I don’t want to make a Super Bowl prediction. That would be cliche, and obviously, I’m going to pick the Panthers. So, instead, I’m going to give an important public service announcement: stop pretending to be a Panthers or Broncos fan.

This is the worst time of year to be a sports fan – followed closely by the day after Alabama or Duke does something great. Bandwagon fans come up all the time across the sports world. It’s not just an NFL problem, but it does happen every Super Bowl. For example, somewhere some kid from Texas was a Seahawks fan last year. Bandwagoning is worse in the NFL and here’s why: How many die-hard NFL fans do you know at this school? I mean “never miss a game” kinds of fans that you see for college teams? Not that many.

People will gouge their eyes out for a college team. Not many Tampa Bay Bucs fans are in a state of week-long depression after their squad loses on Sundays, because a loss in the NFL isn’t that big of a deal. You can rebound because of the parity in the league. Unfortunately, that produces fewer “I’m going to break things if we blow this game” NFL fans, which, in turn, makes it so much easier to bandwagon an NFL team when they are doing well. No one is going to call you out on it. No one is going to say “Hey, where were you when the Broncos lost to so-and-so during week four?” Nobody cares. Nobody cared what the Broncos were doing 13 weeks ago. They cared about one big game that week, and unless Denver happened to be playing in it, no one is going to remember what happened, or care that you don’t remember either. That’s just the nature of the NFL.

But I am here to call you out on it. Stop it. With the obvious exception for certain extenuating circumstances, unless you are from the Carolinas or the Colorado area, you aren’t legit. Unless you cared about the Panthers when Jimmy Clausen was tossing out picks like candy to kids on Halloween, you aren’t legit. Unless you watched Denver when Jake “The Snake” Plummer was quitting football in his prime, you aren’t legit. Saying that you’re a Denver fan because you liked Tim Tebow is not a real reason. Your fanhood means nothing to any of us. Just watch the game and quit trying to get all of us to celebrate for you that “your” team is in it. The Super Bowl isn’t about you. It’s about Beyonce. So please, do us all a favor: just stop.