Friday, February 05, 2010

Quickie: Can You NOT Root for Saints?

Some (or many) of you may argue with my contention that if the Saints win the Super Bowl, it would be the most meaningful championship in NFL history, possibly sports history.

(That feels like a classic piece of Quickie "instant history.")

But I'd be curious if any of you disagree that this Super Bowl has a greater disparity between rooting interests than any championship game before it.

Aside from Colts fans, it's very hard to find someone not rooting for the Saints.

Partly, that's because the Saints have few "natural enemies" among other fanbases. And that's because they were so prototypically bad for so long. And that's why the Saints winning matters.

Yes, there's a sense of post-Katrina sympathy. But I think most football fans feel good for the Saints and their fans because of the legacy of horrible football, finally being upended.

And so while more people than not think the Colts will win the game -- in today's SN column, I pick the Saints to beat the Colts, 34-28 -- almost everyone WANTS the Saints to win.

*****

There are plenty of other storylines -- I covered them in Monday's column: Manning's destiny, Manning vs. Brees, the Colts' formerly anonymous WRs, Dwight Freeney, Reggie Bush, the Saints' opportunistic D, the Bill Parcells tree vs. the Tony Dungy tree, the Tim Tebow abortion ad, all the other ads.

I think my personal favorite storyline is that this is really the first "Twitter Super Bowl."

Two years ago, I was on Twitter and one of the first things I did was tweet during the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl. It was a ton of fun, although I'm not sure if anyone was actually following. Last year it was a little more active, but Twitter didn't hit its tipping point -- particularly in sports media -- until after last year's Super Bowl.

This year it will be overwhelming -- everything will be dissected within nanoseconds, every ad critiqued within 30 seconds, every possible joke made so quickly that seeing it the next morning will feel stale. It will be interesting to watch -- and follow.

More you'll find in today's column:

*But Mike Dunleavy is still the GM!
*Don't ride GA Tech in the Tournament.
*CBB's Weekend Best: Nova at G'town
*Orlando Hudson: Stealth Hot Stove steal?
*Tomlinson: Anyone want him?
*NFL Lockout a near-certainty?
*What will Tiger do first thing after rehab?
*Danica Patrick takes NASCAR.

Check out the whole thing here. (If it's not there, just check back around 9-ish.) More later.

-- D.S.

3 comments:

Andy said...

Reasons I am rooting for the Colts:

1) I like Peyton Manning. I like that he's overcome being labeled as the guy that can't win the big one.
2) I'm an Atlanta Braves fan. I'm sympathetic to the Colts "always good but only one championship" situation, and I want to see their consistent regular season success rewarded.
3) A little Saints-love backlash. The Katrina angle doesn't move me. It was a few years ago, so its not like the WS in New York a month after 9/11. Also, I have a hard time believing that a Saints win matters that much to those hardest hit by Katrina.

Mats Lematos said...

I'd think West Germany winning the World Cup (and being cheered for by the Easterners, as well) 7 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall is exponentially more significant than a Saints Super Bowl would be.

Dodger Dogg said...

Saints win might temporarily uplift those hardest hit by Katrina, but then reality will return.