As a serious sports fan, I love my two major teams, the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Eagles.  But being a lover of one team comes hand in hand with being a hater of their rivals. As a lifelong Eagles fan living in an Eagles-crazy household and coming from an Eagles crazy family, there are certain teams we as a family absolutely cannot tolerate.

The first team I have a crazy amount of hatred for is the Washington Redskins. Every year, their former head coach Mike Shanahan would say how changes have to be made and how things are going to be different. I have been carefully following football for about ten years now and I saw this garbage team make the playoffs once and then win four games the next two seasons. I hate each NFC East team for a different reason, but I hate the Redskins because of the arrogant cockiness of a coach who could never back up his comments with a successful season.

The Dallas Cowboys are one of the most hated teams in the National Football League and in the sports world in general, but they are most hated by Eagles fans. To be completely honest, I do like some players on the Cowboys such as Tony Romo, DeMarco Murray, and Jason Witten. These players are all extremely talented and I like how they are respectful and humble when it comes to their skill. However, their outspoken wide receiver Dez Bryant is currently my least favorite professional athlete. I do not understand how somebody given the talent and gifts that this guy has could possibly be so immature and stupid. When he ran on the field two weeks ago without a helmet on to argue a very controversial call against the Lions, I could not believe that he was not ejected or penalized. I also just do not understand why he thinks that behavior is even the slightest bit acceptable, especially at the professional level. In my mind, Bryant is the best receiver in the NFL and that play he made against Green Bay in the playoffs was absolutely a catch and really showed his tremendous athletic ability. But as an Eagles fan and a Cowboys hater, my dad and I sat back and laughed watching him argue a call he was 100 percent right about because there was nobody we were happier to see get screwed over more than Dez Bryant.

But the team I hate the most – with the Boston Red Sox a close second – is the New York Giants. Growing up around Giants fans has been painful. I have used the word “arrogant” a few times, but there is no other word to describe Giants fans. They always blame the coaches, the refs, the offensive line, but in reality their team is just mediocre. Eli Manning is a decent quarterback, but I would never take him on my team. Odell Beckham Jr. is a good player with a good future, but he is not nearly what people talk him up to be. He had such a good season because he was one of the few players on that team with a good attitude even though it started to change towards the end when he began arguing with refs, taking his helmet off, and flailing his hands in the air when he did not get his way. He was acting a lot like Dez Bryant. The Giants act like this guy is the next Jerry Rice or Calvin Johnson and even consider him to be the best receiver in the league. He would be lucky to make my list of top 10 wide receivers in the league.

Even though I have a strong hatred towards the Eagles’ divisional rivals, I also have to admit that my team is the only one in the NFC East who has yet to ever win a Super Bowl.