The Super Bowl wouldn't have changed much for New Orleans anyway...
Cross posted from http://www.scienceofapathy.com
Category: Sports, Opinion
(Some days I will cross post, some days I will just link.)
In the snow and mud and noise of a January afternoon at Soldier Field, the Bears taught the Saints and the entire country a lesson in Chicago football.
In the preceding days, not a single analyst at ESPN had picked the Bears as a favorite to win. No doubt, the sports brain trust at ESPN was blinded by the same pro-Saints hysteria as the rest of the country. The only stat that I needed to see when I made my prediction (I predicted Bears 17 Saints 14) is the one that says a “dome team” has never won an NFC championship game in a non-dome stadium.
Alas, the desire to coddle the city of New Orleans proved greater than the desire to intelligently look at the facts and predict a winner based on those facts. I find it most interesting that the Vegas odds still favored the Bears. Obviously, there were no sentimental variables in the equation there was real money involved. I have a feeling that Vegas made a killing off this game, as many of the hapless gamblers surely jumped on the Saints’ bandwagon.
In the end, I doubt a Saints Super Bowl appearance would have done much to alter the course of 2007 for New Orleans. To date this year there have been something like 14 murders in New Orleans. Compare that to something like 8 troops killed in the line of duty in Iraq. One could make a case that it’s actually safer to be patrolling in Iraq than it is to be poor in New Orleans (I’m not trying to make that case…I’m just saying that you could)
The opportunity to lend fake support to New Orleans by rooting for their football team is over. The opportunities to lend real support remain, however, most Americans lose interest in rooting for the underdog when our real money becomes involved.
Category: Sports, Opinion
(Some days I will cross post, some days I will just link.)
In the snow and mud and noise of a January afternoon at Soldier Field, the Bears taught the Saints and the entire country a lesson in Chicago football.
In the preceding days, not a single analyst at ESPN had picked the Bears as a favorite to win. No doubt, the sports brain trust at ESPN was blinded by the same pro-Saints hysteria as the rest of the country. The only stat that I needed to see when I made my prediction (I predicted Bears 17 Saints 14) is the one that says a “dome team” has never won an NFC championship game in a non-dome stadium.
Alas, the desire to coddle the city of New Orleans proved greater than the desire to intelligently look at the facts and predict a winner based on those facts. I find it most interesting that the Vegas odds still favored the Bears. Obviously, there were no sentimental variables in the equation there was real money involved. I have a feeling that Vegas made a killing off this game, as many of the hapless gamblers surely jumped on the Saints’ bandwagon.
In the end, I doubt a Saints Super Bowl appearance would have done much to alter the course of 2007 for New Orleans. To date this year there have been something like 14 murders in New Orleans. Compare that to something like 8 troops killed in the line of duty in Iraq. One could make a case that it’s actually safer to be patrolling in Iraq than it is to be poor in New Orleans (I’m not trying to make that case…I’m just saying that you could)
The opportunity to lend fake support to New Orleans by rooting for their football team is over. The opportunities to lend real support remain, however, most Americans lose interest in rooting for the underdog when our real money becomes involved.