When I was a kid, the NFL had dynasties. Whether you liked that dynasty (Steelers!) or hated them (Cowboys), we all got to be emotionally invested in the games, and that’s what we all really want when it comes down to it. Your team may not win, but at the very least you could root for any team playing against Aikman, right?
So this football season now presents me with a quartet of teams that I cannot love and I cannot hate. I can care a little, I can enjoy the quality of play, but do I have any reason to believe that no matter which teams wins the Super Bowl, I’m going to go to work the next day either with a spring in my step or an anchor in my pants?
Let’s see why.
The Vikings are the Yankees of the NFL, and as a Yankees fan myself I should applaud them, and I do. Until this year, they had a tremendous defense no doubt, but their offense was like a Formula 1 race car driven by Pee Wee Herman. So they bring in the greatest quarterback who’s every played – not the most successful, which is Terry Bradshaw, but who’s going to argue that he’s the greatest? – and Favre has the greatest year of his illustrious career. The dude is 40. I’m 40. Favre is me if I had made a pact with the devil. I don’t begrudge him retiring and un-retiring, and I don’t even begrudge him the manner in which he did it all. And the person with whom I watch football every week loves him, so it should make rooting for Favre and the Vikings very easy.
But unless you are capable of loving the Yankees, you cannot root for the Vikings. I do, and I can, but for 98% of America, you’re not capable. I understand this and I empathize, and it colors my opinion of the entire team. I grew up loving the Yankees, so I can deal with all your hate and your jealousy. But I am not, by birth, a Vikings fan. I like Favre, but by doing so, I inherit a lot of angst and grief that is the total opposite of the love the Steelers get everywhere they go. You can NOT root for this team, and I don’t blame you, especially when…
The Saints are hosting the NFC championship game for the first time in their history. This is the Saints, people. The Aints. The teams with the fans who wore garbage bags (paper) on their heads for decades. The team with the drunken owner, (the Raiders have an insane owner, which is a bit different.) The team who introduced playing football indoors on concrete, I’m pretty sure. The team for which the toughest man in football, Jack Youngblood, felt sorry. America loves an underdog, and there is no team that has had a worse history than the Saints. How can you NOT root for the Saints to do well?
I’ll tell you how: Reggie Bush. Dude is dating a Kardashian. I can’t root for this, I can’t tacitly approve of this! Jeremy Shockey? I have to root for him? And the Saints themselves? They are going to crush their fans’ hearts, we all know it. Rooting for the Saints is like the captain of the high school chess club taking the homecoming queen to the prom and NOT expecting her to dump him for the varsity quarterback the first second she can. Disappointment is inevitable and we all know it. Rooting for the Saints is not the smart move, especially when…
Peyton Manning and the Colts are in the playoffs. It’s Peyton Manning, the man who will someday be the greatest quarterback who ever played the game. I’m not qualified to describe the qualities he brings to the Colts other than to say that without him the Colts are a 5-11 team. Favre is having the best season of his career, but Peyton has this year, every year. Replace his world-class receiving corps with rookies and journeyman? Peyton doesn’t care. Give him three seconds and he’d hit a triple-covered Kim Kardashian running a fly pattern.
So why can’t I root for Peyton? Because I should be rooting for the Colts, not a single player. Do the Colts even have a head coach? Do they have anybody on defense? Peyton does some seriously funny commercials – the Oreo one with Trump is a riot – but I want to root for a team, not a quarterback and a bunch of nobodies. When my Steelers were a dominant team, I could name everybody. When the Cowboys owned everything, I could show you my list or Dirty Rotten Cowboys Who Belonged In Prison. Peyton Manning may win the Super Bowl, but will anybody remember a member of the Colts other than Peyton in a week? No way, especially when…
The NY Jets are going to beat the Colts. It’s fate, it cannot be denied. The Jets are going to beat the Colts, go to the Super Bowl, and get pounded into the dirt by the NFC representative, thereby continuing the string of hopelessly boring Super Bowl games. Colts versus Vikings, I would LOVE to see that game. The two greatest quarterbacks of my lifetime in the Super Bowl? Has this happened since Marino and Montana? We all need to beg the football gods for this game.
But the Super Bowl gods are not kind, and the Super Bowl does not provide good games. And the best way for this huge spectacle of America culture to once again disappoint us is for the Jets to win again the Colts. Thus nobody, not even my step-father who is a HUGE Jets fan, should be rooting for this team. Yes, congratulations to them for beating the Chargers, we’re happy for you. Now can you please intentionally lose against the Colts? Maybe they can just miss their charter flight and have to forfeit, for if the Jets arrive in Indianapolis, they will undoubtedly win, and then hock up a total piece of garbage in the Super Bowl. Rooting for the Jets is the same as rooting to attend a wedding on Super Bowl Sunday.
