St. Louis Rams Hemmed In On NFL Fandom Map

At the mothership they're talking about an NFL fandom map that surfaced on Reddit, the indomitable blog-entry-incubator. It's a great idea, regardless of your opinion of its accuracy, and another reminder that nobody lives out West, where the Denver Broncos live in a kind of "Diamond as Big as the Ritz" solitary luxury. Take a look, and understand the St. Louis Rams' plight—

The Kansas City Chiefs have their own empty empire to the Rams' west, and from the northeast they're pushed in by the Chicago Bears' considerably more mature fandom. Speaking as a lifelong Springfieldian, Central Illinois is definitely winnable, in a world where the Rams didn't fall back into squalor after their mini-dynasty. In the Kurt Warner era the Rams were bundled, sometimes, with a casual Cardinals fandom, cable company style. Combine that with our habitual resentment of and suspicion toward Chicago and the Bears are a paper—paper tiger? Is that a mixed metaphor? 

Meanwhile—the Jacksonville Jaguars don't look especially comfortable bunched up in the corner of Florida. Maybe when the time comes to fill that second Oakland Raiders bubble it'll be them and not us.