By now, it is no secret that the Miami Dolphins are far less competent at professional football than their peers. They're bad. Potentially, 0-16 bad. As the losses keep piling up and the various means of defeat become more Byzantine, Dolphins fans are actually embracing the ineptitude, with some of them even calling for the team stop trying to win at all.
After seeing Brandon Marshall suddenly run out of bounds even though he had a clear path to the end zone in Week 6 against the Jets, a minority of fans even think the team may feel the same way.
The reason that fans wouldn't mind the team tanking its remaining game is that the consensus No. 1 pick in the forthcoming NFL Draft is Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck -- widely praised as the most sure-thing prospect at his position in a generation. From a fan's perspective, the desire to "Suck For Luck" makes sense. The fans aren't fighting for roster spots and contracts for next season, they've got a longer timeline in mind. For them, the downside to a few more months of poor results is far outweighed by the joy of watching a talent like Luck for the next decade.
However, when it comes to the "Suck for Luck" campaign, the Dolphins players aren't too thrilled with their fans wanting them to lose, particularly tight end Anthony Fasano.
In an interview with New York radio station WFAN, Fasano ripped the fans for getting caught up in the "Suck for Luck" hype. He was especially perturbed by those who felt like a pro would ever willingly not give his all to win.
"It's sick, actually. I can't even fathom those thoughts of those people that conjure up that stuff," he said. "They have never played sports and pretty much aren't really our loyal fans. I can't really put any weight into that and I know the players don't listen to it. It's a shame, but people are going to talk and we just have to block that out."
To Fasano's point, it has to be a terrible feeling when your fans want you to lose. But, like he said, people are going to talk and what they say is out of his control. As for the rest of the season, we agree with Doug Farrar's take that he should just move on and find ways to win. With the Rams and Colts also winless, and a third of the league with fewer than three wins, it won't take much success to rise above contention for the No. 1 draft pick and quell this conversation altogether.
Fasano isn't even the first NFL player to refer to football fans as "sick." Texans running back Arian Foster gave the same diagnosis before the season, referring to people who were more concerned with his fantasy status instead of his actual wellbeing.