So here we go, you can quit watching the NFL now. Vikings will beat the Saints, because the Saints are not allowed to not disappoint their fans. The Jets will beat the Colts, because the Super Bowl cannot be entertaining. And the Vikings take the Jets outside the woodshed, beat them about the head and shoulders with their own helmets, and win with a final score of 45-13. Brett Favre gets his second Super Bowl ring and most of the country runs to the bathroom to retch.
I love football.
That’s pretty much exactly how it’s going to happen.
Have you watched the Super Bowl in the last decade? 3 snoozers (Ravens and the Bucs winning in blowouts and Indy beating the Bears up after an exciting first quarter) but the rest were all good games…or at least close games with some drama at the end. i mean, the Titans getting stopped at the 1? That heart breaking (for me) helmet catch? The Cards loosing because they scored too quickly?
Going on recent history we have a 70% chance at an exciting super bowl. I think the Jet’s need a little more than 30% to be the Indianapolis Mannings…I mean Colts.
Personally I think it will be the Vikings and Colts, but I might be just hoping so much I think it.
And as for the Colts? DALLAS CLARK! DALLAS CLARK!
Ok, as a Colts fan (and Cowboys to boot. Eh? Eh? Yeah well it’s free humor.
) myself I’ll admit I can’t name all of the players, but I can name a few.
How is Favre better than Joe Montana?
I would also LOVE to see Vikings-Colts in the Bowl, which also guarantees that it will never happen. In my mind the real super bowl for the last 3-4 years has been the Colts-Patriots game during the regular season. Once that game’s out of the way, the rest is just filler.
I think you ignored the most likely event however and that is Saints-Jets, with the Jets winning. This ensures that not only do we not get a good game, but we also get a completely irrelevant game with no one but New Jersey being excited about the winner. Any other combo has you at least rooting for Colts, Vikings, or the underdog Saints, for maximum disappointment the Jets win.
To be fair, as an Indiana girl who’s never followed football, a lot of the people here who do CAN name the entire line-up of the Colts. I can’t; when my fiance and I watch a football game he ends up staring at me a lot like I’ve absolutely lost my mind when I ask an innocent question about the game. But I’m not going to argue against the fact that Manning is the one that EVERYONE knows. His name is slapped on everything out here, from hospitals to airlines. He seems to be a pretty good guy so I’m not knocking it, but geez- it’s a bit overkill. In Indiana there’s apparently nothing the man can’t sell.
As a Wisconsin transplant in Minnesota, I love asking Viking fans if they want the lasting image of their franchise, of their first Super Bowl victory, to be Brett Favre hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. It makes them cringe. Even this far into the season, most of them can’t decide if they want to love him or hate him.
My cousin is Drew Brees, so I have to root for the Saints.
WHO DAT!
The one thing this NFL season has shown me, is that whenever you think you’ve got teams figured out, they find a way to completely screw with your mind. I’m a Green Bay Packers fan til I die. My family has season tickets at Lambeau Field. Christ, it’s easier to get a seat on a space shuttle than get season tickets there. It’s one of those commodities you hold on to for dear life. Economy stinks, take out a 2nd mortgage. Lose your job, stop buy groceries.
Now, after week 9 of the season, my beloved Packers were a paltry 4-4. Over the next 8 weeks they managed to go 7-1 (almost 8-0 if not for a spectacular throw on the part of Ben Roethelisberger). They go into the playoffs firing on all cylinders, then come out with a resounding thud. That game against Arizona was looking to be a blowout. But somehow my boys hiked up there socks, went to work, and played probably one of the most exciting post-season games I’ve ever watched. Still they lost, but they left everything on the field.
Now, my predicament is come to full view. Brett Favre. Savior of my home team. The Energizer Bunny. The man who has a heart incapable of quitting when he’s on the football field. I will always love him in the green and gold of the Packers. But I cannot, I simply cannot, root for him wearing the purple of the Minnesota Vikings.
Now, next week Sunday, he plays a team I can’t help but root for. The New Orleans Saints. This team is blue collar to the bone. Not saying they’ve got outstanding individuals. But each week they play as one unit and find ways to win. Never before has there been a team, an entire city in fact, who deserves to be in the Super Bowl more.
So, when next Sunday rolls around, I’ll be rooting for the Black and Gold. I’ll be rooting for the Aints. I can sit back and applaud Brett Favre and the Vikings for putting together a great season, but who doesn’t love an underdog.
As far as the AFC, we all know that the Colts are gonna bring the pain against the Jets. If the Jets can keep it close, they may have a shot at an upset, but you put Peyton Manning and a team of 5th graders together, we’ve got a team capable of winning it all.
