In sports, much as in life, we often get to see the ugliness in passionate people. Fans tend to overreact and they often go over the line. But, as in life there are so many good people out there that restore our faith in humanity and the goodness that can be done.
We watched both scenarios play out this week. When the Baltimore Ravens drove down the field against the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship game on Sunday they needed a two point conversion to tie the game late. That's when Lamar Jackson rolled to his right and found an open Mark Andrews in the front corner of the end zone ... except the ball was dropped, in snowy conditions, by Andrews. That led to the Bills moving on to the championship game and once again Lamar and the Ravens were left out of advancing after a great regular season.
Andrews has been an integral part of the Ravens success for years and he had a very good season this year for the birds, but that didn't stop Baltimore fans from turning ugly. There were many mistakes that day for the Ravens but the burden fell on Andrews shoulders and the fans immediately turned on their star tight end.
Reports quickly came out that Andrews was so upset that he did not meet with the media afterwards and then more reports surfaced about his social media being used to threaten him. The hate messages and even death threats highlighted the worst of the worst in the fans.
With every negative story in the news and world right now this story could have ended there but the Bills fans changed all that. Bills Mafia, as they are lovingly referred to as, stepped up in support of Andrews. Even though he was an opposing player the Bills fans made sure that some good came of this bad situation of fandom over common sense.
Bill fans began to go to Andrews charity and started to donate to the cause. (Click here to view the donation page) They were raising money for Breakthrough T1D, a nonprofit that funds research toward therapies and treatments for Type 1 diabetes. Andrews, a Type 1 diabetic himself, has supported the charity in the past and is the charity of his choice.
"As many of you know Ravens TE wasn't able to catch the game-tying 2-point conversion and upset Ravens fans," reads the fundraiser's description. "On top of that the TE has been receiving death threats and nasty comments [after] his performance last night. We want Bills Mafia to donate to Mark's charity for Juvenile diabetes. Let's reach a goal of at least 5k."
The $5,000 goal now seems like a modest one as the donations had soared over $20,000 in just one day and now sits at over $50,000 as of Tuesday night. The Bills Mafia aren't the only contributors either as fans from all sorts of teams have jumped on to support Andrews' cause. Out of this ugliness the Bills Mafia have led us to a great story not only for the generous Bills fans, but for anyone who calls themselves a fan.