Ranking the Most Optimistic Fanbases in the AFC North

It's hard to find a division in the NFL that has a more rabid and intense group of fans than the AFC North.

While the Cincinnati Bengals have gotten off to a sharp start and they clearly have upper-echelon talent, Bengals fans tend to have a tempered reaction to their team because it struggled for so many years, and once it shook off those doldrums, wins in the postseason have been nonexistent. 

However, the passion of Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens fans cannot be questioned. All three groups are legendary, and there is little doubt how much football matters to them and how vital these teams are to the fans' everyday life.

Cincinnati is clearly a baseball town, and the national pastime is vitally important in the other three cities as well. However, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Baltimore have long been football towns, and the interest and knowledge of their fans are off the charts.

In this piece we rank the optimism level of the fans throughout the AFC North.

Warning: Links to Reddit contain NSFW language.

4. Cleveland Browns

Lenny Ignelzi/Associated Press

The Cleveland Browns are a long-suffering group who have never seen their team play in the Super Bowl.

Still, the Browns are the last Cleveland team to win a championship, and that was back in 1964, when Jim Brown was the running back, Dr. Frank Ryan was the quarterback and Blanton Collier was the head coach.

The Browns had some great teams in the 1980s that were coached by Marty Schottenheimer and quarterbacked by Bernie Kosar, but those teams fell short in heartbreaking fashion when they met John Elway and the Denver Broncos in back-to-back AFC championships.

Their fans have always been crazed, as noted by the Milk-Bone-throwing crew in the Dawg Pound. Their enthusiasm remains high. But they are among the most knowledgeable fans in the game, and they don't attempt to fool themselves. They know that the Browns don't have the talent to play with the Bengals, Steelers and Ravens consistently, but they don't lack hope for the future.

Longtime Browns fans remain scarred by the 1996 move of the team to Baltimore. Owner Art Modell moved the team because he had been unable to secure a new stadium, and he ripped the beloved Browns away from the fans. The NFL awarded Cleveland an expansion team—and allowed it to keep the Browns' name and history—in 1999.

The current version of the Browns have been to the playoffs once, and that was in 2002. 

Fans are hoping for a return to glory, and it's clear they will retain their enthusiasm, as evidenced by this Reddit thread on the team's quarterback debate.

3. Cincinnati Bengals

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The Cincinnati Bengals have gotten off to a sensational start in 2015 at 5-0, and they appear to have an excellent chance of earning a playoff spot for a fifth straight season. They should be able to make a strong run at the AFC North title as well.

But Bengals fans have had their hearts broken by the current team many times. Cincinnati has been to the playoffs six times under head coach Marvin Lewis, but it has lost all six of those postseason games.

It's hard for fans to have a high level of optimism when there have been so many failures and not even one example of postseason success.

If the coach-quarterback combination of the New England Patriots' Bill Belichick-Tom Brady is at the top when it comes to postseason success, it's clear that the Lewis-Andy Dalton pairing is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Fans are hopeful the Bengals will continue to play consistently this season, but they want to see postseason success before they truly believe.

2. Baltimore Ravens

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Baltimore Ravens fans are not just fans of their team. They are fans of the long-standing Baltimore pro football tradition.

The Baltimore Colts were the city's favorite team from the time they started playing in the NFL in 1953 until they departed for Indianapolis in the dead of night prior to the 1984 season. Bombastic owner Robert Irsay was unable to get a new stadium in Baltimore, so he left for greener pastures and crushed the spirit of the team's fans by taking the team to Indianapolis.

Has there ever been a more painful move in sports than the Colts' departure from Baltimore? Perhaps the Browns' departure from Cleveland and the Dodgers' leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles, but there was a hole in the heart of Baltimore from 1984 until pro football returned in 1996.

The Ravens have won two Super Bowls since coming to Baltimore, and they have regularly featured powerful defensive teams the knowledgeable fans have loved and supported. 

Their fans also recognize when quarterback Joe Flacco is struggling with his form, and they are not hesitant to point out his mistakes with their insightful comments on this Reddit chain.

1. Pittsburgh Steelers

GENE J. PUSKAR/Associated Press

There are many groups of knowledgeable, enthusiastic and supportive fans throughout the NFL, and the Pittsburgh Steelers may be at the top of the list.

Perhaps they are not as loud as Seahawks fans in Seattle, but that's the only area they have to take a backseat to any other group.

Pro football has been vital to Pittsburgh fans ever since the Steelers came into existence in 1933. However, the Steelers were a brutal team throughout the majority of their existence through 1971. They had one playoff game prior to that, and it was a 21-0 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1947.

But when things turned for the Steelers, they turned in a big way. They built perhaps the best defense that the game has ever seen. The Steelers won four Super Bowls in the 1970s, and they have won two more since then. No other team has equaled their six Super Bowl titles.

Fans have supported their beloved team with tremendous passion and optimism, and there is almost a feeling of shock any time Pittsburgh loses a game, particularly when that loss comes at home.

Nobody exemplified the love and the joy Steelers fans got from their team more than their former announcer Myron Cope. Cope used his Terrible Towel to rally fans from the broadcast booth for years, and he was as Pittsburgh as it gets. 

Cope died in 2008, but his spirit lives on in the demanding yet appreciative hearts of Steelers fans in Pittsburgh and throughout the country.