The Loop

Ranking every 2017 Bud Light NFL team can

August 22, 2017
New England Patriots Super Bowl LI Victory Parade

Boston Globe

In what is rapidly becoming an annual fall tradition, last week Anheuser-Busch rolled out their new, limited-edition NFL team cans, much to the delight of cirrhosis-bound football fans everywhere. And while the Cowboys, Packers, Vikings, and Bears are all absent, we decided to go ahead and rank the other 28 anyway, casting aside fandom, taste buds, and actual on-field competency in the name of simple beer-swilling good-times. There’s a 90% chance you will completely disagree, but as they say, beauty is in the eye of the Bud-holder.

28. Miami Dolphins

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Every idiot Dolphins fan on earth knows the team slogan is “Fins Up”. But even if you somehow forgot to check the hashtag before putting thousands of cans into South Beach circulation, the generic placeholder obviously should have been “Undefeated”. Go home Bud Light, you’re drunk.

27. Kansas City

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Umm, is this a typo? Maybe it’s just my high-falutin English degree talking, but I’m pretty sure “Chiefs Kingdom” should be a plural possessive, “Chiefs’ Kingdom”. Seriously, somebody get Bud Light a coffee and a piece of bread or something.

26. Washington Redskins

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Get whatever chintzy custom badging you want on there, Dan Snyder. It’s not going to hide the fact your team is a racial slur and your logo is its target demographic. Also 85 years, who gives a f—k? Call me when you hit 100, you bologna-palmed buffoon.

25. Jacksonville Jaguars

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We don’t get it. Is that a silent hashtag? What is a Jax and how can there be more of it? The black can and angry kitty look cool, but that 3am deadline file of a slogan—much like the Jaguars themselves—is a dumpster fire in pads.

24. Los Angeles Rams

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As if the former-greatest-show-on-turf couldn’t get any blander, they moved to the land of silicone, bleached their logo blonde, and started passing their headshots around town like a pretty Pennsylvania girl from a Poison video. Let’s move on.

23. Seattle Seahawks

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If the Seahawks’ dad-trying-to-pull-off-an-Oregon-Ducks-jersey aesthetic didn’t feel dated enough already, they went ahead and slapped it on a light beer can with a slogan that makes as much grammatical sense as pig latin. Just put “The 12th Man” on there and be done with it. Good lord, do we have to do everything around here?

22. Pittsburgh Steelers

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Six what? Six points? Six beers? Six reasons to never live in f—king Pittsburgh? Also, the Steelers logo appears on both sides of the can, which is apparently blasphemy in the real-life Bizarro World that is Western PA.

21. Detroit Lions

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This can should read “0-16”. Thank you, thank you. I’m here all week.

20. San Francisco 49ers

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Wrap your head around this one, America: The official slogan of the San Francisco 49ers—named after 1849, the zenith of the California Gold Rush—is “Faithful since ‘46”. The only reasonable explanation for this numerical nightmare is that “We ransomed taxpayers for a $1 billion dollar stadium no one likes, hired a guy named Jim Tomsula as head coach, and cut a player because he promoted social equality” doesn't fit on the damn can.

19. Atlanta Falcons

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Listen, the Falcons have had a tough year. First they lost a Super Bowl they had pretty much already won and then their shiny new football stadium got a Chick-Fil-A that won’t be open on the day football is played. In other words, we won’t bag on this one too hard. Like 85% of NFL franchises, it just is and that’s fine.

18. Los Angeles Chargers

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The Chargers obviously should have gone with their electric-blue color scheme for this one, but the slogan reads like an actual human sentence and features a pun, which on this bell curve is like an A++. Plus, the Chargers will only be playing to about 27 fans this year, so pretty much everybody can have their own 12 pack.

17. Indianapolis Colts

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Simple and boring, just like the Colts. Unfortunately it won’t have a bunch of holes punched in it to simulate the Colts defensive ethos, but maybe Bud Light is saving the high concepts for 2018, when the Colts defense will still, inevitably, suck.

16. Arizona Cardinals

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Nothing says Arizona like a biblical reference and the color of a flesh-torching sunburn, so in that respect this one hits the mark (unlike Carson Palmer…YEP, WE WENT THERE).

15. Houston Texans

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The alt-light are going to love this America F—k Yeah-ing future Skoal spittoon. For everyone else, it’s mostly inoffensive.

