OT: Who is your favorite out of state NFL team?

Titans I guess since I live in Nashville suburbs, but I’ve also lived in SoCal previously, and dammit I still like Harbaugh so willing to adopt the chargers as my second team (from MI originally so lions still first).

I also care about the Lions/nfl a fraction of what I care about Michigan. So caveat applies as to what that actually means of having a second team. 

I am a huge lifelong Lions fan - I got Jeff Komlo’s autograph when I was six years old 😂.

I don’t have a favorite team but like the OP I will root for individual players (normally Michigan guys) but also for guys like Lamar that just make the game more fun to watch.

Bengals.I liked their uniforms as a kid and I liked Boomer Esiason and Ickey Woods. My dad had a Bengals penant up in my basment, along with Cowboys and Dolphins. I gravitated towards the Bengals . 

Bengals. My Grandpa lived in Cincinnati and was a die hard Reds and Bengals fan.  They will always have a soft spot in my heart.  

I’m a lifelong Lions fan but, when it doesn’t conflict with that rooting interest, I root for teams with Michigan connections. The Chargers are now my top non-Lions team. I also like the Ravens, and I used to like the Pats & Bucs bc of Brady. 

Living in SW Ohio I am a die hard Bengals fan, but before Burrow my “playoff team of interest” was New England cause of Brady. In NFC I like Rams for McVay and Rams colors. Lions also have a soft spot simply cause their franchise was cursed much like Bengals franchise so that’s like our sister franchise.

norris division teams.  many of my UP buddies are/were packer fans and as a group, a great fan base.  go to games at lambeau and you will see how visiting fans should be treated.  i love to pull my buddies' collective chain about rooting for an out-of-state team ('do you root for red china, too?'), but i find it easy to pull for the pack if they aren't playing the lions.  like the bears.  more 'meh' about the vikes, but historical rivals so respect there. 

and michigan-dense NFL teams, as OP expressed. e.g.,  in the abstract would've never rooted for the pats, but with brady, you bet, go patriots and then bucs when he switched.  will root for JJ and blake's team.  if hutch had gone somewhere besides the lions, would've rooted for that team, etc. 

Whoever is playing against Taylor Swift. /s Whoever I have money on but I'm a loyal Browns fan till they bury me.

I lived in Buffalo, NY for ten years including the great 4 year run. Many people forget that in the subsequent 2-3 years, the Bills remained very strong and were always a threat to go back.

If the Bills ever win the SB, the fans there will go bonkers. I know that the Lions have suffered a lot but the Bills fans came so much closer - literally down to one play, or one horrible 15 minutes.

The Chargers will be fun to watch out of curiosity. If Jim Harbaugh does turn them around and take the team to the playoffs next year or within 2 years, it might have interesting effects on the coaching profession. 

It will be fun to root on JJ, Blake, Mikey, Roman and others. 

Jets for family history reasons.

Chargers for Harbaugh reasons.

The Rams ever since Stafford was traded to them.  Big Matthew Stafford fan after all he did with Detroit.  He plays his heart out and he's a much better QB than he gets credit for.  Had very little to work with in Detroit and it showed when he won a Super Bowl immediately after leaving.

Chefs - Happy wife, happy life

I began my NFL fan life watching Lester Hayes and the Raiders. His strategy was to cover his hands and arms with “stick-um” and intercept passes by having the ball literally stick to him. To a 7-year old, this was a wonderful idea. 
Shortly after that, the Broncos drafted my favorite UofM player, Rob Lytle. He didn’t have the NFL career I expected, but the Broncos were smart enough to draft him and that was good enough for me. I also had an uncle living in Denver and their helmets were awesome. 

I was too young to understand that the Broncos and Raiders were division rivals who hated each other. It would be like rooting for OSU one year and then just flipping to UofM. Those things shouldn’t happen.
Before the Broncos first Super Bowl loss to the Cowboys, my grade school teacher took a poll of the class. Everyone except for me and another weirdo were rooting for “America’s team,” the Cowboys. I’ve hated the Cowboys ever since.

My Bronco fandom has waxed and waned over the years. The Elway super bowls were fun. I appreciate the Terrell Davis one more because I’ve always been a run first disciple. The Payton Manning years were rough, but I dealt with it. 
I was not a fan of their helmet and uniform change to a more modern look. That old Orange Crush look with the Bronco in the D never gets old. 

The Lions.

Who does Tom Brady play for?

It varies. Usually it's the team that lost to the Lions.

My wife says we are Bengals fans - Joe Burrow has replaced Tom Brady as her favorite NFL QB. Tomorrow she says we will root for Jake Moody and the San Francisco 49ers. I remind her that Ronnie Bell and Ambry Thomas play there as well but, she is not impressed. I think she is now keeping a list of favorite kickers. I do not dare tell her I like Taylor Swift.

