rarely see the Cowboys playing an early game on Sunday when the leagues riff raft play week after week instead of the marquee games. Other team's fans are jealous. Unlike the Yankees, the other marquee name in American sports, the Cowboys do it without spending 3 to 10 times what other teams spend in salaries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Cowboys
@Mikey: EXACTLY!
Well I hate the Redskins for a perfectly good reason: that stupid and offensive team name, and I'm looking forward to watching the Cowboys pound them into dirt this Sunday.
If I had not of grown up in Dallas with a Coyboy fan for a father I would most likely hate them too. Same reason I hate the Yankees, Red Wings, and Patriots. Every year these teams are deemed favorites to win their sports championship, and more often than not...they do. The Cowboys ownership and fanbase alike are very arrogant in that they think they will win the Super Bowl every year. Most teams fans just hope they break a .500 record, and if by some grace of God the team makes the playoffs it is truly something to celebrate. Cowboys fans just expect the team will make the playoffs and win the Super Bowl. That's why everyone hates us.
Er, I always thought the Redskins were from Washington, D.C. -- and so did all my cousins in Northern Virginia. I'm not a huge sports fan, but this one is easy. People hate the Cowboys for the same reason they hate the Yankees -- they've had enviable successes, there's something kind of brutal and merciless about them when they're on a good streak*, the ownership/coaching staff (often enough) confirms regional stereotypes, and the franchise is managed and merchandised just a little too slickly. * Or more accurately, a sizeable number of teams been on the brunt end of them at their best; sports isn't about showing mercy.
<i>I'm sure they are jealous because "America's Team" is not located in the Nation's Capitol...</i> Really? NO ONE is going to jump on this and tell Handsome Lance Manion that the Redskins are from THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, and not WASHINGTON, D.C.? oh, Friends of Unfair Park...today, I am disappointed.
<i>It's sad really</i> Heh Heh. I love it when the pitiful little 'others' try to be aloof about their inferiority complex.
Trust me, no one is jealous of the Cowboys still referring to themselves as America's Team. We find it laughable that a moniker given by an NFL PR guy means it is true. I guess you guys believe that if you take Cialis you'll be sitting in the woods in a bathtub next to your wife. It's sad really.
"The Cowboys have played in eight Super Bowls." The Cowboys have lost three Super Bowls. Not a whole lot of teams have done that, either. At some point, don't the championships won (or lost) decades ago stop having any meaning? I mean, Yankees fans crow about the 27 World Series championships they've won, but a whole mess of those happened before a lot of those fans were even born. They're effectively nothing more than notes in a history book. And if they do still have meaning, why is it only the championships won in Super Bowls worthy of remembering (the Redskins, for example, have played in 11 NFL championship games, including five Super Bowls. Those pre-Super Bowl championship games were the highest achievement at the time. Nobody had been clever enough to give them a catchy name yet, though).
Maybe because the Cowboys insist on calling themselves "America's Team"?
There are some fans of all teams who are arrogant bastards who are annoying to listen to. Having a level of success just breeds that kind of fan (You never saw many arrogant Houston Oilers fans). I recall back in 1997 or so when the Cowboys were still decent but a couple of years past their prime. It was coming up on the Thanksgiving game against the Oilers, and the Cowboys were 6-6 and were, in many ways, lucky to be doing even that well. And yet, nearly every caller to the sports radio shows would want to talk about what was going to happen with the Cowboys in the playoffs. I recall very specifically one radio host saying something like "They have to get by the Oilers first", which was met with an audible scoff from the caller, as if the very idea of the 6-6 Cowboys (coming off a 45-17 loss in Green Bay) losing to the then-6-6 Tennessee Oilers was patently ridiculous. And yet, the Oilers won 27-14, and the Cowboys failed to win another game that season, finishing at 6-10. I think the kind of attitude that those callers displayed is not uncommon amongst fans of teams that have had a lot of success, and the Cowboys have had a lot of success (and no matter how many years pass without a playoff win, there's always a large number of fans who think a return to past glory is just around the corner).
The Cowboys have played in eight Super Bowls. You CAN'T substitute this out for any team in the NFL.
A common perception of this, is that much like Philly fans, they are jealous of not having the "America's Team" moniker. You could trade this out for pretty much any team in the NFL.
I'm sure they are jealous because "America's Team" is not located in the Nation's Capitol and considering political correctness, the 'Redskins' will always have an identity crisis. I could go into a long socioeconomic and statistical analysis as to the etiology of why Dallas will always don the moniker but in summation, the Redskins basically suck. I mean haven't we beaten them 98 out of 100 times or something?
The Redskins fans don't really care who they are playing any given week, they just want to hate the Cowboys all season long. Poor bastards, hope they enjoy another loss.