Redskins Fans are Ninth-Drunkest in NFL

Kirk Cousins‘s impression of former Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer aside, the current NFL season has given Washington fans few reasons to be optimistic. But there are plenty of reasons to drink. Enough, in fact, that fans of Washington’s professional football team are the ninth-drunkest in the league, according to data compiled by breathalyzer manufacturer BACtrack and the spirits-news website VinePair.

BACtrack collected data points from users of its consumer-oriented breathalyzers, which sync to smartphones and other mobile devices similarly to activity monitors like Fitbit, and crunched the numbers to find the average blood-alcohol content in locations determined by a map of the most popular NFL teams on Twitter across the United States.

Through seven games, Washington’s fans had an average BAC level of .058, above Maryland’s limit of .04 for driving while intoxicated but below the .08 limits established by Virginia and the District.

The NFL’s drunkest fans belong to the Buffalo Bills, while Philadelphia Eagles fans—unsurprisingly—lead the NFC East in insobriety with a typical BAC level of .069.

But while it’s always nice to find Washington in the top ten of anything related to the NFL, the team once again fails to grab even a divisional lead. Perhaps Dan Snyder should tell his beer vendors to resume selling those bathroom beers.

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Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.