This Is the 'Most Stressed' NFL Fanbase, New Study Claims
Sports are supposed to be fun, but everybody who is an NFL fan knows watching your team play can be downright stressful. The average NFL game is a 60-minute emotional rollercoaster, for fans of good and bad teams alike.
Sports betting website Vegas Insider has published a study analyzing all 32 NFL fanbases to determine which one was the most "stressed" during the 2025 season. The rankings were calculated based on seven factors:
- Overtime games
- Average winning margin (wins only)
- Turnovers per game
- Drive-impacting penalties per game
- Close games (lead changes in the final five minutes)
- Games missed due to injury
- Fan negativity rate based on online fan commentary
When all the numbers were tabulated, the Dallas Cowboys were ranked atop the list, meaning America's Team might have America's most "stressed" fanbase.
The 10 most 'stressed' NFL fanbases, per Vegas Insider
- Dallas Cowboys - 62.75 overall score
- Indianapolis Colts - 61.14
- New York Giants - 60.99
- Arizona Cardinals - 57.68
- Atlanta Falcons - 57.61
- Chicago Bears - 56.41
- Cincinnati Bengals - 53.41
- Washington Commanders - 53.04
- New York Jets - 52.55
- San Francisco 49ers - 52.26
Cowboys not a breezy watch for fans
Life was not easy for Cowboys fans in 2025, according to the results of the Vegas Insider study.
"Dallas fans dealt with a season that rarely settled early. Games often stayed tight into the final minutes, mistakes interrupted momentum, and penalties added extra tension," Vegas Insider's Gautham Marthandan wrote. "Injuries left the team with little room to recover when things went wrong, which kept pressure high even in games they controlled for stretches."
The Cowboys had the second-most drive-impacting penalties per game (2.59) in the NFL, trailing only the Giants, and also ranked eighth in online negativity rate.
Dallas also played two overtime games and other "close" ones. Their historically bad defense definitely didn't help matters either.
Title drought also causing issues
Wednesday marked the 30th anniversary of the Cowboys' Super Bowl XXX win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, the franchise's most recent world championship.
Not only has Dallas failed to reach the Super Bowl in the last three decades, they are one of only three teams--the Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns are the others--to not even make a conference championship game appearance in that time frame.
Late in the 2025 season, after the Cowboys had been eliminated from the playoffs, owner Jerry Jones addressed the team's title drought and the role management has played in it.
"I'll admit that the Cowboys management has played a big role (in the 30-year Super Bowl drought)," Jones said at the time. "But seriously, I'm very disappointed that the way we're structured, and my role, puts us here tonight. I'm tremendously disappointed."