Bradshaw played in an era when it may have made sense to follow a team with emotion, make that: Passion. I know I did for a long time, and my team wasn't the Steelers.
Players in those days may have been every bit as egotistical as today, Bradshaw among them; but they controlled it or were controlled by their coaches. This was for the good of the team. Coaches in those days thought players represented the organization that represented the locality.
I haven't watched an NFL game this century. What I see of the NFL comes from these egotists who make the news nineteen times in twenty. You can have my part of them.
It says right here when you cut the cord with the NFL your satisfaction with autumn will increase exponentially. Mine did.
It also was an era where players were loyal to their teams, and bitterly hated their rivals.
You didn’t see players shaking hands after a game, back in those days.
Well said and true in my view.
Like you I haven’t been a fan for over twenty years. I guess I was a fan for the game of football and not the egos of individuals and their on and off the field bad behavior.
Actually there was as much if not more bad behavior back then. But there wasn’t as much coverage. Some of then might have hit local news, or might not have even hit there. Back then a player caught driving drunk wasn’t much different than any other person, there just wasn’t the appetite for every small thing that happened. We live in an age where “news” media is a voracious beast, nothing that happens doesn’t get coverage, and all news is national. Every minor incident with every minor celebrity hits all the wires. The Raiders of the 70s (famous inside the NFL for being the last chance of league discipline cases) couldn’t exist, all those players would be serving suspensions for violation the personal conduct policy, which didn’t exist yet.