The perfect ending to another fantastic year. Want to know why football is so popular? It is because so many different teams win every year. It's not like baseball where the playoffs consist of virtually the same teams every year. There are teams that seem to be there every year, the Patriots, the Colts, the Eagles.. but when you look a little closer you see that over the past 11 years, there were 8 different Superbowl Champions. Not to mention, having teams like the Colts and Patriots winning all the time gives people a team to cheer against. Although I am a huge Patriots fan, I can understand why people root against them and even hate them. That is partially why I rooted against the Colts yesterday. The other reason I rooted against them is because I don't want anyone saying that Peyton Manning is better than Tom Brady. I sat with my Brady jersey on and smiled as I watched the Colts get beat in every aspect of the game.
I will be the first to admit, I gave the Saints a 1 in 10 chance of winning this game. Even after a Saints touchdown and successful two-point conversion to go up by 7, I stil thought Peyton would march the Colts back down the field and tie the game. When he threw that interception that the Saints took back for a TD, I found myself grinning. Not because the Colts lost, but because I realized just how special Tom Brady is. He would have found a way to win that game. Peyton found a way to lose it. Conclusion= Tom Brady > Peyton Manning in the same way that Troy Aikman > Dan Marino.
My hat goes off to Drew Brees, Sean Payton, and the rest of the Saints. They played the perfect type of game they had to. They looked more hungry than the Colts, they wanted to win that much more. The Colts looked old on defense and inexperienced on offense. Reggie Wayne looked slow and Peyton looked uncomfortable. It was something we hadn't seen all year. It almost looked like the Colts just expected to win by showing up, similar to how the Patriots looked against the Giants in '07.
The MVP was ultimately Drew Brees, but in my opinion it should have gone to the kicker Garrett Hartley. Not only did he get them past the Vikings in the NFC Championship by kicking a 40-yard field goal, but he hit 3 kicks of 40+ yards in the Superbowl. No one gives the kicker any love when they do something great but everyone jumps all over them the first chance they get when they miss. Hartley changed the game last night. You may not agree with me. But think about it. If he doesn't hit those two field goals then the Saints are down 10-0 at half instead of 10-6. That might not seem like much but if the Saints get zero points on the board at half time then they're not feeling as confident. In addition, being down only 4 points as opposed to 10 points makes Sean Payton confident enough to call for an onside kick, because he knows that even if the Colts score a TD then they're only down 11 instead of 17 (two scores instead of three). Hartley goes on to kick another 40-yard field goal to bring them back within one. The whole dynamic of the game changes if he misses any of those field goals, and I could be sitting here writing about how the Colts won and how Peyton Manning may go down as the best QB in the history of the NFL. Go grab a cold one Hartley, because in my mind, this ones because of you.
The end of the NFL season is always a bittersweet time. It marks the end of football for another 8 months. But it also marks the coming of spring and with that comes the start of another season of baseball. With about 10 days until spring training, I can't help but switch my thoughts to America's Pastime. With the passing of every year, spring marks the point when every baseball fan's hope is renewed. Especially for Cubs fans they think, this could be the year we finally do it. As a Red Sox fan I hope we can do it again. But even with the addition of Lackey and a few other new additions, it just doesn't feel the same this time around. My confidence is obviously lacking when I look at a team that seems lackluster on paper, atleast on the offensive side. Only time will really tell how this season turns out. Here's to hoping that the Sox find the postseason once more.
And here is to hoping that another year brings another look into fixing revenue sharing. As much as I love seeing the Red Sox win every year, I would love even more if baseball was structured more like football. It would be in the games' best interest to fix this issue now so that more teams are competitive every year. I hate seeing the Royals and Pirates in the cellar year after year after year. The commissioner will tell you that 8 of the last 10 years have shown different teams winning, but it seems more often than not, that the same handful of teams are in competing year in and year out.
Teams in the postseason last year:
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Minnesota Twins
Anaheim Angels
Colorado Rockies
L.A. Dodgers
Philadelphia Phillies
St. Louis Cardinals
Teams in postseason last year, payroll amount and rank:
Boston Red Sox: $121,745,999, 4th
New York Yankees: $201,449,189, 1st
Minnesota Twins: $62,182,767, 24th
Anaheim Angels:$119,216,333, 6th
Colorado Rockies: $68,655,500, 20th
L.A. Dodgers: $118,536,038, 8th
Philadephia Phillies: $98,269,881, 13th
St. Louis Cardinals: $100,624,450, 11th
Average Payroll Rank of Playoff Teams- 10.88
This basically states that unless you are in the top ten in payroll then you cannot compete. Occasionally a team like the Marlins sneak in there, but they are much more an outlier than the rule. It is hard to build a fan base when your team only competes once every 10 or 15 years. This is the issue with baseball and it needs to be fixed.
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