My prediction, Saints vs Colts. Saints win 31-28 on pure grit.
You, sir, are one of the great writers of our time. Period.
I can, and do, root for Peyton Manning. Just him. Like you, like the rest of America, I can’t name another player on the team. He’s. Just. That. Good.
And I’m quite disappointed in your assessment of the Vikings, though, simply because you compared them to the Yankees. I no longer will ever read your blog again, because you are a Yankees fan. Sorry.
And I wouldn’t give Yankees status to the Vikings. I would easily say that the Patriots are the Yankees of football. And I would also say that 90% of the country is glad that they aren’t in it anymore.
My prediction? Unfortunately, I agree with you on the Aints, and they just ain’t got it. I’m reading the last line of the post above me, and “pure grit” simply isn’t enough to move past Peyton most of the time. Colts over the Saints, 42-17.
Football…I love it about the same amount as I love raspberry syrup. Not at all.
Now when you are ready to discuss baseball…ahh, now there is an awesome game! Diehard Red Sox fan here!!
Kununkia is a frequent commenter and I’m sure a nice guy and generous to small kids and animals. So when I say that his comment here is just about as much FAIL as possible, I know he won’t take it personally. NO BASEBALL UNTIL APRIL, and then, no Red Sox until I have my Yankees have a comfortable 10-game lead in early May.
Dan,
I also don’t get the Vikings – Yankees connection. Yanks are big market, big salary, stacked with top talent and a history of being a consistent champion of the sport. Sure, the Vikes have been to the super bowl 4 times, but like the Bills have come up winless.
Think of the 98 season, Chris Carter, Randy Moss’s rookie season. Near perfect all year, in fact the kicker was perfect all year EXCEPT for the last field goal at the end of the NFC championship. A couple of years later we get blown out in NY 41-0.
The Vikes are more like the pre-2004 Red Sox. Consistently good, often making the playoffs, but never can win the big one and usually fail in a spectacular fashion. The Twins are similar, but at least they won in 87 and 91.
As Red Sox fans, we’ll give you the early May lead. We’ll take the September-October lead instead, and be happy with it.
I just cannot root for the Dolts. I lived in Maryland in the mid-80s, when the then-Baltimore Colts moved out in the dead of night. I at least hope you’re right about the Jets taking them down. Still, I think I’m rooting for the NFC this year, no matter which of the two makes it.
But of course, more important to me than which ever team makes it…is whether I win anything in the yearly pool!
This will be my first ever Superbowl as a newly crowned British fan of the NFL.
If you had said Dallas is the Yankees of the NFL, I’d have agreed, but the Vikings? C’mon….
As a Bears fan (nice pic, Daniel.
), I have a lot of trouble even thinking about the Vikings. And Favre has destroyed my team more times in the last 15 years than I care to even think about. However, watching him play the game, and zing that ball, is simply awe inspiring.
Indy is a stones throw away and a ton of Colts fans commute into the city of Chicago. I’ve watched the Colts, it’s often the AFC game we get here, and Manning is amazing. The rest of the team, I think D is dead on about – 5-11 without Peyton.
N.O. – city of redemption. From the cellar dwelling ‘Aints of so many years. From the near apocalyptic events of Katrina. Rising phoenix-like from the ashes.
Jets – rookie coach, rookie QB, playing crazy-high above their potential.
The storylines are great. Which is a good thing because the games have been really pathetic, 3 of the 4 lop-sided romps. I’m hoping the football gods are setting us up for some really good games here. Ideally I think Manning v. Favre would be a dream. Here’s hoping.
PS – I still can’t type Brett’s name without hearing the final scene in the Cameron Diaz Ben Stiller movie “Something about Mary” where Brett, the long-time heart-throb of Mary, walks in and and Stiller’s character goes, “Oh, Brett. Favvvvvvv-ra
“The NY Jets are going to beat the Colts. It’s fate, it cannot be denied. The Jets are going to beat the Colts, go to the Super Bowl, and get pounded into the dirt by the NFC representative…”
And that’s precisely why you SHOULD root for the Colts, and then the Jets (or the Colts still, should they win). Root for the underdog, for their victory against insurmountable odds is all the sweeter.
Are you kidding me calling the Vikings the Yankees? I am genuinely flat out OFFENDED by that. The Vikings are the LOWEST revenue team in the entire NFL. They are a tiny market team…I live in Dallas and the DFW metroplex has more people than the entire state of Minnesota. Their entire front office and coaching staff was built, and the team was drafted around escaping the “love boat” scandals of the past. There are zero, none, nada, zip, zilch, NO similarities between the Vikings and the Yankees.
