After a frustrating 32-20 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Arizona Cardinals reserve safety Hamza Abdullah decided to vent a little bit of frustration on Twitter and essentially called out the Cardinals fans for their lack of noise and support when the game was close at 17-14. The Cardinals had momentum at the time, but with the number of Steelers fans in the stadium, the crowd noise just wasn't there and the Steelers responded with an 80-yard TD drive.
Tweeted Abdullah:
"20,000 out of 60,000 were Pittsburgh fans. That's absurd and uncalled for. The #BirdGang is better than that...It is what it is. Yeah, you can call us names, and say we haven't given anyone anything to cheer for, but it's 17-14, and we have momentum. But the crowd is pro steelers, so we can't even use our greatest asset, Our Home Crowd... Home field is huge in sports."
To call out fans publicly when they shell out good money to watch a game is out of bounds. But that doesn't mean he isn't right. He is...and wrong. The problem is that fans here in Phoenix are as good as in any other market when there is a reason to cheer. The issue with the Cardinals is that they neither have longevity nor a history of success. Steelers fans have that.
Abdullah did, though, follow up his comments in a perfect way. He is offering 100 tickets to Cardinals fans to get more of them out to see them play against the Rams. He is putting his money where his mouth is.
Solution for the players and the fans? The players need to give the fans a reason to cheer, and the fans need to show a little faith when there is a little adversity.
The other real solution takes much longer -- a long history of relevance.
At the Cardinals' rate, that will take an awful long time. There is simply too much yuck to unremember.