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| Patriots' coach and disgruntled Jedi Master, Bill Belichick |
And then there is Tom Brady, the quarterback. At this point in his career, Brady seems to have the mind of a coach on the field, the perception of a coach sitting in a box above the field, and the body of a quarterback.
And then there is the fact that New England is my favorite place to visit. And since the Patriots were not big rivals of my first NFL team, the Eagles, when I was growing up, my transition from rooting for the Eagles to rooting for the Patriots was made complete when the Eagles hired Buddy Ryan as head coach.
However, there are some negative side effects to participating in or watching such a big game like the Super Bowl. The first side effect is that games like the Super Bowl teach us to look at the world through binary lenses. Players and teams are either winners or losers. And some will be losers regardless of what they have accomplished on or off the field this past season.
A corollary to players and teams being regarded as losers if they don't win a Super Bowl is the delusion that Super Bowl winners have become immortal in some way. Really? When did American football become the center of the universe? Will people care about who were winners of this year's Super Bowl 100 years or more from now? How many people from other nations will care about who has won a Super Bowl? And if we are honest with ourselves, isn't the fact that we care about who wins a given game, like the Super Bowl, show how privileged our lives have been?
Of course, there are other problems with the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl, like many sporting events, teach us to embrace tribalism. For example, referee calls will be judged by many not by their accuracy or whether they were understandable, but by which team is hurt and which team is rewarded. At that point, team loyalty trumps fairness and objectivity. And that isn't much different from how we regard the other groups we associate with or our nation. For example, when we can't objectively criticize our nation's foreign policies because such criticism is regarded as disloyalty, we have embraced tribalism. Heck, the national anthem protests during the past year showed how difficult it is just to criticize serious domestic conditions in the US.
But a more stark reminder of the tribalism that sports often nurtures will be found in what players will be willing to do to each other in order to win the game. There is this gray area where some players will try their best to put other players out of the game with legal hits. Is a championship that important that we should want another person to be injured? As fans, do we wish for the star players from the other team to be injured so that our team can win?
Then we should look at the arrogant claims players from each team will make in order to psych themselves up to playing at their best level. Half of those arrogant claims will be proven wrong by the end of the game. So how meaningful were those claims when they were spoken. And many times, arrogant claims are made to assume some place of superiority over others. It's not that the players realize the emptiness of these claims by the end of the game. It is that the fans often do not.
Yet, this Super Bowl will be more meaningful to me this year because my team is playing the daughter's team. If my team wins, I get to take the daughter out for dinner. Of course the same goes for if my team doesn't win. And regardless of the false bravado of the after game claims, both the Patriots and the Eagles are exceptional teams who have already enjoyed much success this season. Both teams have proven themselves to be winners before and even after the Super Bowl has been played. However, dinner will go down more smoothly if my team wins.
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