Truly, I love the 49ers and it was hard to root against them two weeks ago.

None really, it's a consequence of the Lions being so bad for so many years.

While until this year I went from a huge fan growing up to a casual fan with low expectations, where this impacted my NFL fandom the most was in non-Lions games.  How would the Lions fare against other teams?  It really didn't matter until this year.

The Wolverine basketball team has had the same impact on me this year.  Other than glimpses of the ESPN College Basketball home page on the way to checking out something about Michigan, I have no exposure and zero interest in the rest of College Basketball.

I grew up in Buffalo, so obviously a Bills fan.  But Buffalo sports are cursed, so I’m not holding my breath.

I lived in San Diego for a while, so I was also a Chargers fan, but when I moved away and then the team moved to LA, my fandom became a lot more casual.  I’ll probably pull for them still, largely because if Jim fails there, he will have torn apart this Michigan team for nothing.  That would be really sad.

And the Lions, although I’m back in Michigan now, so they are no longer out of state.  Also Hutch, and pulling for the underdog.

Bears and Bengals. 
 

My team is the Bears, when I became a football fan in the early 80’s they were good with great defense…the Lions 🤣 So the Bears became my team. 
 

In the late 80s I liked the Bengals in the Super Bowl against the 49ers, then met and married a girl from Cincy and we moved there just as they were about to enter the period of being terrible. They were of course always on tv and I was able to go to a couple of games when the Bears were in town so eventually they grew on me plus my wife is a Bengals fan. 

Grew up in Michigan but my dad was a STEELERS FAN so of course I was a STEELERS FAN!!!!

Go Blue!!!!

I grew up a Lions fan, but my fervor pretty much evaporated 40 years ago; the Lions games I watched at the end of this season are the first I've watched in years.

Because I feel the pain of other rust belt cities, I also root for Cleveland and Buffalo.

For family history reasons, I've also been a fan of the Denver Broncos since I was a kid in the early 1960s, and about 20 years ago I started rooting for the Chiefs as well, mainly because of a great neighbor who was a huge Chiefs fan.

Up until this off-season I've never been a Raiders fan, but I'm adding them to Denver and KC now. 

Read into that what you will.

Other than the Lions, I root for the Ravens, mostly because my buddy took me down to Baltimore for a game a year for a while. Also, I wanted an AFC team.

I'll also root for teams with Michigan players, so of course I rooted for the Brady-led Patriots.

Other than that, it's the Lions. It's nice that they are on the upswing now.

I'm originally from Pittsburgh, so I'm a Steelers fan.  I've lived in Detroit most of my life, so I'm also a Lions fan.  When they meet, I'm very conflicted.  I also root for all ex-Michigan players to do well.  Like WestQuad, I'm bittersweet on the Chargers at this point.

Similar for me in baseball.  I grew up a Pirates fan (Clemente & Stargell era), but always rooted for the Tigers in the AL, even before I moved here, because a lot of Pittsburgh steel went into building Detroit cars, and also Al Kaline.

Hockey is altogether different.  I didn't follow it closely until moving to Detroit.  I instantly became a Redwings fan because Detroit fans are so passionate, despite them (at that time) being the "Deadwings" relative to their results.  I rooted for the Penguins as my second hockey team, until the Crosby era, and I've hated them ever since.

I have no interest in basketball.  I was a wrestler in highschool, so I like Olympic styles of wrestling.  I played football and did shotput & discus in the spring.  I really appreciate, having experienced it personally, how wrestling improves football line play.  So I've always loved Michigan players who are in that mold, like Mason Graham.

Them and the super-fast guys, which I could never be.  My favorite all-time Michigan player is Anthony Carter.  I saw so many of his exploits in person.  It was ultra-rare for any freshman to play for Bo, once that was allowed by the NCAA.  The first time he ever touched a ball in a game, he returned a punt 70-some yards for a TD in the home opener vs Northwestern.  The crowd instantly dubbed him "AC", chanting this monicker, not only for his initials, but because he was electrifying.

WestQuad: thanks for this posting.  It's simultaneously refreshing and nostalgic! 

Whoever plays against the Chargers

My mom is from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. My grandfather went to the ice bowl and got season tickets in the 70s when the Packers declined. I grew up going to a Packer game every year in the 90s and 2000s when we visited grandma and grandpa. Yeah I've lived in metro Detroit my entire life and love the Wolverines but the Lions were never a serious option for me. Now I'm a gold package season ticket holder (in line to inherit more tickets from my parents) and an owner of the Packers and life is good. Just about the best decision of my life.

Lions first and used to root for the Pats. Now my OOS team is surprisingly the Texans.

Grew up in Washington state and am back here now. Lifelong Seahawks fan. Excited for the new staff. The Lions and the Dolphins are my out of state teams.