Fox Sports completed their annual “Ultimate Fan Bracket Challenge” on Wednesday and the Buffalo Bills and Bills Mafia were victorious in 2020. In the finals, the Bills defeated the Packers:
#BillsMafia has done it!!
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) September 9, 2020
Congrats to the @BuffaloBills for winning our FOX Sports Ultimate Fan Bracket and being crowned the best fan base in the NFL! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/M6JU1vsfkJ
The Bills nabbed the titled by earning 52.8 percent of votes over the Pack.
In the contest, teams were seeded based on the each club’s individual social media follower totals to create a tournament-style bracket. In each round, teams are matched up and fans voted. The team who had more votes would advance. The goal was to earn the distinction of the “NFL’s best fan base.”
This contest win by the Bills brings to light the same one from the past. In the final four of last year’s contest, the Bills were ahead by 20,000 votes with 12 minutes left in the poll in a matchup with the Titans and appeared to be a lock to move on the finals. Tennessee suddenly and unexpectedly made a huge jump to take the lead in a way that raised questions.
The Titans would go on to the next and final round before losing to the Cleveland Browns. It was reported that some Titans bloggers and podcasters bought tens of thousands of those votes via bots in a late push to win the round. Bills fans responded in true fashion, following the lead of one of Bills Mafia’s founders, Del Reid. Buffalo natives donated money to a Children’s Advocacy Center in Nashville.
This course of action was consistent with the class Bills Mafia showed to Andy Dalton when he put the Bills in the playoffs for the first time in 17 years by defeating the Ravens, where the Buffalo region donated more than $415,000 to his charitable foundation in gratitude.
The NFL season itself would play out interestingly enough between the two teams, as Bills fans would fill the Titans home Nissan Stadium making it feel like a Buffalo home game. During that October matchup last year, the Bills would win with a defensive effort in which Tennessee quarterback Marcus Mariota was essentially sacked out of his starting job.
Not long after the fan voting tournament, the Bills social media had some fun with the situation as well when Josh Allen won Good Morning Football‘s Play of the Year poll, beating out the Titan’s Derek Henry with his legendary hurdle during the Bills September 2018 game against the Vikings…
The people have spoken. The @GMFB Play of the Year is…
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) April 5, 2019
PSA: No Twitter bots were used in our victory over the @Titans. 😏 pic.twitter.com/807NN28m84
Tennessee would go on to take some inspiration from Buffalo, however, later using the Bills blueprint for defending and limiting Lamar Jackson’s effectiveness in a matchup against the Baltimore Ravens.
While it may be news to some, it’s now known to many, Bills Mafia stands alone when it comes to having the best fans in the NFL.
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