I think fan apathy (what there is of it) is a result of the team being put into the same division as Peyton freaking Manning for no absolutely good reason.  Which meant that we'd never win the AFC South.  Then the Colts got Luck, and our chances of ever winning the AFC South remained low.  And will remain low until we finish our rebuild.

 

The re-alignment hurt the team a lot I think.  Obviously the constant rebuilds didn't help any.


But suddenly we lost one of our biggest rivals (The Steelers), and our two new rivals were:

-Peyton Manning's team, which would become a thorn in our side forever.  (And was all the way up there in Indianapolis)

and

-The newbie expansion team nobody had any reason to have any real feelings towards.


 

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