Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I know what people think of us. The jokes wrote themselves for a long time — the creamsicle uniforms, the early seasons that were genuinely historic in their futility, the franchise that went 0-26 in its first two seasons and seemed destined to be a permanent afterthought in a state divided between college football loyalties and theme park tourism. I heard all of it growing up, and I wore my Bucs gear anyway, because this was my team and that meant something regardless of the record.

What this franchise has given us in return for that loyalty is nothing short of staggering. The 2002 Super Bowl with Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden and Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp — a defense so dominant it felt like the other team was playing a different sport. And then, impossibly, twenty years later, Tom Brady choosing Tampa Bay of all places, walking into Raymond James Stadium and delivering a Super Bowl championship that the entire football world insisted was not going to happen. When he lifted that trophy on that boat parade through Tampa Bay's waterways, I cried. Actual tears, in public, without apology.

This franchise has given me two of the greatest nights of my sports life, separated by nearly two decades, and in between it gave me the loyalty-building suffering that makes championships mean something. Buccaneers fans are tougher than our reputation suggests and more devoted than our market size implies. We have been to the mountaintop twice now. The hunger to get back is real, it is burning, and it is entirely justified by everything we have already proven we are willing to endure to get there.