Seriously no one here can name any Colts other than Manning? C’mon, gotta love Reggie wayne, Dallas Clark, Jeff Saturday, Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis those guys have been with the team forever. Plus, they have some great young talent in Pierre and Austin Collie as well as some promising new young Dbs. Ok so maybe I’m a Colts fan till I die but still, they have guys other than Peyton. Though he still carries the team I’m definitly rooting for them all this weekend and next.
2009 NFL Team Salaries
1. Oakland Raiders $152,389,371
2. Dallas Cowboys $146,401,600
3. Minnesota Vikings $133,354,045
http://www.altiusdirectory.com/Sports/nfl-salaries.php
When I compare the Vikings to the Yankees, I mean that the the Vikings, like the Yankees, went out and bought the best free-agent on the market. The salary-cap and revenue sharing foundation of the NFL prevents any NFL team from really acting like the Yankees, but the purchase of Favre was absolutely Yankee-esque.
1) I live in Denver.
2) Our team is a yearly train wreck looking for an interesting place to happen (like in front of a Shriner’s convention).
3) My college team, the University of Arizona, just emerged from being a train wreck…to then be clownhammered by Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. Maddening, I say.
Ergo…
I’m rooting for a Jets/Saints Super Bowl. Put the two biggest car-wreck teams together in the biggest game of the year and watch the universe implode. Yay entropy.
So, “football”…
Would that be “The beautiful game, played everywhere in the world and watched (according to tv ratings) by more people than actually live on the planet” football, or “The game played predominatly in the US, at the pace of a chess tournament, where a match takes about four hours, and the players might play 15 games in a season” ‘Gridiron’ thing-y.
I do love football: Gridiron I will endure. Although I do like the Patriots, mainly because ‘england’ features in their name.
David beckham to win the FOOTBALL World Cup for England in South Africa in 2010!
Peyton is a GIRL’s name!! Yes it is, and I say the same thing about his/her sister Eli, also a girl’s name. I havn’t liked him since he ‘directed’ the band after his last college game… but his commercials are funny, especially the ones with his sister! =)
awww Kusa this one’s for you, “GO BIG RED”
Just chipping in on behalf of the rest of the world here…
NF what? wait… ummm
You guys play football helmets on?
It’s amusing to see the way some people make fun of the sport we call football (keeping in mind the fact that the blog author and the majority of its readers are American) and call your football ‘soccer’. It’s just the way it is.
That being said, this is a pretty spot-on prediction of what will happen with the rest of the post-season. It seems like we only get one truly exciting Super Bowl every decade or so and the rest are either low-scoring snoozefests or completely one-sided blowouts, not that the two aren’t exclusive or anything.
Daniel,
The funniest thing about your salary list there is #1. *laugh* We can compare them to the Mets, maybe? Or maybe there just isn’t anything else like it…
Unfortunately, “my” team got beat down last week by the Saints, so I guess I have to root for them to win it all now (to make the Cards loss feel justified).
Geaux Saints!
I can honestly say you don’t know what real pain is unless you have an English teacher obsessed with the BILLS…. When the Bills lose….everyone loses…….and we lose ALOT!
“It was the best of Football” = Australian Rules Football
“It was the worst of Football” = Soccer
Helmets, pads, copious amounts of restbreaks for a team within a team… Actually footing your foot to ball maybe 5 or 6 times a game? Come on! AFL for the win, hell when our players get broken and old ot the point where they can’t play AFL anymore, they retire they end up playing in the NFL Superbowl…
NFL is chess compared to most other sports, tactically good to watch, moments of superb brillance, never over… but AFL & Rugby Union provide that and the body being used to it’s absolute fullest…true tests of power, speed, thought and endurance… GO PIES!
Well, it looks like you were wrong on both counts!
Colts v Saints Superbowl as far as I can tell
What a game! The Saints found some “D”. I still think the best place to be on Super Bowl Sunday will be N’Awlins.
Vaar….you write a perfectly convincing and lucid argument regarding Aussie Rules and its superiority to all other footy codes…..and then you ruin it with a reference to the Pies.
Carna Roos!
Oh … so hey … whats your call on the Super Bowl … I have a bet to place
We are very excited about 2010 Superbowl. We’re in for offensive duel. I’ll take them New Orleans Saints in a close one.
Who Dat! Geaux Saints!!!!!!! XLIV Champs
Well Daniel were you ever wrong. I’m from New Orleans and I didn’t read this blog until after the superbowl. I appreciate you wanting us to lose so we didin’t get our feelings crushed but it was all for not because…
WHO DAT BABY. Yes they did it. My saints finally went to the superbowl and won it at that. Hell is a little colder and Farmers are reporting that pigs are developing nubs on their backs. I wonder if those nubs are wings.