14. Cincinnati Bengals

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Although the origins of the Bengals’ “Who Dey?” remains as mysterious as the Nazca Lines, there is nothing wrong with this can and it’s bold, Bud-appropriate “B”. Don’t let that Pumpkin Ale orange fool you though, this is the still the same old urinal trough spillover you know and love tolerate.

13. New York Giants

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Simple, clean, and perfect for pounding after Odell Beckham Jr. gets his ankle detonated by a third-string Browns CB in a preseason game. What more can you ask for, Giants fans? (You know, besides Eli throw it to the right team for once).

12. Philadelphia Eagles

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Sure it’s no Yuengling, but there’s no mistaking that “midnight green” and the sound of plastered Eagles fans shouting “Fly Eagles Fly” in between half-chewed mouthfuls of Geno’s. If Lane Johnson is still planning on buying the whole city beers when (read: if) the Eagles win the Super Bowl, however, he might want to start stockpiling these now.

11. Baltimore Ravens

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One of the most famous poems in American literature (and most distinctive color schemes in American sports) finally gets its long-awaited beer-can adaptation. Good luck explaining what a poem is to Ravens fans though…

10. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

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Sure, this slogan-and-logo combo would look better on one those Captain Morgan cannonball things, but you can’t win ‘em all (not that we need to tell Tampa Bay fans about that).

9. New England Patriots

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That dick-measuring “5X” crest is as text heavy as the recycling label, but at least it takes some attention away from Paul Revere’s decapitated head. Also the decision to use Tom Brady’s forehead vein-popping “Let’s Go” shriek is reasonably clever…even if Tom Brady remains the absolute f’n worst.

8. Tennessee Titans

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Your daily reminder the Tennessee Titans still exist.

7. Denver Broncos

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Fun fact: At high altitudes, the effect of alcohol on the bloodstream—AKA drunkenness—is magnified due to less available oxygen in the atmosphere. That and a delightfully ridiculous orange beer can with the Ford Mustang logo plastered on the side are the reasons you’re puking in a trash can outside Mile High right now.

6. New Orleans Saints

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Like the previously maligned Dolphins can, I’m fairly certain the Saints slogan is “Who Dat?” not “NOLA”, but you can’t argue with the streamlined simplicity of those four letters, that iconic fleur de lis, and a healthy splash of Mardi Gras bead gold. These will also help Saints fanatics choke down the realization that they wasted a decade of Drew Brees with a defense comprised of 11 old Dixie cups.

5. Oakland Raiders

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Actually real fans pack up their biker bar and move to Vegas towing a U-Haul behind a Harley, but who cares about semantics when your beer can looks this badass?

4. Buffalo Bills

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It feels like a big miss to not have #BillsMafia plastered all over these, but maybe Budweiser just isn’t ready to align themselves with a tailgate wrestling league that lights themselves on fire for fun and dolls out HJs in the Ralph bleachers for free. Prudes. On the plus side, the color scheme and logo are on point and most Bills fans will be too plastered and/or hypothermic to even read by the time kickoff rolls around anyway.

3. Carolina Panthers

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The Panthers don’thave a black alternate, but the choice to go dark here makes all the difference, bringing out those blue-raz accents in a big way. We wish they would have consulted with Lions over this whole cat pride/actual pride double entendre—the world DEFINITELY didn’t need two of those—but overall no real complaints here.

2. Cleveland Browns

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Yes, the Browns suck, but this can doesn’t, combining the Browns’ signature brown-and-orange look with a trailer park-approved “Dawg Pound” homage for the ages. Most Ohioans would rather drink toxic Lake Erie sludge than watch their poor Brownies lose again, of course, but in the end, maybe Bud Light and cyanide pill is a good compromise.

1. New York Jets

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You know what, f—k it. We didn’t want to do this. We searched for every possible out. We even flirted with putting the Browns—yes, the ones from Cleveland—at number one. But in the end, we couldn’t deny it: The Jets really knocked this one out of the back of the end zone. From the luxurious evergreen shade to the perfect delivery of the “J-E-T-S” chant, this Jets can is proof that life really is about the simple things, like cheap beer, chronic existential pain, and one dumbass in a hard hat learning to spell alongside an entire stadium full of his kindergarten classmates.