Are the Mafia really the best fans?

[JPPT1974]

Fans that are fans through thick and thin, good and bad, mountains and valleys, highs and lows. Heard Bills Mafia are in the top five in the fans being likable.

[BillsPride12]

As far as passion and showing out for the team I'd say Buffalo has as good of fans as anybody out there

 

As far as behavior we have both some of the most amazing fans and some of the worst.  I've always felt like our fanbase feels like some sort of hybrid breeding of Green Bay fans and Philly fans lol.  It's definitely unique 

[SinceThe70s]

 

Not sure whether the Bills have the best fans or how you even judge that, but as a life-long out-of-towner it's a unique, highly passionate and good-hearted fan base that I'm proud to have an association to.

[Success]

The charity thing really set us apart for awhile, though it doesn't seem like we do that as much anymore.

 

But the level of heartache & disappointment also sets us apart.  That's not something we control - but it does create a special bond & weirdly, a very unique experience.  When I see Bills fans when I'm traveling, it's like seeing family.  It's not like that w/ my other sports loyalties.

 

There are a lot of great fanbases, for sure.  But there is something about the experience of a Bills fan, especially the older ones.  I just don't see its equivalent.

 

[klos63]

On 1/25/2024 at 7:40 PM, SCBills said:

All I know if anywhere I go, if I tell people I’m a Bills fan.. they immediately make a reference to Bills Mafia. 
 

I don’t know of many teams where random people view their fanbase as iconic. 

Kinda hard for them not to know about the mafia, have you ever seen a fan base that talks so much about themselves. Loyal? yes, humble ? hardly.

[Neo]

On 1/25/2024 at 10:19 PM, QCity said:

 

 

 

What’s an expleeetive?

[Peter]

I used to think that we had the best fans in the world . . . and then a certain segment of our fans cheered loudly at a game when Rob Johnson got hurt. Whatever you may have thought about him, it was completely embarrassing that some of our fans would do that. That is when I realized we have some fans that are no better than anyone else (and in some cases worse).

 

There are also other incidents like what happened to Tyler Bass.

 

The fact is we have some very good fans and some who are [Fill in an expletive]. 

 

Thankfully, I think most of our fans are very good fans and people.

[John from Riverside]

Yes

[rayray808]

Bills fans are the most passionate... meaning you will see 10's and also 0's... on average we are a solid 9 but man, those 0's sure do skew our data from being a 10

[BADOLBILZ]

 

What non-Bills fans think of our fan base is something I could not care less about.

 

What was important was that the fanbase unite and become an entity separate from the team, IMO.

 

The group as a whole had to embrace the "whatever" of being a Bills fan the way many of us did showing up every week during the drought despite Ralph Wilson's decades long poor stewardship of the on-field product and he and Jeff Littman ceasing to run a competitive organization for the last decade+ of Ralph's life.

 

In some of the 70's and the mid-80's when Ralph put bad teams on the field people stayed away in droves.   We were passionate but the support was much more conditional.

 

The model to me was always Chicago Cubs fans.   I attended a number of games at Wrigley and was always impressed by their focus on having fun as a group as much or more than the results on the field.  Their embracing of the Cubs fan experience despite 100 years of futility was the example.

 

I just wondered for years how those of us who prioritized our shared fandom above the results on the scoreboard would get that to translate en masse.

 

Then the whole "Bills Mafia" social media driven hokey nonsense took off we were a largely fractured group of passionate consumers.

 

As much as I hated seeing some of the posers and douchebags that jumped on the bandwagon once Bills fans had a fun identity..........it is totally worth it.  

 

Having that distinct identity as a fan base has changed everything for the better, IMO.  

 

That's all I care about.   How it impacts us.    

 

 

[JohnnyBuffalo]

This question/topic frustrates me for a few reasons.  
1. An opinion is debatable but not able to be proven. 
2. Stereotypes are an oversimplification of a larger subject matter- good or bad.  

But thanks for questioning the vast majority of us, based on a minute few, as potentially being “less than” after a gut punch defeat once again.   
 

Go Bills and more importantly

GO BILLS MAFIA!!!

[MJS]

22 hours ago, Irv said:

The Bills have great fans.  But when they are losing, the sordid underbelly comes out in some knuckleheads.  I saw a bunch of drunk #######s/Bills fans at the KC game screaming at some poor dudes after the game for no reason whatsoever - challenging them, to a fight.  Pretty brave when the odds are 1000:1 against KC fan.      

Yeah, even the best fanbases have issues when mixed with alcohol and losing.

[Matt_In_NH]

Unfortunately there is an epidemic of keyboard warriors that affects all of hunanity including some bills fans.  One day it will completely change the world as we know it today IMO

[Bobby Hooks]

This kind of stuff is so silly imo. The fact that this is an actual thing an adult person is contemplating makes me kinda sad to be honest. 
 

You have some crummy humans, you have better than crummy humans, you have some great humans. 
 

You think somehow we just happened by the best of the best regionally here in Buffalo? Ridiculous. 
 

All fandoms have the good and the bad. Same as any group including human beings. 
 

There’s no best. There’s no hierarchy. We all like a thing and that’s that. The fact that I have to even write this down is icky. 
 

Also, I have a hard time believing the OP about ho many instances there were of bad Bills fans behavior. KC fans have become worse than Pats fans in the arrogant a-hole percentage and that’s saying a lot. I would imagine many if not all of them were egged on in some capacity. 
 

Just another guy that moved away from Buffalo trying to look cooler than he is, imo. 

Edited January 27 by Bobby Hooks

[Nextmanup]

16 hours ago, CountDorkula said:

You could literally write this paragraph word for word for about 10-15 fanbases.

 

 

 

The funny thing is that a whole bunch of my best friends from WNY, who still live there, could not care less about the Bills and don't really follow them.  These are guys who have lived in Buffalo their whole lives.

 

Not everyone in Buffalo gets emotional about the Bills.

 

 

[BuffaloBill]

On 1/25/2024 at 10:19 PM, QCity said:

 

 

 

There is no place for this behavior. Plain and simple it is wrong on the part of all who contributed.

[Don Otreply]

On 1/25/2024 at 9:23 PM, Meatloaf63 said:

I travel a lot for work, Airports, restaurants, malls. This past year I saw Bills fans everywhere where I went. Trips to LA, Phoenix, Dallas, Ft Meyers, Ft. lauderdale Miami. Every trip i went on, I got a “Go Bills” or at least saw people, multiple people representing. This week, went through DC, Baltimore airport, Charlotte, finished up in West Palm Beach today. Saw one guy with a Bills hat all week. It was like people were embarrassed that we lost to KC again. 

But really the worst thing that made me pause was the treatment and threats to Bass. How embarrassing and really down right dirty low class. I haven’t lived in Buffalo for a long time, and this was the first year I didn’t make it back for a visit. So what’s going on up there? I would hope it was just a small sample size of fans who acted out like that, but damn they were a serious black eye on the mafia. Cant tell you how many friends and co workers mentioned how nasty Bills fans are this week, Buy the end of the eeek i just gave up defending and had to agree to a point. 

 

 

The answer is yes we are,

their is always the ten percent of fans that peaked maturity wise as sophomores in high school, and that’s being kind, it would be nice to neuter or spay them so as to reduce the issue going forward…, 

[Jay_Fixit]

2 hours ago, Bobby Hooks said:

This kind of stuff is so silly imo. The fact that this is an actual thing an adult person is contemplating makes me kinda sad to be honest. 
 

You have some crummy humans, you have better than crummy humans, you have some great humans. 
 

You think somehow we just happened by the best of the best regionally here in Buffalo? Ridiculous. 
 

All fandoms have the good and the bad. Same as any group including human beings. 
 

There’s no best. There’s no hierarchy. We all like a thing and that’s that. The fact that I have to even write this down is icky. 
 

Also, I have a hard time believing the OP about ho many instances there were of bad Bills fans behavior. KC fans have become worse than Pats fans in the arrogant a-hole percentage and that’s saying a lot. I would imagine many if not all of them were egged on in some capacity. 
 

Just another guy that moved away from Buffalo trying to look cooler than he is, imo. 

Ya but did you see my post? TL;DR

[Westside]

On 1/26/2024 at 11:13 AM, Governor said:

We aren’t viewed favorably on a national level anymore. People have grown tired of us. 
 

There were also mentions of Kermit dolls and Mahomes dolls/figures hanging from nooses in nearby trees, etc near the stadium.

Kind of like we’ve grown tired of fake bills fans who only post negative things about the team.

[Boatdrinks]

There no way to quantify “ best”. Bills mafia is and should be in the running for the title though. Every fan base has knuckleheads and trolls. Some of those trolling Bass may not be actual Bills fans at all. Can’t let a few heathens give a fan base a bad name.